As I reached the gates of the Museo Larco and pondered my Uber dilemma, a gentleman called out asking if I needed a taxi. A museum security guard assured me that this driver, while not affiliated with the museum, was vetted, legitimate, and I could safely ride with him.

The driver quoted me 50 soles to go to centro histórico as the ride would take about 45 minutes (it actually took just over 50!), but that this also included a brief tour and orientation of the touristy part of the centre. He handed me his card with his details:

He also passed me his catalogue of offered tours, and the first one caught my eye. I’d put Pachacámac on the calendar for Thursday morning, but my casual attempts to find a guided tour had failed, and I just knew that despite what I’d read, this was not a place to go to in a taxi and hope you could get a ride back.

Somehow, the universe had put me in the right car with the right person to achieve this travel goal! He quoted me 300 soles (about 90US or 1,800 pesos) for a half day tour to include not just Pachacámac but also the highlights of the Barranco neighbourhood, and we agreed to meet in my hotel lobby at 8:00AM the next day. Serendipity!

It was a very long and not scenic route to centro:

You’d never guess from the lack of pictures that I spent a solid three hours there, but photography was not permitted at my primary destination.

This is Plaza San Martín, where I was warned that a lot of protesters gather, and which is lined with historic houses:

The little I saw of centro was much grittier and graffiti-strewn than Miraflores, but still surprisingly clean:

Javier pointed out the cathedral, a museum to check out, and told me three times to stick to the primary streets and to call him if I needed a ride back to the hotel before dropping me off near the Basilica and Convent of San Francisco so I could visit the Catacombs of Lima.

This is the exterior of the convent, which still has an active community of Franciscan monks.

We are not allowed to take photos inside the convent, so I’m having to write the following up purely from memory. I was met outside by a lady offering to take me on a guided tour. She’s the only guide I had a bit of trouble following of all the guided tours I took in Lima, but she did not mind if I asked her for repeat or clarification, so I feel that I got everything I needed out of this tour.

First up, the architecture of the basilica. The walls are lined with tiles from Seville that are stuck in place with egg white! There is also an incredible wooden ceiling that is held together by all the pieces interlocking like a puzzle. We saw the organ, a huge dome not dissimilar to ones I’ve seen in mosques, and a library straight out of Harry Potter or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The building was absolutely magnificent, but you’ll have to take my word for it.

The highlight of the tour was descending into the catacombs, a site the likes of which I had no idea existed in the Americas. It is huge and has yet to be fully mapped, so its extent is unknown.

I saw so many skulls and femurs, each time thinking about how they belonged to a person who had a name and a story. I think the sight that most affected me was that of the communal pit where the bodies of everyday people were tossed in all together. Today, some of the bones are arranged artistically. I found a public domain photo of this, but realised that it may be too graphic for some readers so I’m not sharing it in this post. You can see the picture here.

After my tour, I headed towards the cathedral and main square, but could not access either as they were closed as the city put up Christmas decorations!

Javier, my catacombs guide, and a random man on the street all told me I had to go visit the art museum, MUCEN, at the old reserve bank, so that was my next stop. My photos here didn’t come out well at all (flash + glass reflection), so again, I don’t have a lot to share. The building was impressive, and the collection spread over three floors was worth a visit. This was the only truly free activity I encountered in Lima.

When I came out of the museum, it was almost right into a protest, so that told me I’d done enough for the day. It was also coming to 4:00pm and I wanted to be back in Miraflores before dark. Javier had told me to look for an Uber around Plaza San Martín, but the walk there was not particularly scenic, with a lot of people and I was concerned about the protesters.

I found a park with a quiet side street where I could easily get picked up and, thankfully, I had cell service. It took about 15 minutes to get an Uber, and then it was a solid hour ride back to Miraflores!

That was it for Wednesday. I’d had the expected energy crash for this day and met my goals for it, so I just hung out at the hotel for a bit before going out to get snacks for the next day, then called it an early night.

My goodness, my trip to Lima really seems to have taken a template from my three days in London! Like my second day in the UK capital, a large part of my second day in the Peruvian capital was spent at a world-renown museum, this time the Museo Larco. This museum boasts the world’s largest private pre-Columbian art collection, including erotic pottery, and one of the largest open storage displays.

It was a long Uber trip to the museum, just over 30 minutes. I did leave very late morning and was able to avoid the worst of the rush hour traffic.

