Lima – arrival from Europe and sightseeing

Overnight in Lima

We stayed in the Miraflores district because it is a much safer district than the center and the vicinity of the airport, where apparently kidnappings and robberies often occur, and we do not like to be robbed and attacked. In addition, it is also a nicer district than the center itself, which is still under construction. It is here that we will see that in Peru many buildings are eternally unfinished. Ours was very nice at the entrance, livable inside, but the important thing was that there was a place to sleep.

It is worth knowing that before departure we should already have the first night jammed.

Miraflores – a safe district

Pierwsze co wpadło mi w oczy to mnóstwo starych i ciekawych aut na ulicach. Każdego dnia można tu spotkać po kilka garbusów. Nawet po pewnym czasie zastanawiałem się czy nie będę miał osobnej galerii z Garbusami. ? Co ciekawe, mam wrażenie, że tutaj aż tak bardzo nie przywiązują uwagi do stanu technicznego auta. Niektóre ciężarówki, które woziły tam jakiś złom, wyglądały gorzej niż ich ładunek. Trochę jak w MadMaxie, ale było też kilka pięknych amerykańskich aut, które olśniewały swoim wyglądem. Lubię taki kontrast, a nie jak u nas, wszędzie fordy mondeo, fiaty panda, ople astry, a szczytem motoryzacji porsche w leasingu. Nie jaram się motoryzacją, ale to co zobaczyłem, po prostu mnie zachwyciło. Miałem ochotę zabrać jeden z nich do domu.

Kind people of Peru

At the very beginning we had a little problem with finding the right way with the map that we got in the hostel. People were very helpful here. And we often came across gentlemen who were sitting somewhere on the street, or in a booth and guarding the housing estate. I don’t know if it’s their permanent job, but I would die of boredom sitting in the corner. Unfortunately, sometimes it happened that someone wanting to help us did not know where he was, so we had to change direction several times.

Cat temple in Peru

W dzielnicy Miraflores warto odwiedzić park Kennedyego, w którym znajduje się koci raj. Można spotkać tu mnóstwo kotów, które wylegują się na trawie, są stale dokarmiane i, podobno, mają tam swojego weterynarza. Koty są bezpańskie, ale mają się tam dobrze. Jeśli ktoś by chciał, może też jakiegoś przygarnąć, bo raczej będzie ich coraz więcej niż mniej. If you now what i mean. ?

Transport in Lima

Moving around Lima, we have several transport options to choose from. However, we have to look at them a little from a different angle.

Taxis

It would seem that they are an expensive means of transport, but it is still worth using them. Prices can really vary a lot and instead of using the first better one, it is worth finding out how much we can negotiate. We can approach 4-5 taxis and propose our rate, and it will turn out that sometimes we will go for half or 1/3 of the price. Whoever asks does not err. For the transfer from Miraflores or Barranco to the airport we can pay 40-60 sol, although maybe it would be possible to bargain an even better rate. It is also worth paying attention to whether the car has the appropriate markings and the driver has a license.

Taxi from the airport

At the airport itself, we should be most sensitive to where we get in, because that’s where it’s the riskiest. Getting off at the airport from the international connection will be waiting for us stands of the largest corporations with the same price – 60 sol. On national flights, I saw that they already give a rate of 40 soles. If we want to combine a bit, we can just take a small walk away from the airport and look for a cheaper taxi there. It is difficult to negotiate a better rate, e.g. 30 soles for the passage to Miraflores from the terminals.

You also have to pay attention to pseudo-taxis, i.e. ordinary cars that want to give us a lift and earn some extra money. In Peru, it is normal for someone in a car to carry a yellow cockerel with the inscription TAXI and put it on the roof or on the dashboard. However, they do not have numbers and markings given by the appropriate office, and the driver does not have a photo ID card (he should have it on the bow). Sometimes we can go much cheaper, but here we are not sure who is driving us. Walking through the streets of the city, almost every now and then someone next to us slows down, honks and encourages us to take a ride. However, as tourists, we should be wary of such occasions, because we are a tasty morsel for robbers who take tourists out of town, take away valuable things from them and force them to enter a PIN to the payment card.

Busy

The cheapest option, however, are buses, but here it is not as easy with them as in Poland. They seem to have their own numbers, but they are not clearly marked. More often there is information about where a given bus is going. There are also no typical stops where we can approach, check the schedule and wait for the selected bus. Still, they have designated routes that locals usually know and are reportedly even available on the internet.

Although there are no stops, this is not a big problem, because there are two people working in each bus. A driver and a tout who looks out for people willing to travel and informs them about the route and price of the trip. We can wave to such a bus and ask if it is going in the direction we are going to. Then we either get in or say goodbye and catch another one. Getting off is also nicely solved, because we simply report it to the driver or his assistant and jump out anywhere, and the bus goes further. Thanks to this, everything runs quickly and efficiently.

