Enjoying Lima's sea air

After a not too hellish 21 hour bus ride to Lima, it was straight to 151 Hostel in the Miraflores district of Lima. Lima hadn't really been on my list of places to go but after arriving at our cute hostel it seemed that maybe Miraflores wasn't too bad of a place to spend a few days.

Being at sea level for the first time in about 6 weeks we figured that a run might be in order, now that our lungs could finally handle the exercise. The Miraflores district of Lima prides itself on being safe, clean and beautiful with parks lining the cliffs of the murky beach below. The parks are dotted with different statues and one area has a distinct Park Guel by Gaudi feel to it, making for an interesting and pleasant area to run along.

It felt amazing being able to get our jog on again and not be gasping for breath after 5 steps. The misty air that Lima is famous for at this time of year didn't even dampen our spirits. After a run, of course you've earnt yourself a good lunch right? So off we walked to try out La Red, one of trip advisors cevicheria recommendations.

Along the way I had a pretty scary experience where we crossed a wide suburban street, Jimmy a little ahead of me, with no cars around, then as I was reaching the other side a car came flying around the corner (not indicating) and instead of going around me - there was loads of room and no other cars in sight, or giving the customary beep to warn me he was coming, the car just drove straight at me and so thankfully I saw at the last moment what was about to happen and had to literally jump out of the way in order to not get hit. Jimmy of course wanted to chase him down but I told him it wasn't worth it and we carried on our way. About 5 minutes later the adrenaline wore off though and I had a bit of a delayed reaction of shock. Thankfully I was fine aside from the shock but I was more keen than ever to get to La Red as soon as possible so I could get a drink in me. 

La Red turned out to be a great spot with delicious ceviche, a yummy main of fish with a coriander sauce, finished off with two huge caramel deserts. They carried out a tray of the desserts from which you could choose from so it was so hard to resist them! One of them was basically caramel made from sweetened condensed milk on the bottom, then uncooked meringue on top. My idea of heaven, but it definitely undid any positive effects the run may have had on our waistlines!

Jimmy was pretty keen to try out the surf but after looking at the waves again after lunch, decided it probably wasn't worth it so we instead just wandered around some more, taking in Miraflores. In the middle of the area is a large ruin site Huaca Pucllana so we decided to check it out even though we were feeling a bit over ruins (terrible I know). The tour guide was unfortunately incredibly dull, much like a robot just stating the facts, but the ruins themselves were quite different to anything we had seen before due to them being a lot older, dating back to 200 AD. 

The mud bricks were all made by hand and were built layer upon layer each time there was a celebration, about every 50 years. A celebration usually involves a sacrificial woman and so it's said that there have been many bones found amongst the ruins. The strangest thing is just how the ruins are situated right in the middle of an urban area, and they were actually once a lot larger but developments have meant that they have been reduced in size to the few hectares that now remain.

After our ruins visit and making it back to our hostel, it was dinner time. We had arranged to meet our friend Khalid at the Burrito Bar at 8:30, which was in the neighboring bohemian district of Barranco. Lima was certainly delivering on the food front with Burrito Bar having the best Mexican food by far that we had had on the trip to date. The beef quesadillas were so, so good! And of course it was great to catch up with Khalid and hear about what he had been up to since we last said goodbye to him in La Paz. 

The next days surf wasn't looking any better so another run had to suffice for Jim. After our run we checked out the mall that had been built into the cliffs below Miraflores. After some more ceviche and a quick bite at La Lucha (a sandwicheria) we figured why not hit up the bowling alley for a bit of fun. Weirdly they make you pay for it in half hour blocks rather than number of games so we went for half an hour and played 2 speed games of bowling. As usual I started off with a bang and was getting spears and strikes but before long was lucky to get a few pins at once. Jimmy on the other hand was just getting warmed up and managed to overtake me pretty quickly.

Before our bus that night we filled our day some more with a walk down to the beach to test out the temperature of the water as well as explore the Barranco district some more before a reasonable enough hour to go back to the Burrito Bar for another Mexican fix. 

Another city down, another few days of basing our days around where we were going to eat next and now, onto the sleepy beach town, Huanchaco, for Jim to try and finally put his wetsuit to use that he's been lugging around in his bag for the last 7 weeks.