Lima, 8/12/2006
After a fun evening at the Zeitgeist with beers, grilled cheese sandwiches and burgers I was hoping for a little sleep before taking off to Peru. Oh well ….. Andrea and Kris had set their mind to partying the night through. Well …. They succeeded. Fabio, Alex, Yvonne, Kris, Scottie, Andrea, Eric and Jenny came over to Georg's house. It was a lot of fun, but when the cab picked me up at 5:30 am I was dead tired. At the airport everything went smoothly and extremely fast. In less than 10 minutes I was checked-in and through security. I met a former colleague from the good old eWork days, our former CFO Joe Pagano. He was waiting on his flight to Italy and so we had quite a bit of time to catch up. I was able to nap on the flight to Houston and arrived in Lima shortly after 11:00 pm. Once I got my luggage I made it through customs and immigration easily. When I got out of the arrival area I was first overwhelmed by all the people waiting there ….. so many signs of drivers being held up, but where was mine? Finally after 20 minutes and with the help of two very friendly people I found the driver of my hotel.
It was quite an adventure driving through the busy streets of Lima. Everybody was honking at everybody and everything. The streets are pretty bumpy, the cars are rather old, motorcycles everywhere and buses ….. all sizes and shapes. It seems that the bus is the main ode of transportation fort he locals. Suddenly we arrived at a part of town with no electricity, there must have been a power outage, no lights, just pitch black darkness. Somehow the driver found his way to the hotel, which was only illuminated by candles. It looked quite pretty though. It was a very nice old house in a quite, tree lined street of old villas.
I was expecting my friend Shana to be at the hotel since she got in with an earlier flight, but there seemed to have been a problem. She was not there. Nobody could really tell me what happened, but somehow I found out that she had called to say that there was a delay. Finally she arrived at 2:00 am in the morning.
Lima, 8/13/2006
After a short night with little sleep we took off to explore the city. We decided to walk to Miraflores, one of the nicer parts of the city, a fashionable suburb situated on the coast. Well, to be honest it was a nice long walk from and to Miraflores, however if this was supposed to be the best part of town you might wonder about the rest. Nevertheless we still had a good time at the Plaza Central and had a nice lunch there. In the evening we actually came back for dinner, enjoying the ride in the little taxis, dirt cheap by the way, approximately 5 Soles. After a nice dinner we returned to the hotel, had a bottle of wine and tried to get some sleep since e had to get up at 5:30 am to catch the bus to Nasca.
Overall I have to say that I was not too impressed with Lima, although the longer you stay it grows on you.
Hotel:
La Posada del Parque
Parque Hernan Valarde Nr. 60
Santa Beatriz Lima I
Peru
Website: http://www.incacountry.com/
Tel: 511 – 433 2412
After a fun evening at the Zeitgeist with beers, grilled cheese sandwiches and burgers I was hoping for a little sleep before taking off to Peru. Oh well ….. Andrea and Kris had set their mind to partying the night through. Well …. They succeeded. Fabio, Alex, Yvonne, Kris, Scottie, Andrea, Eric and Jenny came over to Georg's house. It was a lot of fun, but when the cab picked me up at 5:30 am I was dead tired. At the airport everything went smoothly and extremely fast. In less than 10 minutes I was checked-in and through security. I met a former colleague from the good old eWork days, our former CFO Joe Pagano. He was waiting on his flight to Italy and so we had quite a bit of time to catch up. I was able to nap on the flight to Houston and arrived in Lima shortly after 11:00 pm. Once I got my luggage I made it through customs and immigration easily. When I got out of the arrival area I was first overwhelmed by all the people waiting there ….. so many signs of drivers being held up, but where was mine? Finally after 20 minutes and with the help of two very friendly people I found the driver of my hotel.
It was quite an adventure driving through the busy streets of Lima. Everybody was honking at everybody and everything. The streets are pretty bumpy, the cars are rather old, motorcycles everywhere and buses ….. all sizes and shapes. It seems that the bus is the main ode of transportation fort he locals. Suddenly we arrived at a part of town with no electricity, there must have been a power outage, no lights, just pitch black darkness. Somehow the driver found his way to the hotel, which was only illuminated by candles. It looked quite pretty though. It was a very nice old house in a quite, tree lined street of old villas.
I was expecting my friend Shana to be at the hotel since she got in with an earlier flight, but there seemed to have been a problem. She was not there. Nobody could really tell me what happened, but somehow I found out that she had called to say that there was a delay. Finally she arrived at 2:00 am in the morning.
Lima, 8/13/2006
After a short night with little sleep we took off to explore the city. We decided to walk to Miraflores, one of the nicer parts of the city, a fashionable suburb situated on the coast. Well, to be honest it was a nice long walk from and to Miraflores, however if this was supposed to be the best part of town you might wonder about the rest. Nevertheless we still had a good time at the Plaza Central and had a nice lunch there. In the evening we actually came back for dinner, enjoying the ride in the little taxis, dirt cheap by the way, approximately 5 Soles. After a nice dinner we returned to the hotel, had a bottle of wine and tried to get some sleep since e had to get up at 5:30 am to catch the bus to Nasca.
Overall I have to say that I was not too impressed with Lima, although the longer you stay it grows on you.
Hotel:
La Posada del Parque
Parque Hernan Valarde Nr. 60
Santa Beatriz Lima I
Peru
Website: http://www.incacountry.com/
Tel: 511 – 433 2412
The costline in Miraflores. The beach is quite narrow and full of littlle stones. The houses, most single family homes are being replaced with skyscrapers sit on the bluff of the cliff.
A different view of the coastline with the pier which has a large restaurant and the highway running along the coast.
My friend Shana who traveled Peru with me.
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