Winter to Summer - A Month in the Summer Hemisphere - South America and South Pacific - Sightseeing in Lima

So, after our surprise of arriving and just loving Miraflores, our Belmond Miraflores hotel, and eating world class cuisine, now was our chance to see the highlights of Lima.

At 9am sharp, Gustavo from Incas Expert Travel and his driver, were waiting for us when we finished our Belmond breakfast, ready to conquer the world.

Kicking it with our guide Gustavo

One of the things we'd already groked in Lima is that a GPS may get you from point to point, but in a city growing as fast and large as Lima (11 million citizens and growing), you only get from point to point efficiently if someone who knows where the traffic tie-ups are and how to avoid them, is driving you.

Our first stop after traveling through Miraflores and San Isidro districts was Huaca Pucilana.


Huaca Pucilana is re-work in progress.  Built back in the 4th century A.D. it is now being restored, one brick at a time as our picture shows.  The guy at the bottom of the picture has a pile of bricks, which he is tossing to the guy in the middle, who in turn is tossing them to the guy in the top of the picture.  Once they have enough to complete another course, they start to work re-laying the ancient bricks.  In the picture directly below, you can see the completed courses and the unrestored courses above.  There is a lot of work to go but it is obvious that they are taking care to get things put properly back together to preserve their heritage.

Throwing 1500 Year old bricks 

Finished Product

Lima is truly a city of old and new.  It was a city in the time of the Pre-Incan and Inca eras, reutilized by the Spanish when they arrived and found Cusco to too difficult to run an empire from.  Today it is a mix of ancient, modern, and new with a clear mandate to restore and preserve their heritage.  At the same time though, Lima is experiencing the growth pains many countries are facing today as one third of the country's populace is now living in the greater Lima area.  Government services, infrastructure, and city planning are being challenged as more and more folks move from the countryside to find jobs in the city.  In addition to Peruvians, refugees from Venezuela and Bolivia are being welcomed and add to the influx.

Perhaps we didn't see the really "bad" areas in Lima on our travels around the city and surrounding districts but I can honestly say that while we saw some areas that were clearly less affluent than Miraflores or San Isidro, I didn't see any of the truly heart wrenching areas I've seen in other global urban aggregates where large numbers of people moving from rural areas to the metropolis are living in cardboard boxes and shipping containers under highway overpasses.

Another impression that will remain with us is that the Peruvian people living in Lima are into fitness and being outdoors.  Whether it was the number of folks taking surfing lessons right off the beach, work out classes in the parks or on the beach, and the soccer (football) players working out around pylons on sandy fields, it seemed like everyone is trying to stay fit amidst the hustle and bustle of city life.

As we drove into the city center, we were impressed by the well groomed parks, clean streets, and good looking architecture.  Turns out that the Historic Center of the city is UNESCO recognized proving once again that funding provided by UNESCO is put to good use by countries across the globe to preserve and protect their heritage for future generations and to the benefit of visitors like us.

Central Government Bulding

Empty Building

Paseo in the Shopping District

 The beautiful empty building above has an interesting story related to us by our guide Gustavo.  As many may remember, Peru in the 1980's faced many challenges.  Inflation was running 7000 (yes, three zeros)%, the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerillas were terrorizing the countryside, and lack of economic opportunity was creating an atmosphere of desperation - things were really bad.  As things in the city center deteriorated, the well-to-do folks living in this building and a number of others just like it, moved away to create new suburbs in San Isidro and Miraflores, leaving these buildings that were originally a mix of professional offices and apartments, completely empty.  While we couldn't see what the insides of these beautiful buildings looked like, the exteriors as evidenced in this picture show no external evidence of "urban blight".

In fact, I mentioned to Gustavo that as Lima continues to prosper and traffic into and out of the city's center continues to grow, I expect these buildings, bought up by far seeing and canny investors, will form the basis for the kind of gentrification we have seen in so many cities in the US and across the world.  Young urban professionals in Lima are already building smaller families than a generation ago so the large, single family homes sprinkled throughout the affluent suburbs won't be needed and the commute times to the City's center from the suburbs will continue to get longer.  There aren't any subways in Lima and making space for them amidst the growing pains of a city that was 300,000 25 or 30 years ago to one that exceeds 10 million today will be problematic.  It will be very interesting to see what happens in central Lima over the next 5 or 10 years.

