On the plane ride down from Toronto, there was an amazing sunset/moonrise going on. I was on the east side of the plane so I got to watch the full moon rise above the clouds in the colours of the sun. It was gorgeous. I tried to take some pictures but they didn't quite capture it.
On the plane I already made a couple of friends with the two people sitting behind me. One was a young guy travelling similarly to the way I started my trip and the other was an older man coming to Lima for 4 days on business. I was telling them about what I was doing in Peru before and the man gave me $40 to buy something for someone in need whenever I come across them. He said that he prefers to directly give money to people in need and for some reason he trusted that I will pass it on, which of course, I will. Sometimes the world is a nice place.
It seemed like the trip was off to a good start, until I got to customs. I have now met the grouchiest Peruvian woman. As a tourist you are automatically given a 90 day visa, with a maximum of 183 days in a calendar year. Since it is a new year, I asked for the maximum and she proceeded to tell me that it did not exist. Anything beyond 90 days, you need o apply for residency. This is a complete lie. I had a longer visa the last time I was here. She was just being flat out rude. Now if I want to stay any longer than 90 days I need to leave the country and reenter or pay the $1 a day fine and risk more trouble if I ever want to return. Oh well!
I had never been a fan of Lima each time I´ve been here in the past, though I have never stayed here for more than 24 hours. In Peru if you take the bus anywhere, you almost always have to pass through Lima and get connecting buses. I came here probably once a month because of this before. Every time I was here, it was overcast, grey and dingy. The city never seemed to have much life to it. Lima has a population of about 9 million people, it´s huge. A lot of travellers had said they really enjoy certain areas of the city and people from here always say how great it is.
It seemed like the trip was off to a good start, until I got to customs. I have now met the grouchiest Peruvian woman. As a tourist you are automatically given a 90 day visa, with a maximum of 183 days in a calendar year. Since it is a new year, I asked for the maximum and she proceeded to tell me that it did not exist. Anything beyond 90 days, you need o apply for residency. This is a complete lie. I had a longer visa the last time I was here. She was just being flat out rude. Now if I want to stay any longer than 90 days I need to leave the country and reenter or pay the $1 a day fine and risk more trouble if I ever want to return. Oh well!
I had never been a fan of Lima each time I´ve been here in the past, though I have never stayed here for more than 24 hours. In Peru if you take the bus anywhere, you almost always have to pass through Lima and get connecting buses. I came here probably once a month because of this before. Every time I was here, it was overcast, grey and dingy. The city never seemed to have much life to it. Lima has a population of about 9 million people, it´s huge. A lot of travellers had said they really enjoy certain areas of the city and people from here always say how great it is.
So here I am, trying it out. I´m staying in an area called Surquillo, on the edge of the tourist district called Miraflores. While Miraflores is quite nice and very clean, it does not feel like Peru. All the stores are North American chains and it feels like a suburb. I walked down to the cliffs one day and saw a nice looking park overlooking the ocean. Once I arrived at the edge and looked down, I found myself staring at a giant mall built into the cliffside. It was rather odd. It looks like a really nice mall and it has amazing views of the ocean, but it really caught me off guard. The beaches of Miraflores are all rocks and about 10 feet wide, then you hit a major highway before the cliffs start.
Further down the beach ear the districts of Barranco and Chorrillos the beaches start getting sandier and much more crowded. Barranco is a really pretty neighbourhood full of older growth trees and beautiful architecture and is considered to be the artist district, though it didnt really seem that way. I was wondering around there and a girl stopped to ask me if I spoke English and we were headed the same direction, so naturally we ended up spending the du together. She is one of those lucky people who knows someone who works for Air Canada and she decided 2 days before to come to Lima for a week for almost nothing. I found the guy from the plane and turns out he's also someone who knows someone at Air Canada! They both paid round trip between $200 - $300. I hadn't met many other Canadians down here before and neither of them spoke any Spanish or had a clue why anything was, so it was fun to show them around and help them out.
Lima seems alright. Still is not my favourite Peruvian city and I'll need to explore some of the other districts, but it is alright. There are a lot of nice parks, especially along the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Though, there are very few walkways down to the ocean to sit on the small crowded beaches. There hasn't been a lot of sun since I've been here, but when it does come out, it sure is strong! I got super burnt the feat day here and the sun barely showed, it was mostly overcast with some splotches of sunshine. The humidity here is almost comparable to Toronto in the summer, it's not quite that hot, but nearly. Having fresh ceviche (fish 'cooked' in lime juice and other flavours, served cold) again is really nice. I'd been waiting for Camilo to arrive back in Lima from Cusco before we set out on our mini adventure together and now we're ready to go on Friday! He's been back a few days now and we've done a few things around the city together. It's been nice seeing him again and I'm pretty excited to go the the mountains with him. I don't really know where we're going or what we'll be doing, but I know it will be great!
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