Lima, Peru by Kev

5.11.2025. The bus trip continues. Mel had shown me some pictures of Lima, and their excitement was obvious. Mel is a big city person and Lima is a big city. Around 11 million people call this place home, not including tourists. As we rolled into the outskirts of the city, there was one thing I noticed. Rubbish. I thought I was back in India for a bit. Tuktuks (Auto taxi here), broken sidewalks, powerlines running everywhere, half dodgy looking houses and rubbish. Once off the bus we grabbed a taxi and headed to our apartment. As we got closer to the historic centre, it got a lot nicer. Our apartment was strategically picked to be close to the historic centre, as that's where the stuff to see is. Bags got chucked into the room and we headed back out on our usual supply run. We went for a walk later that evening around the main plaza near the central cathedral. At night it is a beautiful place.
6.11 to 9.11.2025. We walked a lot of the city. We visited cathedrals and museums. We walked the historic centre and visited areas like Miraflores and Barranco. We had read a few other people's writings on their trip to Lima for some ideas. They suggested to stay near Miraflores and the likes as it is a “newer” area. That they felt safer there. More touristy is more like it. We never ventured out into the slum areas in the outskirts, but not once anywhere we went did we feel uncomfortable. I preferred the historic part more. The older architecture has got this new stuff beat hands down. It very seldom rains in Lima, so the streets don't get a flush out very often. Lots of places stank, piss everywhere. From dogs or people or both. Lima was definitely not my favourite place to stay. There's lots to see and do. Like the opera for instance. There's more museums than you can count, and bars and restaurants and music everywhere. I did enjoy my time here, but I felt I was let down a fair bit in my expectations. Anyway the 9th came and guess what? We got on another bus.
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