Lima take 2! This time it made me feel like coming back home. OK, I have to admit I travel for nature, local people, and native cultures but every time I stopped by a large city, it made me smile! You will soon see my deep love for Santiago and Buenos Aires, and not that deep love for La Paz…

The Pro Airport Ground Transportation

My flight from Iquitos was delayed for 1.5hrs and I arrived Lima at 2am in the morning. My first hostel in South America, was 1900 Backpackers in Lima central district. It was very nice and staff were welcoming. But for my second stay I would like to explore the famous trendy Miraflores district in Lima. For your information, there is airport shuttle connects you between the airport and Miraflores district. But it only runs between 7am to 12am. The only choice for me was the taxi to go to downtown. Back in August 20, I connected 1900 Backpackers hostel for a private airport pickup for 20 USD which is the standard cost for hotel pickup. After one month travel in Peru, I think it is way too expensive. So I decided to find a taxi on my own. Please note, Jorge Chavez International airport is located next to main street, it only takes you 5 minutes until you can find local buses or cabs. While some people may tell you it is unsafe to do that, I think it was fine. So I carried 20+kgs of my backpacks and walked to the main street and very soon I was able to find a taxi and negotiated for 20 soles to Miraflores. Did you see the word ‘negotiated’? Yes, I was able to speak some Spanish words and was very proud of myself for this!

For a side note, the Chinese brand Huawei is so popular in South America, it has advertisement broads in almost all South American airports, airplanes and major cities. I was even ‘blamed’ by a tour guide (in San Pedro de Atacama Chile) for not having Huaiwei cell phone as being a Chinese since she was waiting for the latest Huaiwei model to show us how to take a photo of the moon through a telescope…Sorry, I know Huawei is awesome but I have my love of Nokia…

The same applies for Chinese cigarettes like Zhonghua and Double Happiness, although Chinese cigarettes were not easily found in convenient stores.

My Private Tour Guide - Cynthia

Before I start to talk about my second tour in Lima, I have to say a big THANK YOU to my local friend Cynthia. Cynthia has a warm heart for helping people out. When I was struggling to figure out the price for a mini van to Gocta waterfall at the bus terminal in Chachapoyas, as an English teacher, Cynthia came to me for help. Yes, she was the one who provided me the non-touristic hiking trail for the exhausting 8-hour adventure in Peruvian Andes. So on the bumpy drive to Gocta, we chatted along the way. It turned out that she lives in Lima and once she knew I would re-visit Lima she gave me her WhatsApp account and asked me to contact her when I came back to Lima. I sent her a message on the second day of my arrival just wanted to ask for a local good shopping mall so that I could buy a new pair of hiking shoes. To my surprise, she kindly said that she would take me tour Lima from a local’s perspective. It was not a one-day tour. She met me on a Sunday and then she took me to different places since that day after her work 3-days in a roll. I think if I would stay in Lima longer, she would even take me to nearby mountain for a weekend-hiking.

With Cynthia, I was able to take public transport visited various neighborhoods, famous Jockey shopping mall, tried several great local restaurants. Here is my lovely Peruvian friend, Cynthia (she gave me the approval for posting her picture in my blog)!

Barranco and Chorrillos Districts

On our first day of city tour, Cynthia took me to Barranco district known as the SoHo of Lima, Peru. There are plenty of things to do in Barranco; it is full of renowned art galleries, cute boutiques and trendy coffee shops, that were once colonial mansions of Lima’s elite.

We were luckily picked interviewed by a research group from University of San Martin de Porres for the traveling experience in Lima. I was on local TV!

The Barranco neighborhood also happens to be situated along the costal cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. We walked along the costal boulevard and hit Chorrillos district. There was nothing too much to visit Chorrillos but Cynthia’s school was located there and it was on our way to get the public bus back to Lima downtown.

Magic Water Tour - Park of the Reserve

If time allows during your stay in Lima, I highly recommend you to check out Park of the Reserve. For a price of 4 soles, you can watch the water and light show there. Please check the website for its show time.

The park actually locates in Lima central district. However, during my first stay, the park was closed for some special event. I was not very interested in the water show, again I was in South America for nature! But Cynthia highly recommended me for a visit. So one day after her work, she took me there. It turned out to be a wonderful experience. While the show is only for half an hour, the park is huge with various fountains lit up at night and one can easily spend 2-3 hours for the visit.

Jockey Plaza

Jockey Plaza is probably one of the biggest shopping center in Lima. My old Northface hiking shoes were broken in Gocta hiking trail and I was desperately in need for a new pair of hiking shoes for many future hiking trails to be conquered. Cynthia took me shopping around in central Lima district, and Miraflores. Those mini shopping stops all failed due to the two reasons. One was that I need a trustworthy brand and the second and most importantly was that I am OVER the average size for people in South America…the average height for women is 155cm (5’1 feet) and 165cm (5’5 feet) and I am 178cm (5’10)? So our last resort was Jockey Plaza. There is nothing to much to say about Jockey Plaza, it just like most malls in the U.S. But we went there on a weekday after Cynthia’s work. Before we set off, she told me it was really close by. That night, we started by an express bus by waiting in line to purchase the bus ticket for about 15min then got into the station waiting line for another 20min to get on the express bus. Check out the waiting lines on the freeway cross bridge, they were all waiting to get in! The in-vehicle time was only 20 minutes since they have designated bus lanes on the freeway.

