2-13-13 SHORT HILLS: We’re back and have slept, showered and done the laundry, picked up the dogs, that was first, and are enjoying the snow, our eight inches of it. I will start to post the trip diary and pix, one day at a time, as I edit them.
2-3-13 LIMA, PERÚ: Our direct flight from EWR got us here on time. After customs and immigration, we were met by a rep from National Geographic/Lindblad [NGL], and when the group was assembled, walked us to the airport hotel, Ramada del Sol. This morning we had a bus tour of Lima going to Plaza Mayor, the main square, and a visit to a colonial mansion, Casa Aliaga, built in 1535 by Pizarro’s treasurer and still lived in by his family—gorgeous, with a central atrium and filled with antiques.
Lima is huge. It has nine million of the thirty million who live in Peru, and it extends for miles along the coast. We went across town to the Larco Herrera Museum in another colonial mansion displaying a collection of pre-Columbian art filling several rooms full of shelves. We lunched in their outdoor restaurant/garden before the trip back to the airport for the flight over the Andes to the Amazonian jungle and our riverboat. Did I mention our in-country flights are on LAN?
Lima is dry, with scant rain, but with water from its rivers carrying melt water from the Andean glaciers. The daily temps go from 80° to 70° at night.
Yesterday was Pisco Sour Day in Lima, it’s a daiquiri like drink from a local grape brandy and the Peruvian national cocktail.
Lima Plaza Mayor.
The entry to the Larco museum.
Clay bottles, there are thousands, many faces and animals.
Our guide Julia.
The museum restaurant comes complete with Pisco Sours.
Our first bird has a familiar look.
Cabin on the Delfin II.
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