I had prepurchased my ticket online to save a few soles and skip the lineup to get in, but the museum was quiet on Wednesday morning. You enter the property and go up this ramp to get to the ticket desk.

This is the exterior courtyard of the property, and you can see the restaurant at the back.

The museum didn’t just give me a crash course on pre-Columbian art, but also Peruvian history. Again, I had to face the fact that my Eurocentric Canadian history failed me. How did I not know that Peru is one of the seven cradles of civilisation equal to that of China and Mesopotamia?!

Some history on the museum and its founder:

I’m just going to share items that caught my eye. Most of the pottery featured cats, snakes, and birds, the three sacred animals of ancient Peru.

There is very little of the Inca around Lima, to my surprise.

I had a moment of reflection at the part of the exhibit that focussed on ritual sacrifice. We’ve all seen the movies of the “savages” enacting these rituals in terrifying, sadistic fashion. But the reality is that these practices were well organised, deeply embedded in the local culture, and often a great honour to the person being sacrificed.

And here we get to an artifact that really shows how special is the Museo Larco and why it could be a considered a “destination” museum for archaeology and history buffs. I’m just so happy that it is being exhibited in its home country.

After visiting the primary exhibition, I headed back into the interior courtyard so I could visit the open storage.

Imagine dozens of cabinets like these. It was not easy to photograph in there because of the reflection of the glass, so this is all I have to share of this collection of more than 15,000 items, all carefully organised.

The final stop at Museo Larco is the fascinating exhibit of erotic art, although I have to wonder if that is the correct name for it. Was it meant to be arousing, or is that just a modern interpretation?

A few final shots of the outer courtyard.

I spent about three hours total at Museo Larco reading everything and watching an informational video. I’d say this incredible museum is a must-do in Lima.

Coming out of the museum, I didn’t have any cell service, a frequent issue in my three days there. I don’t know if the problem was with TelCel (I was on a roaming plan) or just service in general, but it was occasionally frustrating, especially here as I had no idea how I was going to get an Uber to take me to my next stop, centro histórico. Well, it’s weird how things happen sometimes, that something so unrelated as my getting a stupid late start that morning after sleeping 13 hours straight (!!!) combined with a lack of cell coverage made a much-needed chance encounter possible… But that’s for the next post. 😉

For lunch, which had to be my first Peruvian ceviche, I chose the restaurant overlooking the ruins of Huaca Pucllana, planning to visit the site after. Unfortunately, the ruins were closed! Spoiler, I did make it back to them. 😉

Lunch view!

I started off with this crisp and refreshing local beer, very citrusy, a perfect pairing to a dish like ceviche.

I ordered the “classic” ceviche. The server asked how spicy I wanted it, and I said whatever is considered average since I eat ceviche with habanero in Mexico.

What a pretty plate! The white corn on the left that looks like hominy is called choclo, and the crunchy kernels on the right are called cancha. At the bottom of the plate are camote, sweet potato, which I thought sounded like an odd pairing with ceviche, but were actually the perfect complement. There are no words for how good this was — definitely more acidic and salty than the Mexican version, very spicy, and with an excellent mix of textures, from the very soft white fish to the crunchy corn. The ají chile was fruity and made my nose run but was definitely not as hot as a habanero.

The desserts all had eggs except for this delicious mango and passionfruit sorbet that I paired with an espresso:

I walked back to the hotel after for a nap, then went off in search of more craft beers. I’ve really missed pubs/bars with a good variety of beers on tap that you can sample before making a choice, just how I learned to drink beer almost 30 years ago in Scotland. I chose BarBarian.

I asked about dark beers, and my options were a black IPA or a porter. A porter was just a bit too heavy for my mood, so I opted for the Zula Black, requesting only 200mL so I could have another one after.

My second choice was the Enana Roja (red dwarf).

I love amber ales, but I do believe this was my first time having their cousin, the red ale.

My final stop of the day was dinner at Kauza.

I started with a mocktail made with hierba luisa, or lemon beebrush, and pineapple:

My main was a classic Chinese-Peruvian dish, a local favourite, lomo saltado. This is beef sautéd in a wok with soy sauce and possibly some type of vinegar, as well as red pepper and onion, and served with fries and white rice. I actually make a beef very similar to this and did not know the origin of the recipe. From speaking to locals, I got the impression that this meal is to Peruvians what a hamburger might be to me. I enjoyed the meal but had to concede that I am really not a fan of potatoes! If I can’t enjoy potatoes in Peru, then I think I’m a lost cause!

