We just finished three terrific weeks in Lima. It was so wonderful I was sad to leave and I know that we will be back!
During the past two weeks since I’ve written we enjoyed an easy pace exploring. The week of the 5th we celebrated with a lovely dinner at Huaca Pucllana. I visited another pyramid in town called Huaca Huallamarca. Like Huaca Pucllana, it was built to serve as a ceremonial and funerary center by the ancient Lima culture. I also visited the adorable turtles in Parque Olivar again. I checked out the Centro Cultural PUCP where there was an exhibit called Las Manos que Danzan where I got to see some of the amazing masks, puppets and sculptures created by Edmundo Torres.
Friday night the 9th we went to DanSa and it was as awesome as the reviews said it would be. The food, drinks, music and dancing were truly spectacular. How they were able to create such good food from all over Peru; ceviche, stuffed peppers, duck and lamb, for so many people was an impressive feat. I’m so glad we went!
The next day we were able to meet our friends one more time for lunch at El Aguajal which specializes in delicious food from the Amazon. Think cured meats, plantains, chicken and incredible spices. After lunch we visited the Museo Larco. It is a museum that has a very impressive private collection of Pre-Columbian art. On Sunday the 11th we finally made it to Barranco. Barranco was founded in 1874 and is known for its Colonial architecture, colorful murals, churches, lively bars and ocean views. It was a wonderful day.
Last week in Lima I visited the beach, returned to Barranco to visit the Lima Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC). We went to Carnaval Bar which is on the list of the top 50 bars in the world and had some fun and tasty drinks. I also visited The Place of Memory, Tolerance and Social Inclusion is a museum in Lima, Peru, dedicated to the Peruvian internal conflict of the 1980s and 1990s. The week finished off with a delicious dinner at Song Peruvian Cuisine Fusion restaurant not too far from our place. We got fortune cookies to finish off the meal and we both got the same fortune! It said “La vida es una aventura, atrévete.” It directly translates as “life is an adventure, dare.” When I looked into the word atrévete further, as I had never heard it before, it is slang and basically means to dare to have the courage to get out of the ordinary, leaving the conventional things. How apropos?! I asked the server if all the fortunes were the same since Dave and I got the same one so he brought us two more cookies and I got the same fortune a second time! I wonder if the universe was telling us something? 😉
This past Saturday we made the transition from Lima to Puerto Rico. We have been to PR one other time, 10 years ago, and only for a long MLK weekend. We loved it when we were here and wanted to return and have more time to explore the island since our last visit we only saw Isla Verde and the area around Old San Juan. It was a long day since we had to get up at 245 am and everything went smoothly. After we landed we picked up our rental car at the San Juan Airport we drove to Ponce where we’re spending the week. We arrived around 8pm after a pit stop in Caguas for some incredibly delicious tacos and queso fundido at La Matraca Taqueria. Whoever wrote that some of the best food can be found in a strip mall was definitely talking about this place!
Aside from still being able to practice my Spanish, I kinda feel like I’m having reverse culture shock after being out of the United States for the past five months. We’re north of the equator, using US dollars and have 5G. We also are noticing how much more expensive things have gotten since we left, especially compared to South America. I went to the grocery store yesterday and it was comparable to Norwegian prices! 🤣
Since we’re only here for the week we wanted to use Sunday to explore the area. We didn’t realize how remote the place we booked was. This realization was similar to what happened to us when we were in the middle of nowhere in Southern Ireland. Needless to say, even after almost two years of experience, the learning curve is still very steep. And, we had an opportunity to put into practice all that we have learned about going with the flow. It could always be worse. Our Air BnB is really nice and the additional cost to extend our car for the week was small compared to the alternative of being somewhat stranded. Now we’re able to see and do things as we hoped.
After a trip to the Ponce airport, luckily we didn’t have to drive all the way back to San Juan, another blessing, we finally began our day of exploring around noon. We started out by trying to find a La Soplaera Waterfall that was recommended to us by our host. The waterfall was supposed to take 45 minutes to get to, and we had to abort our mission a little over an hour in when Google brought us to a very steep gravel road on what seemed to be a farm in the mountain. We decided to make the smart choice and changed course for La Parguera.. La Parguera is a cute little town on the water near the southwestern end of the island. It has shops, bars and restaurants. We did a little exploring and got some information on a bioluminescent bay tour we might try and take later this week. We finished off our day in the center of Ponce peeping at the historic architecture and eating a delicious pizza. I also had ranch for my first time since December and it was delicious!
I’m looking forward to having the car to drive around and explore for the first time since the US/Canada portion of this adventure, almost a year ago now. I’m also SUPER excited that I get to finally see some of my family in just four days!!! My dad, sister, and my two youngest nephews are coming to visit for a few days and I can’t wait! I haven’t seen my dad and sister since the end of January and I haven’t seen my nephews since Christmas. I am very much looking forward to some quality time together and am incredibly grateful to them for making it happen!
I hope you are doing well and I’m sending you a universe of love wherever you are!
Alison
PS Dave has been working really hard on his data collection from our adventure and has created a very cool site where you can view it. He added a tab to the home page of our Out of the Swamlows website entitled “travel data” so definitely take some time to check it out. It also has its own link: Data.outoftheswamlows.com
