Peru Travel Journal Day 7 – Barranco District of Lima
Wake up! We have an appointment for work today. We are here to meet with some people that we’ve been working with for a few years now, but only via courier and email. We are excited to put faces to the job and get to see where it’s all done. The appointment is at 9:30am, so I still have a bit of time to find some coffee. Be right back.
Just back from hunting down coffee, but I never had any luck. I passed a Dunkin’ Donuts, but that’s not exactly what I’m looking for while in Peru. Plus, it wasn’t even open yet. Isn’t that the point of coffee? To grab one first thing in the morning to get the day started. What’s up with that? Anyways, no worries, breakfast at the the hotel comes with a packet of instant coffee. I guess it will have to do and probably better than Dunkin’ Donuts, especially since it’s free. Caffeine is go! Off to work now!
Taking a late morning lunch break back at the hotel. The ten minute taxi ride ended up taking an hour and a half to get there. Not that the driver was scamming us, he seemed legitimate lost and the price wasn’t too much higher than regular fare. (The fare was about 20 soles, so about 10 Canadian dollars, and that was with a tip. Not a big deal.) However, because of that delay, we had to head back to the hotel to check out of our room and move our things in the middle of the meeting. They are nothing but nice here though, they let us use a storage locker for our things until our 2:00am flight later this evening and let us have access to the lobby, washroom and kitchen too! That adds a lot of comfort to our day. Now we won’t have to lug all our bags back to the meeting and we have somewhere to store the things we pick up later too! (We were staying at the Barranco Backpackers Inn)
Ok, back at the hotel again. What a weird day for a holiday. I guess it’s not a holiday right now, or back then it wasn’t, I suppose. We looked it up and bringing cardboard boxes onto airplanes from South American countries is forbidden and the duffel bag we brought wasn’t quite big enough to hold all our work, so we spent some time running around like the maniacs on the Amazing Race do. Going through the streets, multiple local markets, crossing busy highways and finally we found another duffel bag at a shopping mall. Between the long taxi ride earlier and the hunt for luggage, we are getting to see some pretty authentic Lima.
I even got to discover my new favourite drink while exiting the mall. It was in a tent in the parking lot, outside. A frothy milk drink with beer called ponche con malta. Doesn’t sound good, but it’s basically a rootbeer float from heaven! As we walked by on our way in, the whole time the guy was whipping the mixture in a large bowl, non stop. On the way back out, it looked like he still had not taken a break. We figure we would have been stupid not to try it. After trying it, I wish it came in a 7-11 sized cup. Maybe next time I’ll bring one. Anyways, enough chatter. Time to explore this place some more. Plus, I have that bottle of pisco hanging out of my bag that can’t come on the plane with me.
Tonight felt much more normal and more of what we had hoped for and expected from Barranco. Still lively, but not obnoxious and overkill with crowds, noise and carnival chaos atmosphere, like last night. We wandered through the streets and parks in Barranco. Stopped to have (a good) coffee at an art gallery/cafe (El Gato Tulipan) and watched the sun set from the rooftop there. Saw tango dancers, saxophone players, bought some souvenirs and drank the rest of our pisco under a bridge. I’m now sitting at the airport waiting for our 2:00am flight back to Toronto.
Taken from my travel notes. Originally written on November 6, 2017.
