Peru, Part IV: Lima

A Happy Fella

Staying in Lima was a nice way to finish our all too short visit to Peru.

Fortunately, our Lima AirBnB was so much nicer than our Cuzco experience, providing us a modern, clean two bed, two bath apartment in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Lima (Miraflores.) We have come to rely on AirBnB in our travels, so we hated to have our faith in it shaken.

As we indicated earlier, Lima is a huge, traffic clogged city.  Very first world and cosmopolitan in some areas, full of world class shops, restaurants and museums, it's home to 10 million people. At times it seems all of them are in their cars on the roads and streets of the capital.

Historic Center of Lima

We found the Peruvians, to be warm, welcoming and very helpful, wherever we went. Our Lima driver, Daniel, was all that and more.

Kind, unflappable, attentive and always prompt, he made our stay in Lima a delight and worry free. He, and so many others like him that we have met in our travels in Latin America, work incredibly hard to earn a living and care for their families, striving for a better life for themselves and their children.

Being interviewed by school girls

One day we went to Old Lima, where some of the buildings date from the 16th century founding of the city by the Spanish.


Standing in front of the Lima Cathedral, trying to get our bearings, we were approached by a group of Peruvian school girls.  Studying English, their class assignment was to talk to tourists and query them about their experience in Peru and what they thought about Peruvian history, culture and food.  It was lots of fun to interact with them and to see their smiles when we said how much we liked their country.

Portrait ceramic recovered from a tomb

Perhaps our favorite day in Lima was spent touring the Larco Museum.  This private museum houses more than 40,000 Pre-colombiam ceramics as well as other treasures, such as silver and gold jewelry, tapestries, and mummies.

Larco was a Peruvian archeologist, who in the early part of the 20th century, discovered and explored numerous sites throughout Peru. Since most of the sites were previously undiscovered and had not been pillaged by treasure hunters, the ceramics and other treasures are remarkably whole and intact.

Some are more than 2000 years old, but look like they were produced yesterday, and thanks to the Larco family they have remained and will always be a part of the Peruvian patrimony.

What the ceramics and other artifacts show is that were a number of incredibly complex and sophisticated cultures in what is now Peru. These cultures produced art and artifacts rivaling that of many other world cultures, including the Greeks, Romans and other European cultures.

We had a wonderful, bright and English speaking young woman as our guide--and a guide is really necessary to help interpret and lead you through this delightful treasure house. Hearing about the history of the cultures who produced these beautiful objects is really so very important.

Mummy--X-ray has shown that there is a child still wrapped inside

All the  guides surely must love showing their visitors through the erotic gallery, as ours did.  But these ceramics played an important role in the religious and cultural life of the societies that produced them.  We, of course, laughed and stared at them with great curiosity, but also marveled at the skill and artistry with which they were created.

In the Larco Museum garden

One of the unexpected delights of the museum is its Cafe.  Our lunch was perhaps our second best meal during our entire Peruvian visit, and the "tres leches" or three milk cake we had during our coffee break was to die for!

The Best Restaurant experience of all was at Lima 27, where along with Erin and a couple of her State Department colleagues, we enjoyed a true gustatory delight. In all of our travels in the U.S., Europe, and Latin American, we can not recall ever having had a better meal.

On our final day, we once again met up with Erin, whose security conference had finished the night before.

We decided to end our visit where we started, the Mango Restaurant, overlooking the fog shrouded Pacific Ocean and toasting Peru and its wonderful people with our farewell Pisco Sours.

Ending how and where we started our trip, but on a chillier day

All three of us were so happy that we were able to visit Peru.  It was extra special because we got to share, at least part of the experience, with Erin.  Thank you, Honey, for inviting us.

Sunset over the Pacific