Buses can cost 1-3 sol per ride per person, but these are not the final prices. Often, residents give for the ride “what grace” – e.g. 1 sol, instead of 1.3 from the price list, which hangs somewhere there, because they think that so much is fine according to them. I wonder if we will get to such a point that when going in Warsaw by bus we will not have to validate a 20-minute ticket, so as not to get a call for payment from the canary, because we will get it wrong. It would be nicer.

If we want to reach a specific place in several people, we can easily find a taxi for 7-15 soles and divide it into 3-4 people.

Bus lanes

An interesting solution are also bus lanes, which, unlike ours, are located on the inner part of the road, where we have stops with special platforms for boarding. The bus lane itself is so separated (orange stripes in the second photo with the road) that no cunning person will drive it a bit (well, maybe some off-road vehicle will pass without a problem).

Old cars in Lima

If we are at the transport. This is one of the things that stuck in my memory were old cars that were in better or worse condition, on the streets of this city. For the most part, the old Volkswagen Beetles in better or worse condition prevailed there. Some cars I wanted to take with me, returning to Polish.

Man cantor

On the streets of Peru you can often meet someone who will offer us an exchange of money right away. It happens that the rate at someone like this is better than at the bank. You just have to be careful whether these are people who legally perform such an exchange and do not try to squeeze us counterfeit banknotes.

It is especially worth paying attention to whether the money is not smeared, dirty, has no abrasions, jagged edges or whether it is not torn somewhere. It may happen that they will not want to accept such money from us, so it is worth taking care that it does not deteriorate.

In the photo below, the gentleman who exchanged us a lot of cash and we did not have any problems with it – I recommend this allegrowicz.

The Breeze from the Ocean

An interesting phenomenon in Lima is the breeze that rises from the ocean towards the coast. The milky haze tries to break through the tall buildings that rise above the coast. Interestingly – although the weather looks cloudy, the sun still reaches here and it is very easy to burn in the sun without feeling it. So it’s worth getting a good cream with a filter.

Street food stalls

In the city, more often than in small shops, we will find stalls with food and drinks. Sometimes we will also find stationery there, e.g. toilet paper.

At one of these stalls, we managed to try local fruits, and a nice old man who sold them helped us prepare some of them for consumption.

In addition, you can also meet special bicycles with a refrigerator, from which ice cream is sold. There are a lot of them. You can also find sellers who carry souvenirs with them and hook themselves.

Lovers Park

One of the interesting places by the ocean that is worth visiting is the park of lovers. Apparently the most romantic place in the whole city. Judge for yourself.

Barranco – artists’ district

At the end of the day, we left behind a hipster neighborhood in the south of Lima. We have an electricity museum there, where we will meet one of the restored wagons of the railway that once ran around the capital. Going further, we will find a bridge of sighs, on which dreams supposedly come true, only there is one condition – we have to think hard about what we want and then hold our breath and cross the whole bridge – then the wish will definitely come true!

At the bridge itself we will see great murals and a lot of souvenir sellers. Some are slightly hot, playing the guitar and spinning decorative strings on the wrist. In this place we also have a lot of cafes and restaurants where we can eat the famous ceviche (seafood salad). At these restaurants we have a beautiful view of the sunset, so it’s worth dropping by for an evening dinner. However, we had already eaten a little earlier, so we went a bit further towards the house to one of the cliffs.

Holy Cross square of Barranco

Sunset in Lima

If you want to see the sunset in Lima, then the Barranco District is one of the best choices, as well as the Park of Lovers because both places are located by the ocean over which we have a perfect view.

Flight from Lima to La Paz

After a short night we gathered at dawn to go to the capital of Bolivia – La Paz. We almost did not succeed, because at check-in we learned that before departure you have to show a return ticket to Peru. Which caused us a bit of trouble because we had trouble buying and paying for them that day. We had to do it from the phone, where the internet was limited for about 30-60 minutes, and we had already used it a little. The same problem was faced by a boy from Sweden who was flying to visit a friend.

We went to the tourist information, where we wanted to make a purchase from the laptop of the lady who works there, but there were also some problems, so we went to the café to pretend that we were ordering something, because in 10 minutes we had a departure. Somehow we managed to order tickets from my phone for the three of us and a boy who was struggling with the same problem as us. Despite this, they barely let us through, because we only got information that the order is being processed and the ticket will arrive in some time to our email addresses. Fortunately, the gentleman at the briefing was so nice that he accepted it. And we could not fly out of Lima and lose tickets.

So remember to buy return tickets before flying to another country, and sometimes accommodation (this was the case when leaving Europe for Peru).