I got up about 5:30am on Friday, May 24, which is sleeping in for me. I got started on the blog and Ash got up soon after. We went down for breakfast when it opened at 6:30 and I took my laptop with me to finish it there. At breakfast, Ash says: what are we doing to do today? We literally had zero plans, other than we knew we had to check out by 4pm and head to an airport hotel where we would meet up with our National Geographic tour. It’s a rare delight to have such unstructured time.

We decided to head to the Main Plaza which is the historic center of the city. It was 6 miles away so figured we could walk there and take an Uber back to the hotel.

And we walked most of that way up Avenida Arequipa, which has this lovely center strip just about all the way through it. Walkers on one side, bicyclists and scooters on the other side. It is lined with park benches and, despite how empty this photo is other than Ash, is heavily used by the locals.

We encountered this “Lima” sign as we got closer to the city center, about 4 miles into our walk. Prior to this the neighborhoods were quite, well, boring actually. Some interesting buildings but in general not much to see. We were saying that Lima feels a little like Sacramento maybe – a nice place to live, wouldn’t want to visit – and we probably don’t need to come back here. We also had this whole conversation about car honking, as it happens on a level here that I’d never experienced before. Because I’ve yet to ask Google a question that hasn’t been asked before, I even came across this discussion on the topic in Reddit from just a couple of months ago. Glad to know it’s not just me! And unbeknownst to us at the time, car honking was going to become a big thing later in the day.

Things got more interesting as we got closer to the center. This fountain and statue is part of a huge park complex that also included a couple of big museums. About this time – it was already 12:30 – we took a detour and made our way to Chinatown where we decided to have lunch.

Suddenly it got very interesting, and very loud. The cacophony of the next 15 blocks or so is hard to describe – I need to get better and remembering to capture some of this on video! This was the local market area where there was block after block of small shops on one side of the sidewalk, with individuals on the other side selling everything from prepared food and groceries to clothes and electronics. And Everyone was Yelling. At each other, at you to try to buy something, whoever. Sometimes using a loudspeaker. And then add the car-honking on top of that. Above and below are attempts to capture a bit of that.

But we made it to our destination – Wa Lok, a local Chinese food chain that’s clearly very popular. We got in and got a table pretty easily but it was clear that wouldn’t last. When we left around 2pm there was a fairly long line against that pink wall down the sidewalk.

We passed many open tables for 6 or more to find this table for 2 way in the back. Bonus: just behind that panel behind us was the restroom, which we both took advantage of.

This gives you an idea of the crowd here, which had completely filled up by the time we were seated and ordered. Ash came up to take this since I hadn’t yet. We are all the way in the back, to the right, then a left and back some more! It was pretty big.

We had read somewhere that they were famous for fried rice. Now why we both decided to order it instead of one plate of this and maybe something else, we’ll never know. In truth, one plate of this (one shrimp, one chicken) would have been more than enough for both of us. It was good but exactly like what could get at home.

Ash asked the host of the restaurant where the arch was on our way out. We made it through more throngs of noisy market people to take this photo.

We randomly came across this museum of Inca culture that we walked through briefly. Everything was in Spanish, so we didn’t spend much time there but did love this beautiful staircase. That huge drawing on the landing wall shows all of the the different early settlements from like the 1500-1600s and their elevation in the mountains.

This is the Main Plaza, our original destination and, alas, it was all blocked off. There were police everywhere, one group of them carrying mob shields. We don’t know what had or was about to happen but they were ready for it.

This is the cathedral, more specifically the Basilica Metropolitan Cathedral of Lima and Primate of Peru. Notice the mountain in the background on the left, everything so far had been pretty flat.

Warning: there are a lot of photos of this church. If you’ve been following awhile, you know I can’t resist a nice Catholic church and it’s been a while since I’ve encountered one. This is Ash waving from the side aisle on the right where we entered.

It’s a decent size for sure. We sat for a little bit and enjoyed the chanting they had piped in. Then I got up to take some photos while Ash continued to rest.

A very intricate side altar carved from a dark wood.

This elaborate thing is the pulpit. Notice the entrance to it there are the far right, the beginning of a staircase that wraps around to the front where the priest – or in this case archbishop – delivers the homily from that, well, let’s call it a throne.

A close up of the altar. Lots of gold. Interesting to me: no crucifix. And now that I think of it, I don’t remember seeing one in the church at all. This is now 2-for-2. I thought the one from the day before could excuse not having a crucifix since it was a church dedicated to Mary. Not sure what the excuse here is. Maybe it’s a Peruvian thing? I certainly never saw that in Europe!

And speaking of Mary, a side altar dedicated to her.

And then, this whole side wing that was a museum all on its own, with lots of smaller rooms on either side.

This was the only photo I took from that area: a gold tabernacle looking manger scene.

After a couple of days of overcast, suddenly the sun was out and it was pretty hot despite it being only 70 degrees. We came across these hats that Ash of course haggled for, getting both of them for about $8. They had an immediate cooling affect, which was the point. I’m not much of a hat person but for this trip it’s probably a good idea. And these are cotton so will pack up easily.

We called an Uber about this time and went back to the hotel. We had checked out when we left in the morning, so we didn’t have to worry about getting back for any particular time. But we left the car in the garage so had to some back at some point.

We got back right about 4pm, and decided to stay for their Tea Time for dinner, a simple buffet with of course tea. They had a hot line, some of which is shown above, a line of small sandwiches and, of course, desserts, as shown below. It was an odd experience in that they were very unprepared to be open at their declared start time of 5pm. And we’ll just leave it at that.

From there we made our way to the airport to turn in the car, and check into the airport Wyndam which is where we were booked by the tour. Google had estimated an hour and 8 minute drive, which didn’t surprise us in rush hour traffic on a Friday evening. It got worse as we went along, and several miles in Google offered us a quicker route, which we accepted. We’ve wondered the rest of the night if that had been the wrong choice.

Short version of this story: despite the questionable neighborhood that route took us, we were able to get gas pretty close to the airport. We were just 10 minutes and 3 kilometers away at this point. We got back on the road, and had to take this series of left turns, one of which we missed, and we ended up in an even more questionable area where the roads weren’t even really paved. We eventually got to what we could see was the freeway again, but as we got closer we realized nothing was moving. Now, we’re sure we would have encountered this even if we hadn’t missed that last turn, but we don’t know if we would have avoided it had we stayed on the original course, but Ash things we might have.

What followed was over an hour of not much movement. Not much movement, where? Remember the earlier discussion: the car-honking capital of the world. See Ash’s smiling face above. Thankfully, this man thrives in chaos. And performed extremely well during these short bursts of movement. And then had to navigate this unpaved road uphill that was the access ramp to the road, getting us unstuck out of huge holes a couple of times. Harrowing might be a strong word but it’s in the neighborhood. Thanks, Ash!

As we checked into the hotel we encountered some of our group, including the tour guide who was next to us at the counter. So, we got the briefing we needed right then. At least that part worked very well.

It’s approaching 6am now on Saturday morning. We are “bags out” at 6:45am so need to get moving. We need to meet up with the group at 7:30am and will make our way to Cusco. See you on the other side.