We arrived from Cusco into the busy Lima airport just as the sun was setting and cast an orange glow all over the baggage reclaim area. The airport was extremely busy. It felt like I was back in civilisation!

To Miraflores

I had booked with Taxi Datum for our transfers. This time we decided to stay in Miraflores since we had lot of time to spend in Lima before our return flight home. The driver spoke very little English and I asked him in my broken Spanish (as Shash rolled her eyes) how long it will take to reach the hotel and he said 50 minutes. The area near the airport was chaotic as we had experienced just a few days ago. However that few days seemed like eons and we were looking at Lima like we were seeing it for the first time! Slowly the chaotic traffic gave way to quieter roads and more local friendly shops and restaurants. At this point the driver entered the Pacific highway along the coast and we were staring into the black nothing over the Pacific realising we had made nearly a complete 360 of the earth! All that was left was crossing the pacific into Australia!

The exits from the Pacific Highway were filled with traffic so the driver decided to skip our exit to Miraflores and took the Barranco one instead. The high rise buildings reminded me of some Asian cities, especially Singapore, where tall residential buildings looked over the ECR into the sea beyond.

There was heavy human and vehicular traffic as the driver made his way into Miraflores. Miraflores was like any area in the USA or Europe with branded shops, large stores and fancy restaurants. He finally dropped us off at Double Tree El Pardo. It was a great hotel to spend our last night in Peru. With a fabulous room, a gym, a rooftop pool and excellent breakfast the next morning. 

I checked-in hastily for our flight the next day noticing it was almost full and we were lucky to get seats together. We noticed a Taco Bell across the street and walked over to grab our dinner before drifting off to sleep with a head full of memories, a content heart and a very tired body!

Plaza Mayor de Lima

We requested for a late check-out and they gave us until 1 pm to check-out. After a sumptuous breakfast, some time in the pool and SC working out in the gym, we booked a Uber to take us to the main square in Lima. We were advised by the hotel staff not to flag a cab off the street for our return.

An uneventful ride that I paid using cash brought us to the main square, flanked by the Lima Cathedral, the Presidential palace and the city hall on its sides. There were police posted around the square to keep people off the centre of the square and people spent time walking around it to gape at the various buildings. We did the same. With a sensory overload of the past few days we were not interested in entering any buildings and just walked around the square. We then walked over to San Francisco for their Churros. Super large ones filled with custard, cream or chocolate. After the heavy breakfast we were not interested in lunch and grabbed one for each of us. We sat on the steps of the Lima cathedral to munch on our churros as we watched tourists and locals out in the square.

We then found a Starbucks to book our return uber. This time he took us to Parque del Amor

Parque del Amor and Pacific coast

We were dropped just outside the park and we spent a few minutes looking out to the Pacific Ocean and the sun making its way slowly to its depths to rise in Japan, a country that we were in not too long ago. Another reminder to cross that ocean to make a complete 360 of the earth!

The park was filled with locals. Parents, children, grandparents were all spending their time together with some fun activities for the kids. There was music blaring out from one bar and the area had a lovely vibe to it.

Good bye, Peru!

We decided to walk back to the Double Tree and slowly walked past both high rise apartments and single terraced houses. We picked up our bags as the taxi arrived to pick us up for our trip back to the airport. As we rode to the airport the scenes outside the car changed from reminding us of Singapore to Chennai and then to the chaos outside the airport that was just Lima!

Check-in was smooth and the flight was full as expected. Dinner was pathetic and didn’t agree with SC. We then dozed off quite well as the plane made its way over the Atlantic back to Europe.