Finding the Perfect Picture in Peru

They say everything happens for a reason, but I'm not too sure there is a good reason for missing our flight from Bogotá to Lima. Luckily, our connecting flight from Medellin to Bogotá was delayed, which essentially was the reason why we missed our flight. So we had to do a little complaining to the airline company so that they could put us on the next flight to Lima. We spent all day Thursday stuck at the airport and pretty much wasted the entire day. When we finally landed in Lima, it was about 10:30 pm (we were originally supposed to be in Lima at 4pm). As soon as we walked outside, it was complete mayhem. It felt like we were celebrities walking down the red carpet. Taxi drivers lined up on both sides of us holding signs with people's names. Every short person, (because it is true, people in Lima are tiny) we passed by came up to us and said one word, "taxi?" This literally went on for 20 minutes. We were bombarded with people coming up to us asking if we needed a taxi. When we told them no, they continued to explain why we needed a taxi and why we should ride with them. Every single time we walked by someone this happened. We got so frustrated that we went back into the airport to wait for our Uber. Inside the airport was our safe zone, outside the airport was the battle grounds. I became so frustrated because now we couldn't connect with our Uber driver because the wifi was terrible, so I knew the only way we were getting out of this terrible airport was to take a cab from one of these obnoxious and annoying taxi people. So we walked away from the mess about a 10 minute walk and found a quieter spot outside the airport to grab a cab and take us to our hostel, Pariwana. We were glad to just be out of the hell hole.

Our hostel, Pariwana, is located in the Miraflores district, which is the nice part of Lima. The hostel is really cool, it has a great vibe and there is a bar upstairs, which is always great. By the time we got back to the hostel it was 12:30 am, we were exhausted, sweaty, and we stunk. It was a very long day so we couldn't wait to shower and sleep and hope that tomorrow would be a better day.

Day 2- Our goal today was too see as much as Lima as possible and we did just that. First off, let me say that the traffic in Lima is like no other traffic that I've ever seen. It's complete chaos. There are no such thing as stop signs, people don't believe in staying in their lanes and people just honk their horns for no reason. We took an Uber from our hostel to the downtown Lima district. I had thought that this would be a nice part of the city, however, I was wrong. Our Uber driver was telling us to be careful because the part of the city we had thought was safe was actually quite dangerous and many people get robbed at gunpoint. We were planning on walking throughout the area, however our Uber driver convinced us otherwise. I believe we would have been just fine because we don't look like your average tourist and we blend in well. But I'd rather be safe than sorry, so we signed up for a bus tour instead of walking around the city. The tour took us around the city where we were planning on walking but taking the double decker bus tour was more efficient, easy on our feet, and we got to see what we wanted to see in quicker period of time. The sights included: the cathedral of Lima, archbishop's palace of Lima, Basilica of San Francisco, and Cerro San Cristobal. The main attraction is Cerro San Cristobal and if you don't know what that is, don't worry I'll explain what it is. The Cerro San Cristobal is a huge cross that sits atop a mountain high above Lima. It's kind of like the little cousin of Christ the Redeemer (if you don't know what that is, then you'll have to wait till I go to Brazil to explain that one). We took tons of pictures at the top of the mountain, but the weather was so bad it was hard to find a picture that looked good. The sky was pure white. No sun, no clouds, just a white muggy sky. It was really hard to get the perfect shot. After we left atop Cerro San Cristobal the tour bus took us back to the main square of Lima, however, we weren't done with Cerro San Cristobal. We saw this really cool picture on Instagram a couple weeks ago and it was a picture that showed all the favelas and the Cross in one shot. It was a really awesome shot, so being the photographer extraordinaire that I am, we went to find the spot that the picture was taken from. Now, what I didn't tell you is that the Cerro San Cristobal sits atop the slums of Lima. We are talking the super poor people of Lima who are fortunate enough to just have a roof over there heads. This is the part of town that tourists don't visit. Now, we visited the slums in Colombia and we were fine and so what the hell, let's give it another try and visit the slums of Lima. Our Uber driver highly recommended us not to go to the slums and he sounded afraid to take us there. So we drove around for a while scoping out the best place to get "the shot". We had our Uber driver pull over and park on the side of the rode while we got out and walked about a quarter mile to this bridge. I had my camera hidden underneath my jacket and Aaron had his GoPro tucked away in his bag. We thought that perhaps being elevated would make for the perfect shot. Nope. We were wrong. After nonchalantly taking a few pictures, we decided that this would not work and walked back to the Uber as quickly as we could. When we got back we told our Uber driver that we needed to go deeper into the slums to get the shot. So he drove through the slums until we found this cool little mural painting. I had the Uber driver stop as I scoped the area and thought that this would make for the perfect shot. We had our Uber driver get out and watch our backs as we took pictures of the area. Even though it wasn't the same shot as the picture we had seen, we still came away with some really cool shots and we didn't get robbed, or so we thought...

