Montevideo to Lima

As we left Montevideo I realized I owe her a bit of an apology. On the way to the airport, in dawn's early light we saw a side of the city we'd never seen before. And one that our guide had never encouraged us to see. We saw miles of gleaming ocean-front condos and neat rows of houses with manicured plantings and NO graffiti. So if run-down turn-of-the-century buildings covered with graffiti is the heart and soul of the city and these beautiful neighborhoods aren't worth a look then I am just in a different universe. 

Lima is a very different story.  We rolled out of the airport in a hot cab with the windows down into a cacophony of car horns. While not on a scale with New Delhi, you knew you were in a different country. Patrice was pretty zen about the crazy driving and the near misses. But this taxi was driving for survival, not her comfort.  

All-in-all Lima didn't have that rundown neglected look.  As we got near the heart of the city, the temperature suddenly dropped 10 degrees and we felt the cool breezes off the Pacific.

 

 

 Suddenly, we broke out on to a highway that followed the Pacific shore and traffic settled down to a dull roar.  All along the road there's a steep cliff so there are very few exits.

We went another few miles and found an exit that took us to our hotel.  It was just a Marriot Courtyard but after Montevideo we thought we'd died and gone to Heaven.  This hotel is in the Miraflores neighbor of Lima and is only 8 blocks from the water. The front desk suggested we might want to walk down to the water to see the Mall there and the views of the Pacific. We needed to get our train tickets for Machu Picchu and their office was in the mall. We walked down to the water and saw this pretty view of the Pacific:

 Do you see a mall here? We knew we had to be close because Google Maps said we were standing right beside it.  So we walked a few blocks along the water figuring that some of the high-rises might of blocked our view of it.

So by this time we were running out of patience and asked somebody.  They pointed to an opening in overlook you see to your left.

 

We had been standing on TOP of the mall the whole time. There were no signs for a mall and even the stairways down to it rom street level we not in plain site.  Look how it's built into the side of the bluffs.  It's actually goes 3 levels down the bluff and each level has it's share of eateries and store galleries with breathtaking views of the ocean. The road below is the same one we took from the airport, but the mall is so high that you can't see it from the road.

 

 This might be the prettiest mall we have ever seen.

So that's it for Lima. That's all the time we have for her.  We're still recuperating and need to get plenty of rest for tomorrow's flight to Cusco.