Day 1 - Lima

Our Lima hotel is in the Miraflores neighborhood, which is safe, colorful, full of restaurants and very close to the ocean. After walking around a little, we touched base with the friends from Germany we are meeting here. They were at the Central Market and we made plans to meet up there. 

At the reception desk of the hotel, I asked if they could call us a cab to take us to the Central Market and showed it to her on a Google map. She gave me a “are you sure you want to go there?” look but then called a cab. When the cab showed up, I pointed to the location on my Google map. He gave me a similar look and off we went.

As we travelled, our surroundings got progressively grimier and more impoverished, and Martha and I started to give each other that same look. It didn’t help that a few minutes from the market while we were stuck in gridlocked traffic, a guy stepped off the sidewalk and peed right next to our cab because the cars offered a little privacy. And then we were at our destination. I asked the driver if it was safe and he said (I am translating here) “Yes. More or less. At least at this time of day. But be careful.” And then I realized that because Lima is so enormous there are many "Central Markets" and we were probably at the wrong one and all of a sudden Martha and I missed our Miraflores neighborhood with its safe, colorful surroundings. So without getting out the cab, back we went.

We got some coffee, 

spent the afternoon walking along the ocean 

. . .and had some terrific ceviche. 

In the evening we finally met up with our friends and wandered around the art-heavy Barranco neighborhood and then remembered that other than a few naps, we'd been awake for more than 36 hours and had been wandering around since more or less 4 this morning. That realization pretty much ended our first day. Tomorrow, up at 5 am and off to Paracas.