Today I looked at apartments with Yoli, the realtor. She showed me two beautiful apartments. Both were in the Miraflores area of Lima and both were very modern. The first one was a two story, on the 6th floor, overlooked the nearby park and was about 6 blocks from the ocean. It was lovely, but the second bedroom was very small. The other apartment was right on the ocean….great view from the living and bedroom area. Unfortunately, this one only had one bedroom. Tomorrow, we are going to look at more apartments. One that I am particularly interested in is in the same building as AMEC’s corporate apartment. I have seen pictures of this apartment and love, love, love it! It is also right on the ocean.
Yesterday, Mary and I walked all over the Miraflores area. We walked along the Malecon (the walkway along the ocean), took the steps down to the beach and walked along the beach. That was neat as the beach is mostly pebbles. The waves here are very good size. I have heard that it is Peru is a popular surfing destination. We certainly saw several surfers on our walk. I am thinking that once it warms up, it would be fun to try my hand at surfing….skiing in the Andes, surfing in Peru! Anyway, as I was saying…with the waves crashing on the beach and then pulling the pebbles out as the water retreated, it sounded like a rain stick.
Our walk took us by a restaurant/bar/gift shop on a large pier. It is called the Nautical Rose. We wandered in to take a look. I really love the Peru artifacts….bright colors, beautiful weavings, etc. One of the gift shops had the carved wooden stir-ups. Oh my gosh, they are much, much bigger than the ones in Chile and they were adorned with sterling silver. They were beautiful, but now I wish I had one from Chile, one from here….who knows, maybe I will have a collection of them like Neruda before I leave South America.
We stopped and had a drink of Mango Margaritas and cheese and veggie quesadillas. It was great as we were right over the ocean, waves rolling in, looking out at the surfers. Mary said it felt like we were on a cruise!
Our wandering took us to the Larcomar mall that is built into the cliffs of Miraflores. There was an exhibit of Incan gold and silver artifacts there. We watched an hour long documentary about the archeologist, Izumi Shimada and his extensive dig of recently discovered tombs of the Sican culture. Through our limited knowledge of Spanish and the movie, we were able to understand quite a bit of it. The exhibit was very informative. It is amazing how advanced the Incan culture was and how they used various techniques to form the jewelry, headdresses, breast plates and chalices. We did get a tour in English. The guide told us that the ornate breastplates were not for protection and head gear was not for ornamentation, but used to blind the enemy. I need to research that a little more…it just seems a little far fetched that someone would wear 17 pounds on their head to “blind the enemy”. I mean, how many people are you fighting and how many can you blind with your head gear???
Leaving the Larcomar Mall, we saw two paragliders floating through the air over the cliffs and sea. I learned today, you can do a tandem paraglide….so that is on the “to do” list!
David got home last night and told me that he will be working the “split shift” as of today. That means he will go in around 10:00 AM and get home around midnight. This will be for the next couple of weeks while they get the shutdown finished. Actually, I will see more of him this way….before, he left at 6:00 AM and arrived home at 8:30 or so. He would stay up for an hour or so before going to sleep. Now, we will wake around 7:00 or so…and have until 10:00 together, including breakfast. When he got home at 8:30…we didn’t feel like eating so late and then go to bed on a full stomach.
Hopefully, after this shutdown, David will be able to take a few days off and we can visit Machu Picchu and Cusco or some other interesting spot that Peru has to offer.