Lima - sandstone cliffs and highlighted maps

Flying from Santiago to Lima with the Andes outside the window!

Lima, Peru is not known as the safest city in the world. The general consensus is that one should get away from the airport as quickly as possible. There are about 2 safe areas to stay in Lima, we chose Miraflores. You can kind of see why on the way in. Lima is really poor. It’s made up of dilapidated housing, but the Kernel (KFC) and the Golden Arches (Mc D’s) are still visible. Then in the good areas some pretty fancy housing. The taxi took us through the various districts and weaved through back roads. Eventually, we ended up on a highway with a sandstone cliff on the left side and the sea and beach on the right. Various staircases wended their way down the eroding cliff in various degrees of disrepair. Some of the buildings on the top of the cliff liked like they would be toppling over the edge sometime in the near future. 

The pile of dirt ruin...

Getting to our hostel, all we wanted to do was crash and sleep. The owner of this hostel was a large man with a big heart. He obviously loved his city and loved the food there especially. But, he didn’t understand that our drooping eyelids and vague grunts meant that we needed an abbreviated intro to the city rather than the full one. We were staying in Lima for that afternoon and evening and flying out to Cusco early the next day. The hostel owner still gave us a map, and, with highlighters flying in multiple colours, took us through every area in Lima that tourists could possibly go with bright pink highlighted crosses around the areas that tourists should only go into if they want to be mugged. 

The other side of the ruin.

The mud bricks that have survived.

Bus routes were in green, the stairs down the sandstone cliff to the sea were marked in blue with appropriate times that we should attempt it. Museums, markets and places of interest were in yellow and restaurants (of which there seemed to be about 10 recommended in each of the 5 tourist areas) were marked in orange along with the recommended specific dishes we should order at each. Of course all of this was surrounded by the pink crosses mentioned above.

I have to say that it was the most comprehensive city orientation I have ever had and I probably listened to about 10 minutes of the half an hour it took. At one stage I tried to hurry him on with specific questions. But he looked at me like a deer in headlights, confused, and then continued full speed with his rehearsed speech. At the end we had a very colourful and very full map of Lima that we should attempt in one afternoon. It was a good giggle.

The ruin

We went walking to find one of the many restaurants in the vicinity of the hostel. As we rounded the corner, we found an ancient ruin with tourists scurrying over it with guides. The ruin was an old temple of some description that was made up of thousands of sand brinks. JP wasn’t particularly impressed at the “pile of dirt”. I must admit, it was very ruined! The sand bricks were only just visible. Placards were around the ruin trying to describe what a particular space would have been used for. 

The lovers park with plenty of lovers around every corner.

The restaurant ended up being attached to the ruin, so our table looked out onto tourists in wide-brimmed hats braving the heat of the day. The food was good, maybe a little on the pricey side, but definitely needed as we were starving! 

While JP slept the rest of the afternoon away, I teamed up with another woman from the hostel and we went touring a bit and visited some of the view-points of Miraflores at night. It may not be a pretty city, but it has some charm.

Views from on top of the sandstone cliffs

Valparaiso & Vina del Mar - the seaside near Santiago

Valparaiso view

 Valparaiso stands on a hill with bright buildings and patios and sky scrapers tumbling toward the sea. Steep hills and one ways that make driving and parking quite a challenge. After wondering around for a long time, we eventually found a parking on top of the hill in a slightly questionable spot. Traipsing down we were looking for a recommended restaurant per the Lonely Planet that ended up being closed. 

Valparaiso - creeping over the hills

So on our way up the hill again (with many stairs and my puffing and wondering how I’m going to ever manage the Inka trail), we eventually found a stunning restaurant with a beautiful view and some really stunning food. It had such personality, even if it was a little touristy.

Valparaiso also has some amazing street art, and with JP, I really started to appreciate it. Not something I would normally appreciate, but it’s amazing how much you learn as you travel from everyone around.

The slightly safer place to stay is outside Valparaiso, over the hill in Vina del Mar. Vapraraiso definitely has more of a student vibe to it with plenty of bars and eating places. Vina del Mar is a quieter place but still interesting.

Street artists - working on a mixture of mural & graffiti art

Vina del Mar’s eating places were mainly situated in one area. With lots of “yes please” and “hello” and people trying to get our attention to come into their stall, we finally picked a place that served us one of the hugest meals I’ve ever had. Chatting to the waiter, it seems that this is normal for Chileans in that area and people normally finish the meal. I could only finish half the burger I had and even JP couldn’t finish the pile of food in front of him.

Graffiti in Valparaiso

We met a fellow traveller at our hostel, Mike and ended up going for dinner and beers with him and visiting Vina del Mar’s beach together. JP made a new friend on the beach. It was a four legged, tail wagging, black furred dog who ended up chasing sticks thrown and running into the ocean and back in one big game.

On the evening before the Chilean National Day, we went out to try find the party we knew would be happening. Vina del Mar was particularly quiet and I ended up going to bed to cope with an early start rather than party through. But the boys went through to Valparaiso and found that this was the happening place. At 4am, JP met me at the car to drive through to Santiago to catch our 9am flight. Next stop, Peru!

