Welcome to Lima--really dingy and stinky city! ew. Nina and I were greeted (more like assaulted) by the putrid air that explains the haze around the city. Not the most pleasant experience considering we just spent the last 5 days camping in the great outdoors where there is no human pollution. Ah well, only two days of this to deal with, and then homeeeee!
Our first day in Lima was a complete bust. Since we got to our hostel too early to check in, we literally sat around for four hours just counting down until we had beds to pass out in. Once we checked in, we basically slept the entire first day away, waking up around 6pm in the evening. After getting ready, we decided to take a stroll around the city. We were staying in Miraflores, the safest neighborhood in Lima, which was proven to be true when we walked by all of the consulate buildings. We got lost a bit trying to find our way to the mall, but eventually found it and a movie theatre. Score! It was 8pm and Iron Man 2 happened to be showing at 8pm in English! I hadn't even seen the first one, but considering the fact that our hostel was socially disfunctional and we were wide awake, and both of our tickets was going to be less than $5USD, I was totally down! The movie was good and the night ended extremely well when we found an amazing grocery store full of lots of worldly products, and refridgerated yogurt--a luxury I had not had in a month! So we topped off our night with a tasty yogurt treat making our grand total in expenses for the day $7 for two people. Lima was beginning to grow on me. :)
We were much more coherent our second day and we started the day with a cheap run to the grocery store followed by mani/pedis next door. It wasn't quite the best job I'd ever seen--no one can beat Asians--but it was good for the value. Plus, since I had basically destroyed my pretty little feet with all of the hiking, trekking, biking, walking, etc. it was semi-embarrassing to even let someone try to make my feet pretty. haha. I was happy to get out of there when we did. We spent our afternoon strolling through the parks in Lima, one of which was called the Lover's Park. It had a massive statue of two people making out. Um..awkward.We watched surfers and hangliders and just walked along the cliff that overlooked the ocean. Unfortunately for us, and for Lima, the weather is overcast there from April - December. What? Gray nastiness for 9 months of the year!? No wonder everyone talks so much about Lima..or not...
We shopped around the rest of the afternoon, hit up our favorite grocery store three more times and headed in to the hostel to pack and get some sleep before leaving for our way too early flights the next day. I even ran into a few more travelers that I had seen, including my friend Chris.
Overall impressions of Lima: not the prettiest place, but it has potential. Definitely not the most fun I've had, but it was nice to relax before heading back home.
Next stop: Home. Yeesh! Haven't been there in 3 months, and I'm finally going back! I'm excited about not wearing shower sandals, that's for sure, but I am really going to miss traveling.
No comments:
Post a Comment