Day 2: 2/7/12- Happy Anniversary Mam n Dad- hope ye had a good day!
Up bright n early! Both of us woke at 4am, which was obviously morning time in Ireland. Got up at 8 though and showered. Muir made a bit of a flood!! Then we had breakfast in the hostel- plain bread rolls. I attempted to have tea n put in milk but then realised it was a herbal kinda tea- yuck!! Not meant for milk!!
We hit off for Miraflored then, down along the beach. Lima's answer to the prom!! (x10) First we saw three women working out on public gym equipment over looking the sea. There were people exercising everywhere- running, walking dogs (dogs fluent in dog Spanish!!) playing tennis, soccer.... Sport central!! It was beside cliffs and people had spelt their names out with stones - we thought it would be a nice way to propose!
There were lots of parks along this prom, we particularly like le parque d'amour, hence the photo- lie down I think I love ya!!
We came to a big shopping centre then built into a cliff- Larco Mar. Everything was kinda closed n we spent half the day thinking it was Sunday, but of course it was Monday! They obviously don't rise as early a us! There were police n security in all different uniforms everywhere- all saying Ola to us. Muir reckoned they were sussing us out!!
We walked up Av Larco to Kennedy park and booked a Mirabus city tour. The town had lots of big fancy casinos- you would expect the mafia lads to appear out of them! There were also guys on d cornes exchanging currency with big wads of cash- pure dodge!! We looked round a few Inca markets n had lunch first. Muir spotted a girl that was in UCC (but of course!!) n she was freezing so we bought a cardigan but then she was sweating n had to take it off. Then she put it on again n then he thought she might be burnt! (menopausal??)
We got on d bus for the tour- lowest bus food ever- I could touch the ceiling! Luckily we were on d top deck (not so lucky when a branch hit me in d face!!- good wake up call).
We passed an archeological dig site- something to do wit pyramids. Lots of nice pretty buildings, lots decorated with brass n gold- expensive taste. People working polishing them. Drove round a few squares which all had lovely important buildings but in between streets were poky n kinda dirty! Traffic is MENTAL !! Theres 9 million people in it so no wonder!! Everybody beeps beeps beeps beeps beeps beeps!! Beeps to say hello, beeps to say do you want a taxi, beeps to say get in.... We passed the oldest hotel, tallest hotel(120m?) presidents house, justice building, football stadium, statues of war heroes, art museum, cathedral, riot police...! Everyone seemed to be staring at the bus and waving at us. We passed a load of school children an they were all cheering at us!
Then we stopped at Museo Larco- it is a museum with artefacts from ancient civilisations. Peru has some of the oldest civilisations in the world- they were around at the same time as the Egyptians n Chinese, etc. Everyone has heard of the Incas but they are one of the newer of the civilisations. Apparently Peru has about 85 different. climates because the countryside is so varied. We were shown different pots, textiles, jewellery,etc which were mostly found in tombs stored with mummies. A lot of them resembled the three gods they had- birds, felines and serpents.
At one stage we went into a room and there was a Chinese woman sitting on a bench, she was just swaying back and forth. Turns out she was falling asleep. She kept swaying and almost fell off the bench. Then she woke up of a shot and went wandering around the museum, not knowing where she was!! All our group saw her and started laughing! Muireann got into convulsions. Our guide was on his knees,talking about human sacrifices and she kept bursting out laughing!!
Then we we went to the storehouse, where there were about 39000 different artefacts. Then we went to the erotic gallery. There were a lot of strange little pots with men and women in various sexual positions. As I said- what else would you want on your pot!! We saw the Chinese woman in there again, but she was wide awake this time!!
We got back on the bus and headed back towards Miraflores, saw more nice buildings and more sport- soccer, bike park, skate park, paragliding.... Ireland needs to have some of this stuff open to the public aswell!
After the tour, we went for dinner in Norkys. Nice food there but a cranky waiter n a man belting out music, trying to blow the ears off us!
Then we headed back towards the hostel- stopped off in a supermarket to get the essentials, ie water!!
The hostel is about a 10min walk from the main area where Kennedy park is. It probably would have been better to book Pariwana or the flying dog hostel as they are central. There's no bar or anything in our hostel either so when we come back, it's straight to bed for us!! It gets dark around 6 anyway so it feels way later than it actually is.
We were both very happy with our first real day touring. Miraflores is very clean and we both felt very safe all day. Everyone speaks Spanish all the time but so far we have managed to ask everything we wanted! There doesn't seem to be much else to do in Lima apart from a few other museums so were happy enough to be moving on to the next town tomorrow.