Peru – Land of the Llamas

Lima, Peru

DAY 10 – As we traveled south during the night and the next full day, we followed the coast of Peru to the port of Lima (Callao), Peru, arriving at 10:00 a.m. Friday morning, January 14th.  Lima was founded in 1537 and it has become a main port for Spanish commerce in the Pacific. The city has 8 million people and it seems like they are all out on the roadways at the same time!

This is our first two-day stay in one port city. Many fellow passengers took a side excursion by flying inland to Machu Pichu, to take advantage of this extended stay in port.  Larry and I have been to Machu Pichu, so we used this time to explore everything we could in Lima.

Our ship held a wonderful Peruvian BBQ party with a live band on the pool deck to greet us as we arrived back at the ship from our first full day of shopping and sight-seeing in Lima.

Here are photos of a few highlights we experienced over these two days:

 This is a seaside multi-floor shopping center in the Miraflores section of Lima, complete with Starbucks, TGI Fridays, and wonderful shops with all kinds of local artisans’ high quality goods.

 Here on display in a shop are some contemporary alpaca wool weavings showing unusual three-dimensional designs on perfectly flat wall hangings.

 Here are two of our wonderful Indonesian kitchen staff members, Lila and Ira, as they serve us in their costumes at the shipboard Peruvian style BBQ deck party at the end of our first day in port in Lima. (They have learned almost everyone’s first name by the end of the first week on board…impossible, but true!)