Welcome to the next big city: Lima! After the high mountains of the Cordillera Blanca, we treat ourselves to a contrast back to civilization. The differences are really impressive, in Lima we find many things that we had missed a little in the northern and rural areas of Peru. Street art, beautiful parks, good (and vegetarian) restaurants and the impressive Pacific coast all in one place.

Club Suizo

In the cities, it’s always a matter of finding safe parking and sleeping places for our camper. If we are lucky, there are guarded parking lots with sanitary facilities where we can spend the night and, if we are very lucky, there is even something like a campsite. In Lima, the choices are very few to practically non-existent. In this case, we are lucky because we are Swiss. In the middle of Lima, in a very good location, there is the Club Suizo – the Swiss club in Lima – with an affiliated school. With a Swiss passport, we are allowed to camp here at the back of the parking lot and use the sanitary facilities and Wi-Fi. But really only with a Swiss passport! This is checked at the entrance gate – you can’t get into the complex without one.

Barrio Barranco

Our first excursion in Lima takes us to the up-and-coming Barranco district. From the cab, we can already see many beautiful murals that contribute to the hip character of the district. But we can capture the many images even better on foot. We stroll randomly through the streets and take in the many colorful impressions. If it almost gets too much for us, we can stop for a coffee in this part of the city before we continue our walk. We also visit the Bridge of Sighs, which is said to be reminiscent of the bridges in Venice and Oxford. For us, it is simply a pedestrian bridge, but not much more.
The flair of this district is definitely the cozy vibe, the great streetscapes and the countless delicious cafés.

Barrio Miraflores

Our tour of Lima continues in Miraflores, Lima’s wealthiest district. We are generally surprised at how tidy and western these two districts appear. In contrast, many parts of the city are not at all well laid out and are sometimes dangerous at night. There are tall, gleaming skyscrapers, international stores and restaurants and cafés facing outwards. What’s more, we hear almost more people speaking English here than Spanish!

We visit the elongated Costa Verde Park right on the cliff overlooking the sea and can spend some pleasant hours in the greenery. But now enough about daily life in Lima, there are two more sights we visit.

Convento de San Francisco with its catacombs

We simply have to visit the Roman Catholic church with its adjoining baroque-style convent. The tour takes us into a very old library and through the underground catacombs. Through narrow corridors, darkly lit and past dusty walls, we are led past various burial sites. In many cases, the bones and skulls are lined up in an orderly fashion. The sight is impressive and somewhat strange at the same time. Neither of us can remember the last time we saw so many human remains in one place. New skulls peek out from behind every bend in the corridor. After about an hour, we are glad to see daylight again without any bones in sight.
Incidentally, photography is prohibited throughout the convent, so we’ll spare you the pictures.

Cathedral of Lima

The cathedral of Lima is really impressive, large and in parts very magnificent. Once again, we split up: Mimi visits the cathedral and Paddy devotes himself to another spectacle right in front of it on the Plaza Mayor of Lima. On this day, 800 motorcycles are inaugurated and handed over to the Peruvian National Police. There are 400 motorcycles and their riders in the square itself and finally they all set off simultaneously on a parade through the old town.
But there are also many police officers in the cathedral, who take advantage of the opportunity and also go sightseeing. Inside, there is a mixture of different architectural styles, as parts of the cathedral were destroyed by various earthquakes and afterwards rebuilt or restored in a new style. You can find architectural styles such as Renaissance, Gothic, Baroque and Classicism! It is also fascinating that the choir is decorated with old heavy wood carvings, which is almost reminiscent of English churches. The cathedral also belongs to the Archbishopric of Lima and therefore has a large exhibition of relics – lots of gold and splendor to marvel at.

Parque de la Reserva

As a picturesque end to our visit to Lima, we visit the Parque de la Reserva with its countless fountains. From large to small and illuminated with colored lights, everything is there. And not only that, but there is also a special water show every evening, which we definitely don’t want to miss. The longest fountain is transformed into a giant screen with projectors onto which a movie is projected. Accompanied by music and colorful accents, the show with the fountains becomes an impressive spectacle of color and water. We enjoy the show and after visit the other fountains.
There is also a water tunnel where visitors can walk under the fountains and a water labyrinth. It’s a little too cold for us to get wet that evening, but in the labyrinth, which is only formed by water fountains and leaves narrow paths free, you inevitably get wet if you change the layout. We watch the other visitors here and can enjoy the unforeseen change of paths and the wet fun with them. It’s winter here in Lima at the moment, but in summer this is certainly a fun experience for young and old.

Our stay in Lima comes to an end and we head south out of the capital of Peru.