Today’s plan is to go into the Historical area of downtown Lima. Mary our lady at our Hostel/Hotel gives us directions and an empty transit card that we will need to load with the amount of money we will need for return fares. After breakfast of buns, fruit salad, mini bananas, some juice we aren’t sure what kind and coffee we are off to  the center of Lima.

We navigate getting the card loaded and with broken Spanglish we make our way down to the electric bus that will take us downtown. There is a below grade highway that has dedicated lanes for the buses and at least 3 lanes for cars. As we speed along we are happy that we are on the bus and not in a cab. Traffic as we suspected yesterday seems to be busy busy all day, every day!

We disembark the bus at the Central Station and with the help of some very helpful locals make our way up to street level where we wander about looking at the wares the street vendors are offering and trying to get our bearings.

There is a walking tour in our guide book that we thought would be a great starting point. In other cities both Stu and I and Greg and Leslie have used the “Free” walking tours that are offered. You tip the guide at the end whatever you feel the tour is worth. After reading some very bad bad reviews on TripAdvisor on the free walking tour in Lima we decide to do a self guided tour.  As in many cities, outside of North America the street names seem to have a common theme.  “Hide and Seek”!!    Once we know where we are we are able to wander using our guide book as a resource.

There are lots of police around Lima today.  We aren’t sure if this is normal or due to impending elections.  Parque de la Muralla along the Rio Rimac is closed altogether.

We end our tour by walking through Lima’s Chinatown.  This is a very busy area with many many street vendors.   Here is a cart loaded with grapes.  We see a lady with a cart carrying  large Coke bottles filled with a cloudy orangey coloured foamy liquid.  She will pour you a glass if you like.  Another old fellow calling out what sounds to us like “Cherry Cola”.  This is in 2 clay pots on his cart.  He ladles this into cups for you.

We make our way back to the Central Station where we will catch the bus back to Miraflores.  It is about 4:30 and it definitely is now rush hour.  We are watching jam packed buses go past us heading to different destinations.  A very full bus pulls up to where we are standing in line.  A couple experienced people squeezed themselves on the bus.  The rest of us wait for the next one.  It isn’t as full as the previous one and after making contingency plans on what to do if we get separated, we all make it onto the bus.  This is an experience in itself.  It is standing room only for the first while.  At one stop a couple of ladies vacate their seats and Leslie and I grab them only to find that our stop is next and we need to start to make our way towards the doors so that we don’t get left behind.

Once we get off the bus we head back toward Inti Killa to find a Happy Hour beer before returning for a bit before dinner.

Mission accomplished!  In the cool little street filled with restaurants and bars.

Off home for a rest before dinner at the little Wine Bar next our place.  Very nice dinner!