A Day in Lima

Surprisingly, we made it. We had a delay of two hours when we arrived in New York which meant our next plane was supposed to depart in 40 minutes. With that little time left, we were convinced we wouldn’t make it and didn’t even try hard – until we dropped off our baggage and the guy there told us that we could still make the plane. So we started running.
People in the security line were amazing. They let us go to the very front so we cleared security quickly and then we were racing through the airport. We almost collapsed at the gate and sweat was running down my back and my forehead once I had finally made it on the plane.
That unexpected turn of events meant that we had a whole day to explore Lima.
Unfortunately, it also meant that we had to go shopping because our backpacks hadn’t been as quick as us and arrived 24 hours later.

Our hotel in Lima was located in Miraflores, a beautiful and, as we were told over and over again, safe neighbourhood. While waiting for the shops to open, we walked down to the Parque del Amor next to the Pacific Ocean.

Everyone seemed to be outside on that lovely Sunday morning. Families with kids, runners, people walking their dogs, couples.

See why it's called Parque del Amor?

A bit further down the park, we found some art installations, colourful murals and the weird statue you see above.

We spent more time looking at the Pacific, watching the surfers, than we had expected – until it was getting hot and we were quickly reminded that we didn’t have toiletries. Deodorant included.
So our next stop were the shops of Miraflores. Shopping was pretty straightfoward. Two t-shirts (one to change and one to sleep in), shorts, underwear and socks. Back then, we still didn’t know if our luggage would make it in the night or if we would be going into the Amazon without it. We got the deodorant we desperately needed and then we started looking for flip flops. That was when the problems started.
Do you know how hard it is to find shoes in Lima if you don’t have tiny feet?
It took us ages to find a shop where they had flip flops in size 40, which is still one size smaller than I would usually wear.

After shopping, we took a taxi to the city center and went for a walk.
The city center is beautiful and it can easily be explored on foot.

Start at the Plaza San Martin and walk north towards the Plaza de Armas. The street connecting the two plazas is lined with restaurants and cheap shoe shops.
The plazas themselves have beautiful buildings on each side, from colonial times.

The Parque de la Muralla, where we went next, was closed, so our next stop was the Monasterio de San Francisco.

The monastery is really cool and one of the places you should definitely check out while you’re in Lima. The crypt underneath the church had been used as Lima’s cementary during the Middle Ages so thousands of people had been buried there. You can now see their remains on a guided tour. The monastery itself is pretty, too, with murals that are being restored one by one and paintings on the walls inside.

After the monastery, we went on to the Chinese district and then took a taxi back to the hotel.

There are many more things to do in Lima but we were exhausted and by the time we were finished with the walking tour, all of the museums were closed. But that’s okay, I’m sure we’ll come back to Lima again in the future.