Lima

Thursday 28 January 2010
After a twelve hour flight from a snowy Schippol Airport we arrived in a hot and humid Lima. What’s it like? Think of La Linea in Spain then double the poverty, scruffiness and traffic and you will get the idea! Our journey into the Miraflores Hotel where we were staying took nearly an hour because of the congestion and having lost five hours through the time change we were pretty glad to fall into bed.
Yesterday, Wednesday we woke at 5am local time and after breakfast thought we should use our free day to explore old Lima. We hailed a battered local taxi for the half hour ride but were unprepared for the standard of driving. I realise that South America has bred Airton Senna and Rubens Barachello but we had not realised that all the taxi drivers went to the same racing school. It was very hairy and the seat belts in the rear were not easily accessible so we were somewhat relieved to get out unharmed.
It was pleasant to look around and compared to Mirafores, which is bustling but nothing much to look at, Lima old town has several large squares similar to those found in Cadiz or Pamplona. It was odd though to see many full size plastic cows grazing on the lawns, see picture. What did surprise us was the very heavy police presence everywhere. Not just in numbers but the fact that many of them were equipped with riot shields and large water cannons were parked near them, all this at 9.30 on a normal Wednesday morning. We had taken the precaution of removing jewellery and watches but with that much security we felt pretty safe.
After a couple of hours sightseeing we thought we would take a coffee so found what we thought was a pretty upmarket coffee shop overlooking a square. Sue ordered a coffee with milk on the side but was somewhat offput when she saw that the milk jug had a huge and mouldy chip out of it under the lip and had clearly not been used for about 20 years! The coffee cup itself had most of the glaze missing around the rim! I said the heat of the ingredients would have probably have killed any bugs, let’s hope so.
Yet we have to say the people are very friendly, always smiling and keen to help if you ask the way and the food we had over two days was fabulous, especially Ceviche a sort of sushi like dish flavoured with Lime and chilli. We finished the morning with a visit to the Museum of the Inquisition which was fascinating, neither of us realised how long this had gone on and what terrible punishments the Catholic church had inflicted on anyone who threatened the supremacy of the order. The museum had many waxwork bodies showing all the various punishments and cells where the unbelievers were shown the error of their ways or executed! Made us quite hungry so we went to a local Peruvian restaurant where for around 20$ US we had an excellent lunch.
One observation, from the number of churches, convents and cathedrals we visited, and the number of enormous bank buildings around town it’s clear that all the money is in the hands of the catholic church and the finance houses which sits at odds with the evident poverty suffered by most of the people attending those institutions!
In the evening we had a fabulous time as we booked to go to “Circuito Magico del Agua” which on the face of ii was a local park, the Parque de la Reserva, with 13 fountains. What made it special was that each one was different and illuminated with coloured lights and operated in sync with music. But the real show was about half an hour long, to specially composed and recorded music and operated off a very clever computer programme. They used lasers and moving projection too so that the observer was constantly enchanted as scene after scene took place. It was like the best ever firework show, Sue and I were blown away and left agreeing it was one of the best shows we had ever seen. Disneyworld would go mad to have such a show and I only wish we could publish movie film on this site to show you. You’ll have to make do with a still which does not do it justice.
After the show we went to a combined Peruvian cabaret and dinner and this too was excellent, music off Peruvian flutes of course but lots of spectacular dancing in local costumes, a really special evening for both of us, as you can see from the pictures.
This morning, it’s still dull and humid but we are to join the Saga Ruby at midday so there’s only time to finish the blog, pack and be on our way.
More news when we arrive on land in a few days time...

We are off again!

Hello to all our readers. Just to let you know we are off on another cruise lecture and exploration trip on Tuesday January 26th.

First we fly to Lima in Peru for a couple of days then join the Saga Ruby on her world cruise. We will be on this ship for about three weeks sailing across the southern Pacific finishing up in Auckland on February 21st. Once in New Zealand we are driving around both North and South Islands exploring the scenery and sampling the local food and wine, staying in B&B's.

So watch this space for pictures and news of our trip. Time permitting we will probably do our first post in Lima.