October 27th, 2005 – Flight back to Lima & city tour
Wake up call is 5:30 AM for the few of us not taking the Amazon extension. Our flight leaves earlier than the rest of the group, we're on the bus to the airport with our luggage by 6:30 AM. Our tickets were all ready made out and all we needed was to check in our luggage. A small airport tax had to be paid but it was all included with our package. We had time for a coffee and snacks before boarding our flight back to Lima. The one hour flight leaves on time, 8:30.
We board the bus back to the same hotel in Lima where we stayed for the first night of this tour. Since I will be staying for an extra day because of my flight, I arrange to stay one more night. It is a nice hotel and the extra night costs me $60.00 U.S. This may be a good price in the United States or Canada but in Peru there were many other hotels that were cheaper. Two other ladies are staying in Peru for a while and they went down the street and found a hostel with there own bathroom and ended up paying around $20.00 Soles ($7.15 CDN)! In fact it might have been cheaper than that; it's quite affordable if you are willing to look around for the bargains. I guess I found it convenient to just stay in the same hotel for the extra night.
Once we get checked into our rooms we have a few hours to rest before our city tour. The city tour is optional and most of us decide to take it for an additional $20.00 U.S.
Lima city tour
Our bus leaves around 2:00 PM, we end up picking up some other people from another explorer group who were staying at a near by hotel. We have a driver and a guide for the afternoon and the weather was co-operating with us once again.
City tour of Lima
We drove through many parts of Lima and had a chance to see the diversity of this large city. Some of it is very modern and up scale but most of it seems to be very poor with so much garbage around the streets.
City tour of Lima
We drive by many larger houses with very nice gardens, most of them having large walls around them. The houses would be worth over a million dollars in Canada and many other countries, but in Lima you could buy one of these for around $100,000. It's not exactly a hot spot right now but in the future the prices may go a little higher. I think the higher crime rate around the city would account for the lower prices.
City tour of Lima
Our first stop is a small park surrounded by churches and some fine restaurants. It was very clean and had some historic buildings around it. We then drove over near ocean front to see some of the sculptures and park area.
City tour of Lima
Many police were noticeable in this area to keep it secure, a safe place to walk around. We're not right along the ocean but rather up on a cliff around 100 feet above the ocean. Most of the hotels and other buildings are built up here all along the main stretch of Lima. We never did go for a walk right along the beach, we were told that it was unsafe. We're sure to get bothered by the locals and just asking for trouble if we venture down below. As we walked around the park there were many young couples hand in hand, obviously a popular spot for the locals as well.
City tour of Lima
Back on the bus, we take a drive into down town Lima. The views along the way shows us much of Lima and the diverse life style. So much pollution, it made me think of many of the other places I have visited. It must have to do with the way the fuel is processed to produce the fumes that it does. You can go to other cities around the world and have vehicles using the same amount of fuel but the pollution is not near the same.
The driver drops us and our guide off at the square, we have some time to walk around and take a few pictures. We then walk over to a church and spend some time walking through it before the bus picks us up. The church is like other churches but it was the underground Catacombs that were an experience. Used as a burial site and all the bones were still to be seen. It was a little more graphic than we expected, there was even one pit that was full of human skulls, thousands of them! No pictures allowed in this area.
City tour of Lima
A fitting end to the journey in Peru, a scene that could be out of a Harry Potter movie setup in a very old library.
Resturant for our dinner tonight.
We are back at our hotel by 6:00 PM and we all decide to meet for dinner around 6:45. We decided on a very nice restaurant along the ocean front built out on a harbor. It was not too far from our hotel but our tour leader tells us it would be unwise to walk, so taxis are arranged for us all.
We were expecting a nice restaurant but we're still surprised at what we about to experience. We had a wonderful view and were treated like royalty, to eat at a place like this some where else would have cost us a fortune. In the end I had more than my share of wine, brandy, along with a great meal and in the end it costs me $200.00 Soles. That roughly works out to $70.00 Canadian but to have a meal like that some where else would be many times more. Gwen does not come with us for this meal; it would cost her two days wages for this one. I think many of her meals are free at most of the restaurants we visit as she brings them the business. If she had to pay for all the meals where we ended up going, she would be working for free. Going to this restaurant was a great place to finish up this tour.