The flight from Iquitos to Lima was a quick and relatively easy one, apart from a long check-in line and a delayed flight chock full of small children and babies. We arrived at the airport in Lima and instantly felt a little bit more at home. Lima is so large and there are so many people, and the energy is completely different than the jungle towns and the country side of Colombia that we had so recently been in. It was an invigorating feeling to be in a place where a lot more seems to happen. We had two nights before our friend Melissa from Oregon was joining us to travel for a few weeks, so we were ready to get to our hostel and explore the upscale part of town called Miraflores, where we were staying.

When we arrived at our hostel, however, we were less than impressed and even felt a bit depressed looking at this place where we planned to stay for the next 5 nights. It seemed dirty and lonely. We sat in the waiting area for nearly half an hour before anyone who worked there came to check us in. Then, we were told we had a few hours before we were going to be able to get into our room. This wasn’t such a bother since we were excited to walk the streets in the city and had already chosen a place for lunch that we were very excited to try. Lima is famous for its food, so after traveling through Colombia and being in the jungle, where the pickings are slim and the variety isn’t much, we were so happy to have something new and different for meals. We had a wonderful lunch at a sandwich place, including a freshly-made juice, which brightened our spirits immensely.

When we arrived back at our hostel from our little jaunt, we were able to get into our room. This caused us to be even more down about our hostel. It was musty, with uncomfortable twin bunk beds and a bad vibe in general. We told ourselves we had been so lucky with all our stops and stays, and that sometimes you just gotta rough it. And we knew that most of our time spent in the hostel would be a place to lay our heads down and sleep at night. So we went out to the common area and tried to be social with some other travelers, and found that the place was dead.

With no one around, we left to walk the streets of the beautiful district and found ourselves at an ocean-front, outdoor shopping mall with fancy restaurants with views of the ocean and beach, a nicer mall than any we have back home. There was even a movie theater that showed movies in english! Since it was close to 10pm we decided we would come back to explore this area a bit more the next day and definitely bring Mel when she arrived.

We went back to our room to get some shut-eye and to hopefully wake up with a more positive attitude about our stay in Lima. But when we woke up, it only got worse. Paul took a shower in the dirty bathroom, and found the walls were moldy and the shower was ice cold. When he got out he looked at me and said, “I can’t take this place another night. We have an hour before check-out time. I am gonna go find another place to stay. Pack the bags!” So, I packed our bags quickly and within 40 minutes Paul was back with a new place to stay and we got out of there as fast as possible. The last irritation was while checking out, which was before check-out time, they said that since we had a reservation we had to pay for another night and didn’t even give our deposit back to us for the 5 nights we had booked. This type of policy is unheard of for hostels. Needless to say, if you ever go to Lima and book a hostel, book Pariwanna, which is the place we ended up staying.

PARIWANNA HOSTEL

Right when we walked into the Pariwanna hostel, our spirits were immediately lifted and we were so excited for the next few days. The place was bustling with cheerful staff and other travelers, our room and beds were comfortable, clean and had a very nice private bathroom as well. How great it was! We were taken around by the staff and showed the common area which included a roof-top patio, complete with a restaurant and bar that over looked the main square and park in the Miraflores district. We settled in our room, got ready for a little more exploring and headed out to find something for lunch. While walking around the night before, we had noticed a sushi place that looked promising, and with both of us craving something fun and different to eat, we went straight there. We had a great lunch, wonderful sushi and so cheap! We planned on going to a movie later that day at the theater we had found and were both excited to see a movie in Peru. Plus, it was a Matt Damon flick, so of course I was down for that. We headed back to our hostel took a nice nap in our clean comfortable room and got up just in time to make it to “The Martian”. The movie was in English with Spanish subtitles, which were very easy to ignore, so when we walked out of the movie we had almost forgotten that we were in Peru, let alone South America. That is how comparable the city of Lima and especially the district of Miraflores was to our places back home.

MELISSA HAS ARRIVED!