Do you think that’s it? NO, our journey continued with a 20-minute walking transfer leg to catch another crazily crowded local bus. The conductor was hanging out of the bus for most of the time so that the bus could fit more people. So after two hours, we arrived Jockey Plaza. Cynthia told me this was normal for traveling in the peak hour, what a city life!

Jockey Plaza carries many U.S. and European brands and even the layout and design is very much like shopping centers in the U.S. Unless you need to re-stock your gears, you probably don’t need to go there.

Luckily there were several good outdoor brands, like Northface, Summon, Merrell and Patagonia etc. The prices were much higher compared to U.S…so I ended up with one of the cheapest choice for Merrell and paid approx.. 120 USD… The most expensive item I bought in South America. My options have to be with Gore-Tex and here I have one recommendation for all of you. Please pay the higher price for Gore-Tex products especially for your hiking shoes. You will not regret!

Life in Miraflores

My second stay in Lima or maybe I should say in Miraflores made me feel like home. The Miraflores district is very very nice for living. I thought I could live there forever. One of the most important reason for this was that I found my beloved hostel chain brand Selina! I highly recommend everyone to try it out. Selina has hostels all over the world and it is rapidly growing. For the moment, its main market is in South America and Central America.

Mi Amour - Selina

Here let me express my love for a hostel Selina~ Selina Miraflores was the first Selina hostel I stayed and from day 1 I fell in love with Selina. From then on, for every city I passed, as long as there is Selina, I had no hesitation to stay there. So for my 4+ months travel, I believed I stayed in different Selina hostels for approximately 30 days! So what make it so special (observations made based on Selina in Lima, Arequipa, Cusco, La Paz, and Buenos Aires):

All locations are always in trendy districts and walking distance to almost everything you need
All facilities are GREAT even with U.S. and European standard.
All rooms are clean, beds are comfy with curtains, showers are SUPER hot with sometimes too strong water pressure
Internets are always SUPER SUPER fast
Always equipped with GREAT common kitchens, nice café and bar
It offers very good co-work space in almost every Selina locations with an extra fee though. You may not believe, I have used the co-work spaces at four out of six Selina I have stayed. Decorations and space sizes may differ but they were all gorgeously designed. Trust me, you will love to work there.

The best Selina hostel I stay is the one in Arequipa (I will have another section for Selina Arequipa) and the best co-work space is in Lima!

Just for a glance, Selina Miraflores café and breakfast:

My favorite Selina Co-Work space in Lima. All co-work spaces came with a simple kitchen and this one even has a gym and a indoor spa pool?!

My Daily Routine in Miraflores

As said, Selina always has a GREAT common kitchen and just across the street there was a supermarket. So For most of the days, I cooked my own meals. My days started at 8 am with fresh juices and breakfast prepared in the common kitchen. Then I headed to the co-work space working on travel plans and my blog (yes, I did not upload lots of posts in real time, but I did try hard to do so). In the late afternoon, either I went for grocery shopping or walked around the parks, churches, stores. For most of the nights, Cynthia would come and we may have some evening tours in Lima. What a wonderful life!

The Food

As I said, I cooked most of my own meals in Selina. Friends, Lima is famous for its award-wining and Michelin restaurants. Also, in my opinion, Peru has the best food in general. But remember, I was just a backpacker with limited budget and NO decent outfit for luxury restaurants. If you are interested in high-end restaurants, I believe you can easily find a long list from Google. If budget allows, you may want to try one or two. I heard that the average price per person can go up to 80-100 USD for dinner…

The one I can really recommend is Restaurante Cordano located near Plaza de Armas. I had the best beef tongue stew (38 soles) there and they also provide a long list of typical Peruvian dishes.

Then some failures in trying not that cheap but not expensive Sushi restaurant. Do not go for cheap Sushi places at all in South America unless you want to have an adventure tasting ever known sushi rolls with ingredients in my opinion should never appear in sushi. I failed several times in all contraries I visited. But this Sushi restaurant has a very unique ordering system so that even you don’t know Spanish, there would not be any problem. You don’t even need to talk to your waitress. But look at their deserts menu, lemon pie sushi, chocolate sushi etc! This dinner was 51 soles for all-you-can-eat sushi.

Then the tourist restaurant failure. Restaurant suggested by Cynthia was closed so we just went to some random restaurant nearby and turned out to be not that good. But the dishes we ordered were typical Peruvian food. I believe if you find the right restaurants, those two dishes should be very delicious.

Verde Arroz con Pollo (green rice with chicken) - 30 soles