NOVEMBER 2019
I wasn’t super excited that we had to spend some time in Lima, but after taking two night buses shortly after each other, we decided it was best that we had some rest before we started on the rest of our Peru adventure. We spent two nights in Lima, and after initially being quite shocked by some of the neighborhoods in this city, we did make the best out of it and enjoyed our time. When we visited it was over 20 degree celsius during the daytime, but we never saw any sun in Lima. Read on to discover what we did in Lima and beware that the photography light was awful…
Where to stay
We booked a hotel in the Miraflores area of Lima. I read that this was one of the safest options to stay in Lima and this is also where most tourists stay. We learnt in Bogota and Quito that these neighborhoods usually are not the most charming parts of the city, so we initially were not too excited to stay here. We arrived by night bus from Máncora (20 hours) and entered the city on the North side and this was the moment we were happy to stay in Miraflores in the South. Lima has almost 10 million inhabitants and the North part of the city looked extremely chaotic and rough, probably best not to stay there. Miraflores actually turned out quite nice, it is somewhat of a residential area, with gated houses and flats, but also had some cool street art and some colonial style buildings overgrowing with bougainvillea. Miraflores also has some streets with trendy, western style restaurants and a nice park, the Kennedy park, if you are looking for evening entertainment and shops. I did not find an interesting hotel deal in Miraflores, our hotel was € 32 per night, including breakfast and a private bathroom and it was fine.
Things we did
As Lima is an enormous city, there are a lot of things you can do. There is a good supply of (art)museums, definitely too much to do in one day, so we just picked some activities, which I will highlight below. I also heard good things about the Larco museum and the park with the fountains (Circuito Magico del Agua) but we did not end up visiting those.
Barranco: Barranco is a small neighborhood, close to Miraflores, and this is supposed to be the most bohemian spot in Lima. Barranco also features the “Puente de los Suspiros”, which is a bridge and when you walk over it you can do a wish, if you can hold your breath all the way over the bridge. Barranco was a really nice mix of colorful houses, flowers and street art and I would definitely recommend visiting this area.
Mate museum: In Barranco you can also find the Mate museum. This is a non-profit museum which features the work of Mario Testino, the most famous photographer of Peru. I love Mario Testino’s fashion shoots and was really excited about this museum. Downstairs the museum hosts a lot of pictures taken of celebrities, and upstairs you will find an exhibition about Princes Diana and about Peruvians from the Cusco area. Mario Testino creates a sexy and intimate atmosphere and we were very impressed by his work. The entrance price was 25 soles.
Plaza de las Armas: This is the most famous square of Lima and you will find some colonial style buildings here. I never really know what to do at these squares, but it felt weird visiting Lima and not going here. We spent about 10 minutes at the square and have to admit that the yellow buildings and the woodworks were pretty. I think doing a free walking tour would make this place more interesting.
Museo del Convento de San Francisco: I always wander through a colonial-style city from dome to dome. From the Plaza de las Armas we noticed the Basilico de San Francisco and decided to go in. While in the church I noticed that the building next door had an amazing patio with interesting tiling and we accidentally found a hidden gem! The building next door turned out to be an old Franciscanen Monastery turned into a museum and was super beautiful. What made this visit extra special is that Hielke’s uncle has visited this monastery during his missionary work and that we found it by accident.
Larcomar: Larcomar is a shopping center built in a cliff at the seaside of Miraflores. I thought Larcomar was a bit to western for me to be interesting, but the surrounding parks give way to a nice sea view. Unfortunately the weather was super gloomy during our days in Lima and I could only photograph grey skies… We also saw some people parasailing from this area, but I would rather do that somewhere with blue skies 😉