Meals are often served with cancha.

I wandered around a bit after, found some ice cream, then returned to the hotel where, not surprisingly, I passed out around 10PM!

I slept okay my first night in Lima, even if it wasn’t quite enough. I wanted to make sure I was able to make it to breakfast by 10:00, and then I had a walking tour at 10:30, which started a 15-minute walk away from the hotel. I was pleased to see my phone had charged overnight, after realising before bed that I’d missed one very important part of international trip planning: checking the power situation at destination! Peru is on 220V and uses a variety of outlets. Thankfully, the ones at my hotel were versatile, accepting a number of different plugs. The table lamps had the same type of plug as my chargers, which are rated for up to 240V, so I was comfortable plugging in.

The included breakfast buffet had plenty of options. I found it funny that the “American” breakfast was eggs and hotdogs when that is actually a typical Mexican breakfast.

The produce, especially the tomatoes, were so fresh!

The hot dogs were cooked with potatoes, so I tried some just because you can’t go to South America and not have potatoes. The veggie medley was incredible, so fresh, crisp, and well seasoned. The hot dogs were definitely more along the lines of a German frankfurter than an Oscar Mayer wiener.

I then headed out into an overcast day and what felt like throngs of people. Crossing the street as a pedestrian in Lima could be an Olympic sport. I headed in the direction of what is commonly known as Parque Kennedy, but is officially Parque 7 de junio, and unofficially Parque de los gatos to meet a guide for Lima by Walking, a free walking tour operator, in front of the Saga Falabella store off the main “oval.” My best travel tip is to look for one of these free walking tours when you arrive in a new city — they are consistently the best way to get orientated. I’d checked ahead of time and an appropriate tip for such a tour in Lima is 35 soles per person, about 200 pesos or 10USD.

I had no trouble finding the guide, Ricardo. He said that a group of five had reserved and I could join them on the 10:30 Spanish tour, which was perfect. I ended up doing all my tours in Spanish in Lima and had near 100% comprehension on all but one where I had 95% comprehension. I know it wouldn’t be the case in, say, Argentina!

I’m surprised by how much I remember of the tour, but I’m just going to give some brief highlights.

Our first stop was Parque 7 de junio, which commemorates the Battle of Arica. I haven’t fact checked this, but a general apparently threw himself off a cliff with the Peruvian flag to prevent the flag’s capture by the Chileans, who ultimately won the battle. A small section of the park was renamed Parque Kennedy after the US president. At the time of the Cold War, there was a Havana Park in Pensacola (I believe our guide mistakenly said Miami), and to keep a distance from Cuba, the park was renamed to Miraflores Park. To maintain diplomatic relations, the decision was made to rename a part of Miraflores’s main park after the US president at the time.

The unofficial name for this park is Parque de Los gatos because of the cat colony living there. There are programs for sterilisation, adoption, and care of all these cats, which numbered in the hundreds before the pandemic, but now are settled at about one hundred total.

In Mexico, we use the spelling “michi” rather than “mishi.”

I’ll pause here to share the origins of Miraflores, which will lead us right back to the park and its cats.

The original capital of Peru was Cusco. Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish Conquistador I’m sure you’ll come to hate as much as me by the end of this trip, moved the administrative centre from high up in the mountains to a more strategic location by the ocean, what is now Lima’s historic centre. As happens, the city grew up around this centre and the rich folks living in the crowded core sought the healing qualities of the ocean, so they built their holiday homes in what is now Miraflores, which overlooks the ocean. Over time, both the human and cat population densities increased to the point of the cats building a colony in the neighbourhood’s primary green space.

The Iglesia Virgen Milagrosa is made entirely of concrete and is only about 130 years old:

This is Miraflores’s town hall. There are a many districts in Lima, each with their own town hall, mayor, and budget.

None of the vegetation we see is native to Lima, which actually is actually a desert. All the lush greenery is a façade that needs to be watered daily. Despite Miraflores being very overcast, its natural state most of the year, it almost never rains in Lima.

We then strolled towards the malecón. Miraflores is protected from tsunamis by being built so high above the ocean.

