The first stop of our Peru trip was the capital city of Lima. Lima is a huge city, we learned that 30% of Peru’s population lives in Lima. We have only been here a few days and we are already loving this travel experience and happy with our choice of country to visit. South America is a new continent for both Phil and me. We stayed at the Pariwana Hostel in the Miraflores district of Lima. This area is the most commercial, clean, developed etc. of the city. There are lots of hostels and great restaurants, plus it’s right on the coast. This hostel was the most fun hostel that I have ever stayed at, rivaled only by Yes! Hostel in Lisbon, Portugal. Pariwana has a rooftop bar and patio complete with a ping pong table, foosball, and lots of comfortable seating. They run activities every night, which usually consists of some sort of tournament. They put a bracket up on the huge chalk board wall and run these activities very well. I won one of these tournaments on Saturday night and earned a free night’s stay! I arrived two days before Phil because he got an interview in NYC the day we planned to fly out. He rescheduled his flight to accommodate which left me with two days to be alone in this new place. I spent my first day at the Parque de Las Leyendas which is a huge zoo/ botanical garden/ historical park in the city. I mainly went to see the botanical garden, as that is something I like to do in every new country if possible, but the park had way more than I expected. I saw the biggest snake I have ever seen, lots of beautiful colorful birds, and even my first Llamas. The park also contains fenced off sections of the Huaca ruins which were businesses and buildings occupied during 200 BC to 1450 AD, and very cool to walk by. That night, I hung out at the Hostel’s rooftop bar and patio with an awesome group. There were 2 Americans, 2 Australians, a Dutch dude, and a French girl. I learned so much about their countries and lives just from that night. I am traveling for the shortest amount of time of all of them, they are traveling for 3 months at a minimum. As you can probably imagine, anyone cool enough to quit life for a few months and backpack around South America is most likely a really fun person to hang out with. I got so many ideas for future adventures and got to pick their brains as to how they make it all work. Super cool perspectives and stories to be exposed to. My second day alone in Lima was nice and chill. I went for a run along the coast then explored the coastal outdoor urban park/ mall with a new friend from the hostel. By this point in my stay, I had a squad believe it or not. 4 of us in my room had a nice long chat in the early evening on my first full day, so we went up to the evening activities together, then breakfast the next morning… and before too long at all I had my friend group in the hostel. Two were Australian and one was from Texas, then me! Phil and I spent our first and only full day in Lima together by doing the hostel’s free walking tour. We bussed to downtown Lima and participated in this nearly 3-hour long walking tour. All of my questions about the city were answered in that tour and we even got small amounts of free time here and there to venture around alone. For example, in the Plaza de Armas / Plaza Mayor we took some time to watch the changing of the guards, which is basically a musical performance. It was funny to hear the military guards playing the Spiderman theme, and our tour guide told us that they have even been known to play hits like the international chart-topping banger, Despacito. The tour ended with a free pisco cocktail tasting then we grabbed a wonderful lunch right near the main plaza. That evening Phil and I participated in that evening’s ping pong tournament and tried out the salsa dancing lesson. We were pretty bad at salsa so we tapped out after a short while but it was so fun to watch the Latinos do it. You can pretty much tell by watching the group dance who could speak Spanish and who couldn’t. As I typed this blog post Phil and I are sitting at our gate at the Lima airport to catch our flight to Cusco. We are eager to explore this city, we have heard rave reviews from our hostel friends. We will be staying at another Pariwana Hostel in Cusco and people have told us it’s a really cool spot. It will be interesting to see how the altitude affects us, thankfully we have the time to acclimate for a day or two as we will be spending 8 days in Cusco.
I am having an absolutely amazing whirlwind of a time. This is already exceeding my expectations for this trip in many different ways and I am so excited to see more of what Peru has to offer. Onward! Comments are closed.
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