Lima, Peru
16 hours in Lima, let's go!!!
When booking our tickets with miles from United, we saw this flight that would allow us to stay in Lima for the day. We were pumped.
The flight landed at 8:30AM, and we had to collect our bags and figure out where to put them for the day. Luckily immigration was easy, and using the storage lockers for a day wasn't too crazy. Taxi's and traffic in general in Lima are a different story. Loco.
They strongly recommend purchasing a taxi from one of the designated vendors inside the arrivals gate. I checked the prices on them when leaving, and they were decently priced. $18 to take us on a 40 minute ride worked for us. We've certainly paid more for a much shorter distance. Hesitating before going back in, I asked information how to get a taxi, and if I could get one out of the terminal. She told me what we thought was true, and gave us grave concern on making sure we didn't step outside without a professional company. Private taxi's in Lima are known to drive farther than you need to go, rob you of your belongings, and people have also been known to follow tourists. Anyway, we got the professional cab and off we went!
Two neighborhoods we wanted to seek out. Barranco was further away, so we went there first. A really quaint and cute neighborhood overlooking the coast on top of a massive hill. Cute churches, cafes, walkways, and parks highlighted this neighborhood for us.
We then walked about a mile north to Mira Flores. This was a little more urban, and wasn't anything I thought to write home about. They have a very nice outdoor mall overlooking the coast, and it's built within the hill. That's awesome, but it's still a mall. Further inland, there is a park surrounded by typical touristy restaurants. We were starving but decided to walk back to the mall, and eat at one of the places overlooking the coast. It was gorgeous, and the meal was great. It was a fun meal to have as a wrap up to our adventures.
Getting back to the airport was insane. We saw a motorcycle with someone on the back get hit by a car. The motorcycle driver got up and was trying to open the car door of the guy that hit him. Our driver was flying around, sometimes using signals, sometimes not. It was actually really impressive how he didn't get in an accident.
Lima was a really fun stop over. I'm happy we did it, but I might just head to Machu Picchu the next time I'm in Peru, and skip Lima.