Lima is full of beautiful old buildings, churches, and parks. We were pleasantly surprised by how clean the city was and how many people took advantage of the many green spaces dotted around Mira Flores (one of the nicest areas of the city).
Our second day in Lima, we found a nice grocery store (the first that carried the same foods as back home!) and bought ourself a gourmet picnic. We were told that the ocean wasn't too far away and ventured west with our lunch. Again, we were very pleasantly surprised at how beautiful Lima is, as there are miles upon miles of paths along the bluffs over-looking the ocean and long stretches of beach below. We ate our lunch on one of many park benches, whilst joggers and dog-walkers strolled by us, watching the many surfers in the waves along the shore.
After our lunch, we took a walk along the paths towards a new mall that was raved about by all the locals. Along the way, we found many parks and monuments.
We even came across the "Parque de Amour", which was even more evident after encountering this giant statue!
Finally, we arrived at the Larco Mar mall, which is an amazing building 3 stories high, and built right into the cliff-face, over-looking the beach below! All of the restaurants were built on the outside of the mall, with patios that have the most amazing ocean views! We didn't do much shopping, as the stores were pretty expensive relative to other Peruvian shops, but the mall was pretty amazing due to its views and amazing structure. We ordered ocean-side chocolate frappes, below.
I believe this is the Presidential Palace in the Plaza de Armas.
We later ventured to our 100th or so museum and found Tyrone's identical twin in bronze!!
...and a painting of a siamese jaguar prostate exam.
Since we were in a humorous mood, we decided to find a restaurant that serves "cuy", a kind of guinea pig that is a delicacy to some in these parts. It is common to be presented with entire body parts (as opposed to a fillet or drumstick) when eating cuy, and Tyrone encountered a rather un-tasty little arm, complete with claws, sticking out of his deep-friend mound of pet. Luckily, neither of us enjoyed the taste of cuy, as it reminded us of fish with the texture of sticky, fatty chicken, so we will now do our part to save the local guinea pigs by being anti-cuy-atarians!
The locals also told us about a large water-park in town that we had to visit before we ventured further south. Peruvians know how to design their fountains, as every one we have encountered is designed beautifully with different light displays. This park was full of maybe 20 different amazing fountains of various shapes, colours, and sizes! I am sampling some techni-colour tea, below :)
...and posing again...
Can you spot Tyrone in the water maze?
We stood in line for 15 minutes just to walk through this 100-foot long water tunnel... which was actually kind-of worth it.
...and then I posed some more!
One funny thing about Peru is that we have encountered a friendly resident kitty pretty much wherever we have gone! This one lived in our hotel and was named "Gatto en Bottas" or "Puss in Boots"... which was odd, since he wasn't even orange... but he took a liking to Tyrone and requested snuggles whenever we came home or sat in the lobby to use WiFi!
We both really enjoyed all of the sights and activities that Lima has to offer, and probably would have stayed a bit longer if it was in our budget (the hostals and food were a bit pricier than other places we had visited, but were still quite reasonable). Also, the people were amazingly friendly, with random people offering to walk us to hostals, bus stations, and taxis, just to make sure we got there safe and were set off in the right direction! There were a lot of people around, but it had a smaller-town feel, which we both enjoyed. In conclusion, Lima is a great place to visit!
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