Lima, Peru

We arrived in Lima at 7am Friday 25th July. Pretty tired, but very excited. Our adventures could finally begin and we’d have no more mishaps. Right?

Wrong.

About 5 minutes after taking the above picture in Miraflores, Elijah realised he’d left his phone on the bus from the airport. Luckily (?), we had to wait a little while before we could leave our bags at our apartment, so we sat in the park with some local delicacies and spent some time ringing the bus company and making plans to get the phone back. Ah, teenagers.

The first things we tried were “Chicha Morada” and “Cachanga”. Chicha morada is a drink made from purple corn – quite sweet, but with hints of spices too. Cachanga is a type of flatbread with various fillings (we tried olive, cheese and chocolate – not together!) and toasted. Delicious!

Once we’d finished our snacks and Operation Phone Retrieval was in place, we made our way to our apartment to dump our bags. With some questionable Spanish and lots of hand gesturing (including negotiating with a maintenance man doing a fire alarm check in our apartment), we were in!

Next on the list was a bit of a swim in the rooftop pool (for the girls) and a stroll through Lima to pick up the phone (for the boys).

The pool wasn’t heated, so it was very “invigorating”! Kate and Donna managed a solid 30 seconds, but the younger ones were in until their faces turned blue.

Once we were all showered and fresh again, we headed out to visit some local markets and sample some more local delicacies – the best one being “pecorinos”, which are doughnut-like sweet treats made from sweet potatoes and covered in syrup. Yum.

After watching the sunset over the bay, we were starting to flag, so headed to a restaurant for supper. The food was delicious, and we were even given free starters (octopus ceviche, a shot of spicy “soup” and some kind of potato ball), accompanied by a Pisco Sour shot. By the end we weren’t just flagging…. jet lag/travel exhaustion was well and truly kicking in and the kids were falling asleep in their food.