Leaving Peru

I don't know or don't remember how this came up but, when we were at my friend Loren's wedding, his friend Catherine's husband leaned in and told Kiah and I "Lima reminds me or Iraq." Kiah and I turned to each other and before we could say anything in response, we were interrupted by the festivities of the evening. Kiah and I talked about it later. Lima reminded him of Iraq? That's pretty bad. Lima, at least the part that Kiah and I were in, does not have any charm to speak of. To be fair, we hadn't ventured far since we were only in Lima for the wedding but still, the part we did see, was not anything that subdued us into leaving Lima with a good impression. 

Our last night we spent in Miraflores, the upper class area of Lima. They had named brand hotels, American restaurants,  tourists and the beach. It was beautiful and totally was the exact opposite of the first couple days of Lima. Our hostel was very party esque and down the street from a drive thru Starbucks. We spent the last day walking around, shopping and eating typical Peru food that we hadn't gotten earlier in the trip. I finally got my ceviche. Yum. And my papas salchichas from a specialty restaurant that only had various flavors of papas salchichas.  Felt like a little kid again. 

As with any big metropolitan town you imagine some sort of public transportation. The buses in Peru are large vans that have general street or suburb names listed on the side of the van but you don't know exactly where that van is heading until someone hops out of the van while it is still in motion and shouts where the bus will be off to next. In reading blogs and books about Peru, everything recommended taking taxis....I stand by that fact. 

When we first arrived in Lima, we saw tons of dogs. The only thing that all the cities we have visited have in common is that there are TONS of stray dogs that roam the streets. Although, sometimes it was hard to tell if they were stray or loose but regardless, each city had dog, after dog just walking around the city. In one city, Kiah turned to me and said "this country has the most dogs I have ever seen. And I've never seen half of these breeds before." The dogs aren't rabid, they aren't vicious, they don't beg, they were just there....in the background of all of these cities. They all looked well fed and would casually just meander around the town or watch you as you walked by. 

However, walking around Miraflores we didn't see ANY dogs. We saw only cats. We found where all the cats live. Of course they lived in the posh area of town. They invaded the parks, streets and stores. The opposite of the rest of Peru. It was so weird. 

All in all it was such a whirl wind trip that when we tell people I get tired trying to remember what we did. Each day wad a different adventure and I'm glad Kiah and I had the samr attitude-"go big or go home"