Lunch in the sun

A private home in Vina del Mar - nice!

Vina del Mar - some of the view

Yum coffee shop

Vina del Mar art - this mas was really proud of it, when he saw us
taking photos he showed us his other door too.

Local Catholic Church

Kites and our new friend

Playing on the beach

View of Vina del Mar

They have a "man gym" too!

Everyone flying kites!

Yay for beaches!

Love these birds!

A local fort

Mike and me

Me, Mike and JP on top of the fort's tower.
View back to Vina del Mar

Valdivia - earthquakes, rivers and black-necked swans

The river

Two nights in Valdivia and one day to explore. We wondered around the town and down to the river to take a river cruise of the area. There are numerous rivers that meet up in the Valdivia area which are rather beautiful to explore. Valdivia is one of those towns that continues to survive even through tragedy. The main disaster that we heard of was that of the 1960’s earthquake which destroyed many homes and made much of the landscape drop by 3 to 4 meters. This means that once prosperous farming lands disappeared, cows and all, into what stands today as a really wide river estuary system that winds its way through the area. Hence to say some people lost everything. This large slow winding river is now home to the national bird of the region, the black necked swans.

Fruit & veg shop

The guidebook states that a further environmental disaster occurred in 2005 where about 5000 black-necked swans were poisoned due to a papermill in the region that continues to operate. The tour we took mentioned a lot about the earthquake but nothing about the swans. However, this may have been a “lost in translation” moment as we were told that the tour was in English too. “English” is really Spanish, in case you didn’t know. So, it was only when I complained that we heard a bit of the English translation via our tour-guide and a helpful English couple that we met on the boat that could interpret a bit of Spanish for us. 

Valdivia and the fish market -
JP's phone does amazing panaramas.

The tour took us to visit an old German farm house that was abandoned after the earthquake and a small town where supposedly the population of men is about 3 and women about 100. Good odds some may think. But I have to say I saw more than 3 men there and the women were mostly grannies and kids.

The pier

 Valdivia also has a well known fish market where giant sea lions come and bicker over scraps thrown to them, with one giant monster on a sea lion firmly seated at the major hand out point. I’m not too sure how he manages to move that amount of weight up and down! Obviously seagulls wheel overhead for any chance of extras and a few pelicans are also there for the opportunity.

Walking through the fish & veg market

 Near Valdivia is the Castillo de Niebla. This is an impressive fort / castle with cannons, magazine buildings and a view to everywhere. But the highlight when we arrived was a festival parade that took about 2 hours with soldiers and kids and clowns and people on horses.

Spot the wildlife!

There was singing and dancing and marching bands. All to celebrate the Chilean national day that was to be in about 3 days’ time. This was great and we spent as much time as possible appreciating the find with us probably the only tourists there. How amazing.

JP's amazing shot of the river

How high?

Fun on the tour...

The abandoned farm house with a view of their fields in the distance!

Exploring

Before heading off toward Valparaiso, we tried to find our way to a National Park that was apparently close and quite scenic. Our GPS was useless at this point as there were no roads on it in this back area in Chile. We tried to use an old map found at the hostel to make our winding way through. The roads wound through along the coast line to a tiny fishing village where we stopped off for a bite to eat. Yummy fish - obviously - but again a mysterious menu and one waiter that kind of spoke better sign language than English.  Still useful though. JP pointed it out, but we noticed that many of the people acting as waiters and waitresses are often older than in South Africa. It looks like it is considered a career here rather than a ‘filler’ for university / school students. 

Just a little chilly!

The beginnings of sunset

View from the farmhouse - previously fields

After lunch, we followed the Tsunami evacuation signs as the road moved up the mountains and wound around the coast with a cliff line into the sea. Really beautiful – then it descended into dirt. It was quite an adventure, travelling through the farmsteads and villages along the coast, missing carts drawn by cows and clamp-trap local busses that hurtled around corners, all bouncing over the bumpy surface that comes with dirt roads.







Eventually the road narrowed and we met a rather large dump truck. The man leaning out the window of the puffing truck obviously spoke only Spanish. I was quite proud of my skills of asking directions and understanding him! He ended up being really helpful and pointed us in the right direction. We turned around somehow and ended up following the dump-truck (which was a blessing as all other traffic was forced to move aside for us) until he pointed wildly at the road we should follow and we waved our thanks and goodbyes.

Local transportation

We travelled for quite a while over some stunning landscape, but I have to say, we never found the national park that was around a bend somewhere ahead. Rather frustrating, but time dictated that we had to start our way up Chile toward Valparaiso.

Church at the tiny women dominated village

Black-necked swan - the symbol of Valdivia

Big & fat

Lazing on a submarine

The fish market

Their botanical gardens

Kids in the parade

The mucho policeman. No messing around!

 

The fort...

Look Mom, another cliff!

Our car, with backroad dust!

View of Valdivia

The locals...