On the 31st of December we woke up around 4.30am to get an Uber to the airport. We took a flight at 7am to Lima. When boarding the plane, Ari pretended to be sick to avoid paying for the bags and to get seats together. As usual, she managed to get what she wanted.
Once in Lima we got an Uber to Luz home but the address I indicated in the app was wrong as there was 2 different streets called the same (Micaela Bastidas is her street's name). We had to get another taxi and a man in the street helped us to order it (so we got the local price). When we finally got to Luz home we left all our stuff in our new room and we went to the local market with Luz and her mom. It was crowded but we managed to buy different fruits, yellow flowers and fireworks for the night.
For lunch we went to Luz brother's restaurant where we both tried lomo saltado. We rested for a couple of hours and then chatted with Luz family while they were preparing the dinner. Five minutes before midnight we went up to the terrace to watch the fireworks and eat the grapes. There was no countdown or bell stroke but we waited until 12 o'clock to eat our grapes as usual. We had some piscos and went out to the street to drink and chat with Luz neighbours, but we went to sleep around 1am, early for a New Years Eve.
The first day of the year we woke up late, had breakfast and Luz uncle drove us to Plaza 2 de Mayo, close to the city centre. We walked around Plaza de Armas, Chinatown and had lunch at Hotel Bolivar, the most renowned in the city. We tried many different Peruvian dishes, like ceviche, which we had as starter. Ari tried black rice with seafood and I ate ají de gallina as a main plate. Ari and Luz drank a huge catedral pisco sour each.
After the nice lunch we got a bus to Larcomar, a shopping mall in Miraflores (the most modern neighbourhood of the city) on top of a cliff facing the coast. Ari needed a jumper as she was cold, but everything in the shopping mall was very expensive (specially clothes) but she finally found one for a good price. Back to Luz home with metropolitano, the main and fastest public transport in Lima (which is just a bus with a dedicated lane). It was completely packed and a drunk man was falling asleep on me during all the journey.
Next morning we woke up around 10am and had breakfast. After that we caught a colectivo, a small van that starts the journey when it's full of people. It dropped us in el Callao, a neighbourhood close to la Punta, where we got a boat tour around the harbour and coast for an hour. The boat was terribly slow and the tour disappointing as I thought it would get closer to the island and we could see sea lions. We went to a local restaurant with cheap menu for lunch.
After that we got another colectivo to the city centre. From there we walked to Parque de la Reserva, where we met Luz cousin and Enrique and Yanira, a Peruvian couple that we met in Iguazú falls. We watched a water show with music and colours and enjoyed the different fountains in the park. After that we got Enrique's car and went to a restaurant in San Miguel where we tried anticuchos (beef heart meet cooked with a slightly spicy sauce).
Next day we went walking to a restaurant to have lunch with Luz family and to try Cuy, fried guinea pig with potatoes. I also tried quesillo con miel for desert. Got the bus (alimentador) to Naranjal station and there we changed to metropolitano express, which didn't stop in all the station and was faster than the other one. Walked from Avenida 28 de julio to Larcomar, and from there followed the coastline from the top of the cliff to Parque del Amor (Park of Love). After visiting the park we spend 2h 30min to get back to Luz home as the metropolitano and alimentadores were crowded.
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