I wish that I had enough time to actually sit and have breakfast at my apartment, but my taxi was waiting.
Good morning, Panama City!
Not sure how I managed it again, but I had the entire row to myself!
Again, I forgot that on an international flight I would get breakfast.
I fell asleep for a good part of the trip, including crossing the equator itself. Aren't I supposed to have a visit from King Neptune? When I woke up, I looked out the window, and saw what I thought was just clouds. And then I realized that some of that white stuff out in the distance wasn't clouds...
...it was the snow capped Andes mountains!
Shortly after that, we landed in Lima.
After eventually finding my taxi, and heading out into the warm and breezy Peru, we headed south towards my AirBnB in Miraflores. We traveled for awhile parallel to the Pacific ocean, which had a long string of beautiful recreation area, all with the same sign: PELIGROSO. No swimming! I still don't know quite why, it must be bad riptides...
My taxi took me directly to my apartment, and dropped me off. I had no way of contacting the hosts, as I had no internet nor telephone. Easy, right? I headed off back towards the main street, looking for a local cell phone provider for a Peru SIM card.
It was a typical South American experience in customer service. Once I found the Claro store that actually sold SIM cards, I had to stand in line...to get a ticket to go stand in another line. Once I made it through both of those, I then had to go stand in line again to pay, and then finally one last line to actually GET the damn card. It took me about an hour for this entire process. Meanwhile, I'm starting to feel sick, I've got a headache, and I'm thirsty as hell.
I made my way back to my apartment, called my host and she met me at the door. I finally arrived, and it was a beautiful apartment with a gracious host.
It was one room in a two bedroom apartment, not like my previous night in Panama City, and I was thrilled beyond belief. My host, Monica asked if I wanted to go out for a drink with her and her partner later that night, and I readily agreed. First up was getting some water, and then dinner. I asked where I could go to watch the sunset and to eat, and the suggestion did not disappoint.
The Miraflores district of Lima is an exclusive residential and shopping area, and it definitely shows. Originally located to the south of the old city of Lima, it was where the well to do came to get away from the city to enjoy the seaside. Eventually Lima proper expanded enough to encompass the area completely.
It was another very tourist laden place, but since I was starving and tired, I didn't really care. I wanted to eat some good Peruvian food and watch the sunset. The place I ended up going reminded me very much of Stanley Bay in Honk Kong.
The view was spectacular.
Apparently, Paddington Bear of UK fame was originally from the "darkest of Peru", and they had a statue to commemorate him.
This was my view from where I ate dinner.
It hit the spot, especially since I was feeling a little off.
I then headed back out to the shopping plaza itself to watch the sunset.
Going, going gone..
I really wanted some gelato, and waited in line for what felt a very long time to get some, and then almost dropped it on the ground while eating it. Luckily I caught it at the last minute.
I headed back to my apartment to rest up before I went out with my hosts. I wasn't feeling all that great, and was very concerned that I had eaten something in Panama that gave me food poisoning. A half an hour nap, some Advil and water helped, and I managed to get myself out of the apartment with Monica and Paul, and back to the main street in Miraflores.
We went to a recently opened bar/restaurant, where they ate dinner and I had a flight of local beers. As it turns out Lima has a burgeoning craft brewery scene, so I had six delicious locally brewed beers (including one that was made from purple corn!).
We went to anther bar for another beer afterwards. Paul was originally from Colorado, and Monica was from Spain, so we had a vigorous conversation about history, politics and many other things. It was a lovely evening with two amazing hosts, and I am so very glad that I rallied myself and went back out.
Tomorrow was going to be a day of just Lima, so I didn't have to wake up any specific time. I ended up watching the rest of a movie in bed, and fell asleep by midnight, alarm set for 8 AM.