Lima Cathedral

Everything in the Plaza de Armas is looking spiffy

Presidential Palace in the background

 Historically, Lima's connections to its time as a colony of Spain are treasured as part of their rich and blended cultural heritage.  As Gustavo walked us through the Cathedral of Lima, he pointed out the grave of Francisco Pizarro and walked us through the Peruvian equivalent of "Who's buried in Grant's tomb".  Apparently, a body on display for more than 100 years and believed to be Pizarro's was found to be someone else when the real remains of Pizarro were found in a long forgotten crypt.  Now both gentlemen are interred in adjoining crypts within the Cathedral.  As we walked throughout the church, Gustavo continued to point out interesting facts about what we were seeing and things we were seeing, but wouldn't have understood without his help.

Pizarro's Crypt

First off, the original construction of the church was in the traditional stone you'd see throughout Europe.  In fact, the church was built using an existing Inca temple as part of its foundation.  But unlike much of Europe, Peru is prone to earthquakes, so the vaulted stone ceilings came crashing down and were replaced by wood construction that was able to flex during earthquakes.  If we hadn't known they were built of wood, we wouldn't have noticed any difference to the hundreds of churches we've seen throughout Europe.


Next, there were slight variations in church symbology contained within the altars and magnificent paintings we could see on the walls.  These variations were deliberately added by Mestizo (mixed Spanish and Andean blood) craftsmen who did the actual crafting of the church's decorations and dedications.  Two particular examples stick in my mind...

First, the main altar was a combination of silver and gold.  While gold is the traditional color you'd expect to see in a Catholic altar, the silver worked into the design is a symbol of one of the Andean deities.  So the parishioners were getting a double blessing if you will.

The second example was a very large painting of the Last Supper hanging on the cathedral's wall.  Contained within the traditional scene of Jesus and the Twelve disciples were two local modifications.  First, one of the disciples was brown and rather than looking at Jesus, is looking directly at you, and second, the meal in the centerpiece of the scene was actually a guinea pig, adding more local "flavor" if you will. I wish we had pictures but unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures in this part of the church.

While more than 80% of Peruvian people today are Catholic by religion, the heritage of Incan and Pre-Incan spiritual beliefs managed to survive 400+ years of missionary influence.  In fact, one of the reasons why everything looked especially spiffy and clean during our visit is that Pope Frances was visiting Peru the following week.  Ironically, as Gustavo pointed out, despite the fact that the Spanish sought to destroy all remnants of existing worship and beliefs (and did a pretty good job throughout Peru of doing so), they were also the best chroniclers of what they found when they arrived and encountered the empire of the Inca.  So much of what is known today of what existed when the Spanish arrived, was preserved in their journals.

What I took away from our visit to Huaca Pucilana, the Cathedral of Lima and later on, to the Convent of San Francisco is the seamless blending of beliefs and history between two very different peoples and cultures.  As evidenced in the people of Peru today, it is all part of their shared story not one that stopped 500+ years ago, nor one that reviles those that tore down existing temples and destroyed 1000 years of pre-existing civilization.  As related to us by Gustavo, school kids in Peru are taught their entire history, Pre-Inca, Incan, Colonial, and modern in one continuous thread since it is this history that flows in their blood today.

Winter to Summer - A Month in the Summer Hemisphere - South America and South Pacific - Getting Ready #1

With a month to go, we're making our final preparations for a month long trip...  First off, what are we going to need to pack? When you think about what you need for a month, what are the things you have to focus on?  Think about the "C's" Clothes (and Shoes), Consumables (Cosmetics and Medicines), and Connectivity (Communications and Electronics)

So what do you think about when you think about packing your Clothes and Shoes?  First - weather will drive what you have to wear in order to be comfortable where you're going.  Weather on land or your port calls is a little easier since there are tons of places to get weather forecasts and seasonal averages.  One site we like to use for our cruise weather is Cruise Outlook - https://cruiseoutlook.com/reports - if you put your cruise in here, you will get the weather reports from each of your port calls - the free version starts the actual temps 7 days before you reach each port - in the meantime, you can add each port into your favorite phone weather app to start checking things.,

While Cruise Outlook is good for weather in ports, when you are heading out on long ocean transits, getting temperatures out on the water can be challenging -- and when you are doing an ocean crossing, you need to know to properly pack.  The best free site we've found is Sailwx.info - http://www.sailwx.info/ - there is a lot of cool information gathered on this page but relevant to our current discussion, if you click on the Weather Observations tab on the far right, you can select the Air Temperature and get a world wide map with all the temps in Celsius - I haven't figured out how to change this setting so I just use a converter.  We have also used Sailwx.info to see about whether or not we might have rough weather or cancelled tenders -- the wave height and wind speed charts are quite good - and sometimes more timely than what the ship may be sharing with you.  We knew before they told us that we wouldn't be getting off the ship in the Azores since the wind and wave observations were nasty - anyway, good information contained therein...

