Visiting the extended family in Lima

So we went to Peru in our summer, their winter holidays. For the kids and myself it’s the first time in Peru ever. Actually the first time in South America ever now that I think of it.

My mother in law is Peruvian though, married a German guy and lived in Europe for a very long time. So my wife is ½ Peruvian and our kids are ¼ Peruvian.
All that being the case this trip has been in the making for a looong time now to finally have the two families meet — and we’re all very excited, not only because we’re going to Peru but also for that whole part of it.

From Frankfurt to Lima in the Summer Holidays

At least one of our kids is in school already which means we’re bound to school holidays and can’t just travel like you normal people without kids or with kids out of the house. It is what it is but we always gotta check prices for flights and hotels thoroughly because everything’s super expensive.

My amazing wife checked flight for weeks and weeks an in the end booked the following connection with LATAM airlines for around 5.000€ roundtrip:

1. Frankfurt -> Sao Paulo through the night
2. After 3 hours lay over at 5 in the morning (local time), Sao Paulo -> Lima
3. And the same thing on the way back. We’re pretty happy with that connection because it allows the kids to sleep through the night on the loooong 12 hour flight between Frankfurt and Sao Paulo and then has a decent lay over at a reasonable time for the connecting flight

Travel plan: First and last stop in Peru: Lima

Our round trip through Peru is gonna be this (roughly, stay tuned for more in depth posts on each of those stops):

1. 2-3 days in Lima, get rid of jet lag and settle in a little bit
2. Fly over to Puerto Maldonado (close to the Brazilian border and the Amazon rain forest) for 4 days
3. In the Andes and into Cusco for 5 days (so excited for that one! I just love mountains)
4. 2 days of Arequipa befoooore … 
5. … we spend a night in Colca and then come back to Arequipa to then fly back to Lima for another handful days

First days in Lima

We stayed at a lovely place in Miraflores in Lima called Hostal El Patio. Situated in a little court yard with rooms spread out of over the ground level and the first floor, it looked to welcoming with all it’s colorful walls and plants everywhere.

Super nice staff, basic but good breakfast. Can totally recommend that place!

Going down to the beach, literally

We did not see too much of Lima yet, mainly Miraflores but it seemed like the whole city is built on a pretty steep cliff towards the pacific ocean. So if you want to visit the beach, you’re either walking down a whole bunch of stairs or you’re probably taking a taxi down a zip zag road to the beach, which is then pretty disconnected from the rest of the buzzing city.

The beach mostly made of dark pebbles and since we’re going in the South American winter, also pretty cold. At least in Lima. Further north you can apparently also find beaches close to the El Niño current, which makes the water a whole lot warmer.

One thing that got me excited right away is that there’s a brilliantly surfable beach right there! On the day we went “down” it had great waves too, and so you could see surfers everywhere. In full neoprene suit of course, since again, the water’s just reaaallyyy freeeezing :D.

That image was taken from the pier which is host to a pretty fancy restaurant we visited that day: La Rosa Nautica. Amazing authosphere and apparently around since many, many years. It’s tradition in the family to visit that restaurant as a first thing whenever coming back to Lima. And yeah, I could see that. Pretty high class but not posh or snobby. At least I felt okay wearing normal clothes and the kids could go around without anyone giving us a look.

Check out the fancy construction, it’s really at the end of a pretty massive pier, throning over the ocean:

On the way back we witnessed this kinda odd mini police parade which I didn’t wanna keep from you:

Sooo my first impression of Lima is I guess that it’s pretty huge city with … an alternative approach to traffic and driving than in Europe :D It’s not a Moroccan Medina either but I’m kinda happy that I don’t have to drive myself, let’s leave it at that.

The city’s chilly and cold in the winter and air quality is really not great. I’m sure there’s much to see but I’ll update this post once we’re back after all the other stops in our trip.

I’m curious to see what other things are there to explore and I might even take a crack at surfing Playa Makaha — let’s see if I still have it in me, it’s been a while.