Wed-Thur, Oct 11-12 – Lima, Peru - Lima is a Peruvian seaport, located on the shores of the Pacific, in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers. It was founded in 1535 by the Spanish.  Following the war for independence it became the capital of the Republic of Peru.  It is Peru’s largest city and capital.   About 30% of the Peruvian population lives in Lima’s metropolitan area. It is the headquarters for most businesses and the financial capital of the country.

Ships visiting Lima dock in Callao, the country's largest and most important port. Pretty much anything being shipped in or out of Peru goes through this gigantic port.  Callao and Lima blend to form a metropolitan area that is home to more than one-fourth of the country's population.  Lima is the gateway for tours to Machu Picchu, the "Lost City of the Incas" that sits high in the Andean peaks.  That is the main reason we are here for two days.  Several tours left us in Trujillo and will return from Machu Picchu on our second day in port.

We have arrived at a lot of cargo ports on this trip, but this one is huge!  We are shuttled from the ship to the entrance of the dock area and from their we find our way to the local tours or HAL excursions.  We have been told to not be out at night in this area and if you are you definitely need to be on a guided tour of some sort.  Driving through Callao, I would definitely agree that we don't want to be out by ourselves at night.  This is not the best part of town.

Since this is a huge city, we pretty much spent our time shopping and wandering around.  Our first day we wandered over to the tourist portion of the city which is Miraflores.  It is made up of major hotels, beaches and the Indian Markets.  This was a fun day in that our brains actually got to relax and we just wandered around taking photos, drinking coffee, and sightseeing.  We put a lot of ground under our feet today.

We also wandered around a ruin in the middle of Miraflores.  It is the temple of Pucllana and is surrounded by a large residential area.  It dates back to the sixth century CE.  It was built in the Egyptian pyramid style and is quite pretty, but what amazed us is how the city grew up right next to it without demolishing the site.  We discovered that there are about five different temple sites here in the Lima area.

We caught a taxi back to the ship and had a quick dinner up on the Lido and then headed out for the "Lima at Night" tour.  This was fun in that we got to see a lot of the area lit up.  We drove around the City Plaza (which we will tour tomorrow) and then drove over to the Dancing Waters.  This was really neat and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  The water fountains, of which I think there were about 40+ were dancing in sync to music.  Some were different colors, others just went on and off in time to the music; but the finale was awesome.

There is a pool of about 100 yards in length filled with fountains and there is a laser show happening, showing the different peoples, animals and other interests of Peru, while the colored water is dancing.  I am having a hard time explaining this, but it was gorgeous and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

The bus ride home was uneventful until we got to the docks.  There we waited about a half hour before they would let us into the port, and this was only after a policeman came on the bus and checked each and every one of our ship passes.  Can you say strict!  The buses were lining up behind us - we finally made it back to the ship around midnight.

Today,  our second day in Lima, we did the main downtown area, the Plaza de Armas.  The "Plaza de Armas" is pretty much the civic center in each and every town.  Lima has seven major Cathedrals, one of which is in the center of the Plaza de Armas.  We got a city tour and our guide was great.  Lima is also famous for their beautiful balconies, some of which were quite high.  The high balconies were made so that the single women would be able to go outside and watch the events that were passing by without being seen.   Lima has 47 different districts and therefore 47 different mayors, can you imagine them all getting together to resolve some conflicts - ouch!  Lima has population of over 10 million people and wandering around the city I would definitely believe it; but the people are friendly and the city is quite clean.  

We were not sure what was going on in the Plaza that day but we were not allowed into the center of it.  The night before we had seen a lot of people inside the area protesting so maybe that was why - we didn't know, nor did our guide.  

We made an early day of it and got back and relaxed - that was a lot of walking.  We really enjoyed this city even if it is extremely crowded.