Sightseeing in Lima Peru

Lima is a remarkable city. The people, its history, and gastromy make it a city I definately want to revisit. We stayed in Miraflores, a nice neighbrohood close to the beach and all other things important in Lima.

Our hostel was only $45 a night (it was a triple room w/ private bath and breakfast included)! It was a block away from the beach and super nice. I highly recommed it. http://www.casadebaraybar.com/

Right outside of our Hostel, yes it was badass! The beach is that way...

Here Chris and I are at Lima's famous Plaza de Armas, the gates are extra tall to keep the Peruvians out

This is an old door to some church, which no one ever answered

All Plaza de Armas must have a fountain in the middle, this one was about 500 years old

Another famous building in the Plaza de Armas, not sure why it is famous, but its old and deserves a picture being taken of

About the go out for the night, but we gotta get some anticuchos from Tio Mario's first

Good old fashioned American Bull Blasters for the Lima girls

Chris and his sweet cousin Tere

Chris and Ricardo

Hanging out in the bar

Outside this awesome bar we went to, probably the coolest bar I've ever been to in my life, and I've been to many. I don't remember the name, but it was in Barranco.

Pachacamac- Inca ruins found near Lima

These Incas had ocean front property

A peruvian dog, yes thats the name of the breed. And no, there's nothing wrong with him, he was born that way. Obama wanted one for the White House.

Here we are in Chinatown. Yes, there's a Chinatown here, its huge, and there's lots of spanish speaking asians everywhere. It was strange to me too...

Here I am doing my infamous chinese peace sign picture pose...why do they all do that? I have no idea.

Chowing down on some Chifa (Peruvian Chinese food)

I'm the year of the Monkey


Lima is an excellent city to visit if you like to eat delicious food and hang out in cool places. I wish I could have stayed longer. I will definitely be coming back. We made some friends with Chris's family, so hopefully I'll have a place to stay next time.

Gastromy of Lima Peru

Lima caught me by surprise. I thought the city would be backwards like Cali is, but it's not. Its very modern and a pretty cool place to visit. My favorite part of the city was the ceviche restaurants. Unlike Cuzco, the food in Lima was AMAZING!!! I'm so glad I'm not allergic to anything (like Ricardo is) and I was able to enjoy all the gastromy Lima had to offer.

Only in Lima you can get ceviche served on the beach without the fear of it being rancid

This was the first ceviche I ate while in Lima, we are at Playa Punta Rocas

Chufle de Mariscos & Chris being charming

The BEST ceviche restaurant in all of Lima- we went there twice.

Grilled Baby Octopus- Deeeelicious!

Leche de Tigre (Tiger's Milk)- basically the remains of ceviche served in a glass for you to drink- also DEEElicious!

The best calamari I've ever had in my life! (and no, it wasn't fried)

Cerveza Zenda and peruvian beer nuts (roasted corn tidbits) goes well with the ceviche


Here we all are with Sonia, she is the owner of the world famous cevicheria "Sonia's". Ricardo really wanted to visit Sonia's since it was featured on Anthony Bordain's No Reservations tv show.

A tuna dish we had at Sonias-great!

Chris having the Chufle de mariscos at Sonia's

Pisco Sours

Chifa- Chinese food in Lima. Lima has a gigantic Chinatown, bigger than SanFran's! So, we had to try the chinese food. It was alright.

Small eggs as street food, I think they were quail eggs, they serve them with salt and picante salsa

Vicente and Susana are coming tomorrow!!

I'm so excited about my brother and his girl friend coming to Cali tomorrow. They will officially be my first visitors. He called me today, and it was so good to hear his voice on the phone. He asked if I needed anything from Houston...I told him "No". I wanted him to bring me some of my shoes that I miss soooo much, but I decided that I should just leave them in Houston and buy new ones here. I can't wait to show them around Cali.

I'm starting to feel like some of my friends have forgotten about me. just joking. I just wish I could share all these awesome experiences with a friend from home. Its nice to compare the way things are here with the way things are over there with a like-minded person. I find myself defending the states a lot more than I am used to.

I really want to go out and explore the rest of Colombia. I'm debating if that is something I can do safely by myself. If I were in Peru, it could totally be done. Unfortunately, this beautiful country of Colombia has issues. Its sad because there is so much to see and explore, but as a female american, I can't do this by myself without the fear of something bad happening to me. Its even sadder because the whole idea of this trip was to explore Colombia and now, that I have no one to do it with, I don't even know if I'll be able to see all the things I had planned on seeing. Whats the point of this trip if I'm not doing the things I thought I was going to do?

It would be really nice to have a friend here with me. If you don't have any better opportunites that arise within the next few months, come on down.

Huaraz, Peru

We spent one day in Huaraz, Peru. My guide book described it as a hikers paradise...in retrospect, not so much. I think it was because we went in February, which is the rainy season, so thats probably why we didn't like it so much.

Huaraz is a tiny town in central Peru. We took a 7 hour bus trip from Lima to Huaraz. There are tons of excursions you can do, but they are all hours away from Hauraz, which kinda made places hard to visit.

The one we decided to do was Lago Llanganuco. Its this beautiful turquoise colored lake in the National Park Huascaran. To get there you can take a taxi or a tour bus. We opted for the taxi. BAD CHOICE. The road to the lake is unpaved and full of holes. Its takes about 2 hours to get to the lake. So, just imagine riding in the back of an old uncomfortable taxi for 2 hours down a road made out of rocks and holes...can you say car sickness?

Despite the horrible ride there, the lake was very pretty. Here are some pics:

A table with what appears to be food...i'm hungry, hope its sanitary.

The beautiful turquoise Lake Llanganuco


A small waterfall

Polylepis trees

Granite Wall next to the lake

An Andes Condor flying in the Andes (which ironically is not Peru's national bird, but Colombia's)

Photo opt with a llama

Huaraz would probably have been a lot better had we gone in a different season. I wish I knew how to use the cool features on my camera, so that I could have taken cooler pics.