The next morning Mel arrived bright and early from the airport, which was great since we were able to book a tour of the old city of Lima through our hostel – a perfect activity for Mel on her first day. We took the overcrowded bus system down to the downtown area, where we were able to see the main square of Lima. We were lucky to catch a film crew capturing a dance battle between traditional dancers (in full costume) and modern break dancers (in backwards hats) in the center of the square.

We walked down the old streets leading to the Monastery of San Francisco, a landmark for all the history it holds. It was built in the mid-1600’s and so large it took just short of a hundred years to finish. The age and architecture are beautiful and historical, but what lies beneath the church really makes the place unforgettable – the Catacombs. For around one hundred years there were people buried in coffins and tombs. Around the beginning of the 1800’s this practice ended since the people that would frequent the church were all falling ill. Obviously with decomposing bodies, the stench and the disease that was emerging from the Catacombs was overwhelming. When the city of Lima started to explore the Catacombs they estimated that nearly 25,000 bodies had been buried there. Our tour led us down narrow, dimly-lit stairwells and passageways to see it all for ourselves. Since all the bodies had been excavated, the bones that had survived the test of time were sorted into different bins, and some skulls and bones were even arranged into patterns, forming disturbingly macabre artwork. This activity was one that will stick with us forever. To walk through the tunnels where all the coffins had been placed one on top of the other was extremely eerie and somewhat emotional.

After the Catacombs we stopped at a small distillery that makes the traditional Peruvian drink, pisco. It is a sweet-tasting liquor that is made from grapes. Everywhere in Peru serves the drink, Pisco Sour, which is pisco liquor with sour mix and whipped egg whites on top. We tried one with our sushi lunch and found it to be very similar to a margarita and very tasty! From there, we jumped back on the overcrowded bus and headed back to the hostel.

MEETING FRIENDS IN PERU

We returned to our hostel starving, so made our way towards the center of the district and found a great place for some yummy quick dinner. Since we were out and about, we headed back to the shopping and restaurant area where we had been the night before to show Mel the area. We found a really cool restaurant called Popular and sat at a table with an amazing view of the ocean. We each ordered a nice glass of Argentinian wine and even though we had just had dinner, we had to order some freshly-made ceviche, which is a Peruvian classic – fresh fish, mixed in lime and lemon juice, along with onion and a little garlic. Usually it is served with a side and this time it had a small pickled sweet potato, which was amazing. We had been in Peru for about a week and still hadn’t had the dish, and Paul had never had it, so we treated ourselves to the most delicious ceviche I’ve ever had. That will definitely be something we have more of as our time in Peru continues!

The three of us made our way back to the Pariwanna hostel and sat on the rooftop patio under the moonlit night. Right away, we started talking to a few people who were actually Lima residents and who come to Pariwanna patio and bar just to hang out because it is just that fun. Yet again, we were so very happy that we had switched to the hostel, for if not we wouldn’t have had such a fun couple nights in Lima like we did. It was fun and refreshing to talk to people that lived in the city and who were able to give us tips on where to go, what to see and even more refreshing to connect to people living in a place we were just visiting. Edu and Maribel are two that we both loved talking to and getting to know and we ended up having one of our most favorite nights in Peru. Thanks you two!

BARRANCO

Because we had time to get to know Edu and Maribel, we were able to learn about a neighboring district to Miraflores, Barranco. The district is known as a bohemian area with small quaint shops and nearly hidden places to find a good cheap meal. So, for our last day in Lima, we walked along the ocean cliffs from Miraflores to the district of Barranco. As we were walking through, there were many times when we thought this area was like the Southeast Portland of Lima – we even saw some hipsters. We were there on a Wednesday so not much was happening in the area, but we were able to get some good people watching in and walked through some very pretty parks and church squares. We also found one of those hidden places for lunch and had awesome burritos, something that both Paul and I had been craving since leaving the States. We made our way back to Miraflores, and to our hostel for our final night in Lima and to prepare for our trek up the Pacific coast to the beach town of Mancora.

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