On arrival in Lima, we hadnt booked a hostal so a nice taxi driver who spoke good English and was very friendly took us to a hotel in Miraflores. Unfortunately there was no sun and it was rather misty (one of Dad's motives of coming here was also to go swimming in the Pacific) but the beaches weren't great and neither the weather!
This didn't perturb Dad and after a delicious meal of Octopus and Seabass (although it gave me a funny tummy afterwards) Dad was insistant that we went to the beach. During lunch, the nice owner of the place invited us to see him playing in his band with his brother which we accepted. After lunch, we walked around Miraflores.
Miraflores (the coastal, touristy and very modern part of Lima) is a very beautiful place with some lovely parks looking over the sea, the Park of Love in particular being the nicest with a huge statue of a man embracing and kissing a woman and some lovely curvy walls with mosaic tiles with patterns and words drawn and written in tiles all overlooking the sea.
Since Dad was so insitent that he was swimming in the sea I went along with him and to my surprise people were sunbating but noone swimming and to their surprise off stripped Dad white as a sheet and he ran down to the sea everyone looking thinking whats this crazy gringo doing. After getting rolled
onto his ass a few times he had had enough and had satisfied his desire to swim in the pacific. After a little more walking and exploring, we went to the hotel to get ready to see our new friend in his band. THis was a lovely performance of 3 accoustic guitars, a drummer and a keyboard and was true latin music which I was trying to translate the lyrics to Dad but some of it was too hard for me to get. THey even did a fantastic rendition for their last song of Oye Como Va by Santana which was superb. ALl in all a very enjoyable evening!
The next day, Jay and Dean, the guys I had met and travelled with in La Paz contacted me to tell me that they were heading to Lima so after lunch, Dad and I met them and we all decided to go and see central Lima.
For some silly reason we decided to walk it as it didnt look that far on the map and it literally took about 2 hours! THis was good excercise but tiring and after all that, my camera ran out of battery so I couldn't even get snaps. THe main square plaza major was quite beatiful with some lovely colonial buildings and lots of nicely painted yellow buildings with ornate wooden facades and a lovely cathedral and palace.
I was glad we'd made the effort to go there. We decided it was definitely a plan to go back in a taxi and I agreed to meet Jay and Dean later for drinks as Dad had met a Canadian couple who he was going for dinner with.
I headed to Pariwana (the national bird of Peru with red and white feathers hence the red and white flag) and after a couple of drinks there at happy hour, we headed to calle Pizzas (the road with bars, restaurants, pubs etc) where we met some nice girls who took us to the mall on the coast which was a very nice modern area full of bars, pubs, restaurants, clubs (covered over and hidden by a beautiful park so not to spoil the natural scenery or beauty of the coastline). Here we went to a great pub with a live band and after that we went to the club below and had lots of fun dancing and drinking and playing with the hundreds of balloons that the'd throw on everyone!
After another day and night in Lima, it was time to say goodbye to Dad and to Dean who were both off home to UK and Australia respectively and Jay and I agreed to head North to Mancora (where I had been before) to lie on the beach for a while. At the terminal, we met Will and Fabian, an ENglish and Swiss guy respectively. Jay had previously met Will in Cusco and so it was nice to have an extra couple of guys who were all heading in the same direction as us.
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