Stop signs in Peru say “Pare.”

Looking south.

Parque del amor was inspired by Parque Güell in Barcelona.

The statue is of the artist and his wife.

Here’s the road from the airport. It was built over the natural sand beach and then a manmade beach was rebuilt alongside it. This new beach could not hold sand, so all the beaches along this stretch of the coast are made of pebbles.

With the advent of electricity and homes lighting up the night, this lighthouse fell out of use.

Looking north towards the Parque de los chinos.

Fascinating building!

It is wedge-shaped.

It was along this stretch of the walk that we got a very brief recent history of Peru, the conflicts that made it a no-go zone when I was growing up, destroyed the economy, and still echo today. Peru hasn’t actually been open for tourism for that long. It reminded me a lot of visiting the Balkans. There were recent protests at Machu Pichu that affected tourists, and there were a lot of protests in Lima. I was repeatedly advised to stick to Miraflores, Barranco, the main avenues of the core of the historic centre, and to take taxis between these areas. I never felt unsafe in during my time in Lima, but this did not feel like the best time to be exploring Peru in general, at least not on my own.

The final stop on our tour was Parque de los chinos, to commemorate the importance of the Chinese in Peru. They were brought over in huge boatloads to fill the labour shortages after the abolition of the slave trade, then stayed and helped shape modern Peru. We were given examples of how the Cantonese language affects Peruvian Spanish. For example, soy sauce is “sillao,” which they say with a definitive Chinese accent! Another influence is the abundance of “chifa” restaurants, which serve Peruvian-Chinese cuisine, the name coming from the phrase “chi fan,” meaning literally “eat rice” but can be taken to mean “time to eat!”

The Japanese also play a large part in Peruvian cuisine, and their fusion cuisine is nikkei. I got the impression that chifa is more basic everyday food and nikkei is gastronomy, something that my research confirmed.

At the end of the tour, I declined help with taking a bus back to my hotel and instead chose to walk to my next activity, lunch!

Will you look at that! I had no idea Oxxo is in Peru!

Miraflores is very clean, with well maintained streets. I know there are really rough parts in Lima, but I never saw them. Yet, the parts outside of Miraflores that I did go through that were definitely less scenic and had graffiti also were clean with good streets. The vibe of what I experienced in Lima was more reminiscent of Spain than Mexico, but for the neighbourhoods climbing the hills around the city that definitely made me think of northern Mexican border towns.

I’m just so grateful for my life. It’s been a hard row to hoe to get here, but I really am starting to believe that I have “arrived.”

As the pandemic years began to recede in the rear-view mirror, I settled into my new career and budget, and house projects got completed, I slowly began to feel stuck. I’d expected that well before now, I would have got back into a travelling routine, taking advantage of my new place in the world to explore short-haul inexpensive flights to places I likely would have never considered exploring if I’d continued to live in the Canadian travel hellscape.

In September, I started to plan a November vacation, my second vacation of 2025, so that was already a huge quality of life improvement! The dogs’ dad and I had made an arrangement that when he came back to Mexico, he’d be available to house and cat sit. My original plan was to rent a car and go road tripping, maybe to Palenque. I started to crunch some numbers, and then stopped. It was time to think outside the box. A road trip isn’t a cheap vacation here, especially if you’re renting a car. Maybe instead of one big domestic trip, I could do a few small trips, including an international one! I decided to use Chat GPT as a travel agent and asked it where I could go with the following parametres:

-roughly $1,000USD budget for a week for flights, hotels, and major activities
-no more than two hours time difference
-direct flight of six hours or less from Mérida or Cancún
-destination country having a language of English, French, or Spanish
-primarily a city break, but opportunity for a quick day trip away from the city
-decent safety profile, especially for a solo female traveller

The answers were rather predicable and included CDMX, Guatemala City, San José, Panama City, Cartagena, Havana, Quito, Lima, and even wild cards of Madrid (jet lag) and Montevideo (no direct flights).

Lima immediately stuck out as being the best option — on a different continent (never mind hemisphere!), a culinary destination, a Spanish similar to Mexican, not yet overly touristy (looking at you, Cartagena), and being discoverable in only three days.

I don’t think I’ve ever made a travel decision this fast! I checked dates with my friend, compared flights to the ADO schedule to Cancún, and bought my tickets right then. I’m pretty sure I didn’t even sleep on the decision, that’ s how travel-hungry I was!