Cruising the slums of Lima can be very tiring and we grew quite an appetite trying to find the perfect spot for the perfect shot. So we had our Uber driver (the same one we had all day) drop us off at La Mar Cebicheria (yes, that is spelled right). They are known for having the best ceviche in Lima and after trying the ceviche, I would say that it is probably the best ceviche I have ever had. Highly recommend this place if you are ever in Lima, you will not be disappointed. When it came time to pay the bill I had realized I was missing one thing. The most important thing you need on a month long trip across South America. I was missing my wallet!

Right now you are probably thinking, "oh no, what are you going to do without your wallet?" Luckily, I'm no dummy. Remember how I told you that we took pictures in the slums? Well before we got out of the Uber, I took my ID, debit/credit cards, and most of my money out of my wallet and I stuffed it into my shoe because if I'm going to be walking in the slums, a place where people get robbed, I'm going to put my valuables in a place they wouldn't check. Smart move right? I thought so. But little did I know that the one person that would end up robbing me was the Uber driver. That's right, I left my wallet in the Uber. Now the good thing about losing things in an Uber is you can contact them if you're missing things right? Not if you're in another country, apparently. I tried contacting Uber and the driver and I got nowhere. So it is highly unlikely that I get my wallet back as we leave for Cusco on Sunday. Luckily for me, I only lost some gift cards, my insurance card, and 60 sol (18 American dollars). Let's call that a win and move on.

Day 2-

After a fun night of dancing the night away, we woke up super early at like 11:30am. I'm joking we slept in, of course, and for good reason. We started our day at Huaca Pucllana, which is a very old clay pyramid. It was pretty cool and the city of Lima did a nice job of preserving it and building around it instead of destroying it. After touring Huaca Pucllana, we went to this really nice restaurant called Popular de Aquí y de Alla. We originally planned on eating at Mango's but when we walked up to the restaurant, we fell in love with the view of the beach. So we found a spot that looked out into beach and ate there. It wasn't until after lunch that we found out we weren't at Mango's, oh well. The food and drinks were amazing, although expensive, it was worth it. As we were sitting there we saw some people paragliding and immediately thought, let's do that! So we walked about a half a kilometer and found the paragliding spot where people were jumping off the mountain. We signed up and we were fitted with the equipment and then paired with a paraglider. It happened quick. We couldn't believe we were about to paraglide in Peru. We were thinking this would be the perfect shot to capture all of Peru. We were ready. I went first and walked to the jumping area. Literally, this place was on top of the beach on this little overhang and all we had to do was jump off it. As I was mentally preparing myself for what was about to happen, the operator told us that we had to wait five minutes for the wind to cooperate. After five minutes, I was ready to go, however, the wind was still not cooperating and eventually the operator gave us the bad news that because the wind was not consistent, it was unsafe to paraglide. We were disappointed that we were unable to paraglide and once again failed to get the perfect shot of Peru.

We ended up walking back to our hostel after our failed attempt to paraglide and get ready for the night. When we arrived at the hostel, Aaron was super excited and I had no idea why. It turns out one of his college friends was checking into the hostel we were staying at. He introduced me to his friend Dash and we chatted for a bit before realizing that Dash was here with four other friends who went to San Diego State with Aaron. What a small world, totally unexpected, so random. I took it as a sign that the night was going to be another wild one. We all got ready and headed to the Barranco district, which is about a 15 minute cab ride. This district was really cool, it's the type of place that you go to if you want to dance in Lima and dancing we did, a lot of it. We went to a few different nightclubs and danced the night away. By the end of the night, my shirt was drenched in sweat. Salsa and meringue dancing can be quite the workout. We had a blast. It was one fun/awesome last night in Lima.

Thanks for the good times Lima, but we are off to Cusco to find the perfect shot.

Somewhere deep in the favelas underneath the Cerro San Cristobal

#favelas #travel #Lima #Peru