I slept a good 7 hours Wednesday night, which is a lot for me, and helped make up for the little sleep I got on the 22-hour trek here. Ash slept longer, and by the time he got up the blog was pretty much done and we went down to breakfast about 6:45am.

The dining area was nice with lots of wood. The breakfast was pretty typical hotel breakfast items, nothing different than we’d get at home. It was good, but nothing worth showing photos of!

The first order of the day was haircuts. We’d put ours off until we got here because we like to get them while we’re traveling. This was a place a woman at the hotel recommended and was just about a half a mile away. The guys were super nice.

They did a great job, and it was way cheaper than anything we’d get at home. In the end these haircuts were about $15 each, including tip. That’s one of the reasons we wait!

Walking to our next destination, I was struck by this building. It looks like it’s about to fall apart but people are living there. And yet…

…next to it was this super nice gym, looking pretty new. And behind me to my immediate right is the Crowne Plaza hotel. A lot going on for one intersection.

One of the things we were shopping for was a silver picture frame we wanted to get as a wedding present for some friends back home. We did find one, but would have to come back later after it was engraved. At another jewelry store – of which we walked into so many I lost count – we finally found the other thing we were looking: new rings for us. I’d mentioned yesterday this is an anniversary for us and it goes like this: we practice something called handfasting, an ancient pagan commitment practice in which the participants commit to each other for a year and a day, and at the end theoretically either could walk away without any questions ask. It was something Ash knew about and proposed in May of 2021 about six months into dating, and I agreed. This is our fourth one, and we decided that part of our tradition will be to be in a different city and to get a new set of rings each time. The actual day this year is Monday, May 27, and we planned long ago to get the rings in Lima. Last year’s came from Johannesburg, and the first set from Paris. A fun little tradition, no?

After the rings we arranged – we found a guy who would make them for us right then – we walked back to the hotel to get some cash. Just around the corner from that jeweler, we encounter Rufus, this huge shaggy dog that latched onto Ash and kept playing with him. No owner to be found but we encountered him a bit later and that’s how we found out his name.

We came across this park that had a section which served as some kind of sanctuary for cats, with food, water, and little beds made out of boxes. All of them seemed very friendly.

In the same park, we came across this interesting tree with this trunk that looks sort of like a screw, and I loved the pretty flowers in front of it.

At the end of the park was a church.

It was Catholic of course, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary – so no crucifix over the altar. I don’t think I’ve seen that happen before.

Next to the church was this interesting government building. When we’d first approach this from the other direction on our way to the jewelry district we thought it was a church!

This sign was across from that government building at the edge of the park. “Miraflores, you live better.” Miraflores is the neighborhood we are staying in. We saw another of these signs again later in the evening but were confused because approached it from a completely different angle and couldn’t believe it was the same sign. And it turns out it wasn’t – a smaller version of the park picks up again on the other side of the church for another block or so, and that’s what we encountered later.

The point of this photo is the Walk sign, currently showing 66: Each time it tells you how many seconds you have until it changes again, which we found quite handy. Red usually does it as well but not always.

Above and below: interesting murals on the sides of building.

While at the hotel we figured out what we wanted to do for lunch using TripAdvisor, this place being #1 “nearby” and #128 out of 2439. A Pez Amigo = A Fish Friend.

There was just one other table seated when we arrived around 1pm but it was pretty full when we left.

At first this looked like a bowl of banana chips with salsa, but as we ate them we uncovered the roasted corn we like at the bottom of the cup.

We started with a langostino ceviche. Yes, again. Ceviche is the national dish of Peru so it’s everywhere, and I’m here for it. This was better than the night before I thought – cleaner and you could really taste the lime. If you don’t know: ceviche is raw fish “cooked” in lime juice, usually with raw onions and maybe a bit of cilantro, and here now 2 for 2 served with corn and sweet potato. Culinary experts agree it’s been served this way here for 2000 years. We also learned Peru is the home of the potato, making its way to Europe in the 15th century. There are over 4000 varieties of potato here. Now you know.

Above is Ash’s ravioli, filled with cheese, in a pumpkin sauce with shrimp. He loved it. As I did mine: a grilled meaty white fish, corvina or in English croaker, with this creamy crab sauce on top and covered in a layer of parmesan that’s been broiled to get that char. This meal rivaled the one the night before, still can’t say which one I liked better. And both were pretty reasonably priced compared to what we’re used to, the night before being about $75 and this one about $65. That includes tip.

Before we were done with lunch the girl from the frame shop texted to say it was ready, so that was our first stop when we were done.

And then we got our rings next, which were ready well before the 3pm he promised them. Simple silver rings, I liked the new ones he made for us better than the model – very shiny! Total cost: about $44. We’ve never spent much on our rings – it’s the symbol we want, not the jewelry itself – and these are the cheapest yet.

We went back to our room to rest for a bit then made our way out again by car around 4pm. We drove south to the hills we can see from our room where that lighted cross was, which you saw from the previous entry. We came across this little area to park and encountered this statue, a tribute to a man named Miguel Grau, “the Peruvian of the Millenium” – in this case meaning the 1800s, famous for being “the world pioneer of human rights.”

And here is that cross. It’s just a steel frame, completely unimpressive until it’s lit up.

Looking back up the edge of the Pacific into Lima. It’s shame it’s been so cloudy – looks like that will continue today.

We walked a bit around the road to watch the waves and see what else there is to see. These guys were fishing on the rocks without poles, just the line attached to a stick.

Ash loves his selfies, with us from that spot above.

This was the view to our left. We walked over to that incline in the middle where those people are.

Some of those people were a family taking photos for a Quinceanera. We also encountered a cliff diver who dove into the water with a rope attached to him that he then used to climb back up. That’s a restaurant above that didn’t seem to be open yet.

We went back to the hotel to drop off the car and then went out again to walk in some new areas before dinner. Above and below capture this area of Lima pretty well – cliffs, freeway, beach, all next to each other. I couldn’t decide which one to use so I used both!

A pretty park along the cliffs with windblown trees.

This whole area was built in a crevice, like maybe it used to be a river bed or something. It was a huge recreational area built lower than street level for the building surrounding it, with a much lower street there to the far left.

There were tennis and racquetball courts, and several soccer fields, this one with a girls team playing with their coach.

I took this photo of the tennis court for the sign, to remind me this whole area was the Las Terrazas Tennis Club of Miraflores. There was a big building behind me with the same name. It was a huge complex. Definitely not the poor side of town.

A photo of us on a bridge going over that lower road.

We both landed on the same place for dinner perusing TripAdvisor so figured we should check it out: Barra Maretazo.

This was very highly rated and we decided by the end that it was because it was decent food very reasonably priced, but certainly wasn’t the best food we’ve had. But the whole meal was just $36, roughly half what we’d paid the last couple of times.

Starters on the house: ceviche, leche de Tigre (a sort of milk from which you can make ceviche), and a mashed potato ball that tasted like potato salad back home, just mushier.

We got the octopus ceviche for an appetizer. With the toast and avocado, it was a nice mixture of textures. And of course, the cup of roasted corn on the side.

Ash had a crab salad, I had short ribs. The ribs were well done, but the rest of it pretty bland.

We went back to the hotel and up to the rooftop restaurant for dessert. This is grilled pineapple with coconut ice cream covered in pina colada foam. Yummy.

We walked 9.7 miles based on my phone and we were feeling it by the time we got back to our room. Today we will explore a different part of Lima and make our way to another hotel this evening, where we will join the start of our National Geographic tour.