October and most of November flew by in a work haze. That’s year end for my industry, and then it’s dead quiet from American Thanksgiving well into January. I was hoping to be on vacation the Friday afternoon before I left on Monday, but didn’t get off until Sunday afternoon. I tried to not be annoyed, knowing that my clients would be off at the same time as me and so I’d enjoy a few days at home before work started to trickle in.

I don’t think I’ve ever been chill about a trip ever. I just did not have time to build up any anxiety about it. My attitude was that I just needed my passport and phone, Peru has stores, and come what may. Very unlike me, but I like it!

Packing was very easy on Sunday since my house is so organised now and I had plenty of spots in the house to set up packing stations for clothes, electronics, snacks, and toiletries. I’ve done a few trips now with this suitcase/purse/backpack combo, and it’s just right for a week-long trip. I picked out the packing cubes that best fill the suitcase and put the rest away for the next longer plane trip where I’d take a larger suitcase.

The weather in Lima promised to be cool by Mérida standards, like our mornings are right now, so I didn’t make any special purchases, just packing lightweight trousers and tee shirts with my favourite cardigan, and that wound up being the perfect outfit. I did add a fleece and two dresses that I didn’t need, but, really, my packing job was stellar.

While the flight from Cancún is short, I had to get to Cancún on ADO’s schedule. So Monday and Friday ended up being very long travel days from home to Peru and vice-versa, but the way they ended up coming together was exactly what I needed to enjoy my three full days in Lima.

I was up at 5:30AM on Monday to be ready for a 6:15AM Uber to take me to Altabrisa, where ADO would take me straight to T2 at Cancún airport, arriving about 11:30AM local time, with my flight not being until almost 6:00. A five-hour flight would have me in Lima by 11:00PM, and I was told to plan at least a full hour if not two for deplaning and transport to my hotel in Miraflores. I’d prebooked airport transfers with Taxidatum, so that definitely reduced a lot of stress.

As expected, I dozed on the ride to Cancún, so the trip flew by. Check-in and security at the airport were fast, and I had a full four hours to spend before boarding would begin. So I splurged on four hours at the MERA Lounge, and this experience was exactly what I needed to get off the adrenaline rush of the previous week of work and into vacation mode! I took full advantage of the free food and drinks, but spent most of the time in a cosy chair catching up on my true crime podcasts while colouring on my iPad.

The afternoon flew by and before I knew it, it was time to go to my gate, where I received a sweet confirmation:

I flew economy and did not want to pay the extra to choose my seat, so I was very grateful to have a window seat at the front of the plane! We were somewhere over Central America when the most amazing (and surprising) smell of buttery pastries starting wafting in from what I thought was premium economy, but the day held one more surprise for me as the attendants began to hand out warm ham and cheese paninis (the source of the smell), drinks, cake, and chocolate to the economy class passengers. I cannot remember the last time, other than, of course, Aeromexico business class, that I got a proper free meal on a plane.

Well fed, I drifted off to sleep shortly after we crossed the boundary between North and South America, to wake up on the other side of the Equator as we began our descent into Lima. What a quick and easy trip!

Arrival in Lima was painless and orderly, such a far cry from Canadian airports. I was processed in Spanish, with the questions being basic — First time in Peru? Where are you coming from and where do you live? How many days are you staying? Where are you staying? Welcome!

It wasn’t until I entered the arrivals hall that I remember to turn off Airplane Mode to find a Whatsapp from my driver. I was very early — I’d booked the car for 11:59PM and it was only about 11:20PM — but he was letting me know he was on site and to give him a heads-up when I was ready for pickup. We met up only a couple minutes later, with the parking being right outside the entrance to arrivals.

The trip to my hotel in Miraflores was very quick, with none of the notorious Lima traffic at that hour. The roads were in impeccable condition, and most of the drive was along the coast, before we climbed high up above the Pacific to the residential zone. You’ll learn more about this road in my next post.

The hotel boasts 24-hour reception, and there was someone waiting at the front desk. Check-in was smooth, and the room waiting for me at the end of such a long day was clean and had a shower with plenty of hot water and good pressure. It took a good couple of hours to wind down enough to finally get some sleep.

What an utterly amazing and perfect travel day!