So once you know what the weather's expected to be where you're going, you need to consider what you're doing and how you're getting there.  On this cruise, we already know that Oceania doesn't have designated "Formal Nights" so I won't need a tux (sports coat is good enough) nor will my honey need several formal gowns with matching shoes.  Based on where we're going ashore, we know we'll be hiking at altitude (9-11k feet) with temps between 40 and 65 F with some rain, and wading around in tropical waters in temps in the mid to upper 80's -- air temps across the South Pacific will be in high 60's and low 70's.  So we're going to need some layers and we're going to need some beach togs - quite a challenge...

Just to make it a wee bit better, we're doing some stuff ashore - pre and post cruise - that will have have us hauling bags around so unless you're bringing a porter with you, consider how big and how many when you lay your bags out -- this gives you an idea of how many of the clothes  (and shoes) you've figured out in the step above you can actually bring with you.  There is nothing more stressful than hauling numerous big bags around -- unless said numerous big bags don't actually make it to your destination after an international flight :(....  If you can go "carry-on only" you eliminate a ton of heartburn but sometimes, you just can't get everything you really do need into something you can legitimately squeeze into an overhead bin (without a rubber hammer that is).  This multi-mode, 30 day trip is an example of a "No way without a checked bag" trip unless you are a SEAL or Green Beret and carry everything in your rucksack -- oh, and can radio in for a parachute drop of fresh clothes after a couple of weeks...

Speaking of fresh clothes, one thing to consider and investigate for long trips is the availability of washing machines or reasonably priced laundry service.  Oceania Marina does have launderettes aboard for self service laundry - better yet, Oceania just instituted a free laundry service (3 bags for our cruise) -- we used this service on board Oceania Insignia and were so happy with how our laundry came back.

So with clothes and shoes in mind, now you have to consider your bags, how you are going to pack them, and how you are going to configure or arrange them for hauling from place to place.  In our case, we have several different sets of luggage gathered over the years - since we're each going to check a bag, this bag has to roll really well (two big wheel vs. four little wheels) over varied surfaces and it has to have a way to hook our carry-on onto in order to make point to point walks, we're grabbing our REI rolling duffles purchased originally for a three week safari trip to Africa  (2005) as our primary bags.  Our carry-ons will consist of a small retro Travel Pro roller (more on that in a minute), a hand carry Bric bag and Travel Pro bag, and a backpack.

Here's a picture of our planned luggage ensemble...

Looks like a bunch

These wheels are great and roll smoothly

Our choice of luggage is based on what we have to take and some of the restrictions we face along the way - specifically, in Peru, we are flying from Lima to Cusco and once we get to Cusco, are training from Cusco to Machu Picchu - the train has an 11lb luggage limit plus your personal bag (purse or backpack).  So modes of transportation are an important planning factor in what you take and how you book your travel.  In our case, we are flying Business Class from Miami to Lima using miles so by staying within our weight limit, our checked bags will fly free (and we won't throw our backs out).  But the checked bags are too heavy to make the train trip so we needed to bring a small roller so we'd have clothes in Cusco and Machu Picchu -- the big REI rollers will stay at our hotel in Lima while we take our 4 day Cusco/MP.  By staying in the same hotel in Lima, they are willing to hold onto our bigger bags while we traipse around the high country of Peru.  Another potentially sticky spot in our itinerary is our day/night in Moorea after disembarking from Oceania Marina -- in this case, we'll be walking from our cruise ship to the air terminal to catch a short flight from Tahiti to Moorea for our overwater, overnight stay at the Moorea Intercontinental.  We already know we can store a bag at the airport overnight so we'll pack light of the short flight and store everything else.

Other pre-trip considerations... 

We have a full up medical kit with anti-biotics, bandaids, travelers revenge pills, and new for this trip, a "Stop the Bleed" kit (tourniquet, and treated gauze bandages). We never have more than a hangnail or shaving nick but just in case, we're ready.

Plug adaptors on international travel are an important item to pack - and on Oceania - two plugs are US style and the other two are European round plugs - this time we will be able to use all four plugs.  A good site for determining what kind of plug adaptors or electrical transformers you'll need is: https://whatplug.info/from/usa/to/peru

If you're taking a cruise, finding your "Roll Call" can be a great way to meet your fellow cruisers and even coordinate shared shore excursions.  Cruise Critic is the place to find your roll call - here's a link to the roll call page:  https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=34  We needed four folks to reserve a snorkel trip -- so we posted that we were looking for another couple to do a snorkel trip and found them in two days flat.  Many cruisers are really experienced too - so you can get some really good information on the ship or your ports from your fellow cruisers.

Two more days to go - better get this one posted and start thinking about getting checked in for our flight to Lima...