Travels in Peru: Final days

After we left Macchu Picchu we returned to Cusco for a final evening; they gave us an upgraded room, which was a bit bigger, had a better view, and even a 2nd floor sitting area!

We enjoyed some drinks at the hotel bar then called it a night, and were promptly woken up at 8am by the skylight shade slamming open loudly; we were up-and-at-em after another great breakfast (my favorite between all the hotels) and even a coffee tasting after!

Then we walked around Cusco on our own, first securing another suitcase, then wandering around town, perusing some of the shops, but mostly enjoying the laid back atmosphere of the sunny day.

Then, just like that, we were on our way to the airport, and the end of our tour. It felt like a dream, being ushered and guided between all these historical sites, and being treated to excellent meals and the train and the hotels, and how nice all the staff was to us, was incredible. It was hard to come back to Earth, literally; when we arrived in Lima we had a taxi scheduled, that was on time, but we were early, and led to some frustration. Our flight home didn’t leave Lima until the next day at 11pm, so we had some time to enjoy another day in Lima. We stayed in the same Miraflores neighborhood, in a quaint hotel at the dead-end of a street, with a tiny balcony and cool art on the walls in the lobby.

We also decided we were going to eat at an El Chifa, or Chinese restaurant, as we had heard good things about them from local Peruvians. We found a place near-ish the hotel, and it was good food,

We didn’t have anything planned for our final day in Lima, so we took a taxi to the Museo de Arte de Lima to take in some Peruvian Art. Located in Exposition Park, there are a few other museums on the grounds as well as a large gazebo, but that was fenced off.

The museum held a lot of cool and interesting art, including furniture, sculptures and carvings.

Many paintings:

The Catholic religious art was very interesting and different from what we had seen in European or American Catholic art (same as the church in Cusco):

and the weirdest and most famous, with the three faces of the Holy Trinity in one head:

There were also some rooms of modern art as well as a 3-D, interactive, audio-visual exhibit that was fun to enjoy. We had a snack at the museum cafe, and then walked for a while, eventually looking for lunch. We stopped at one place that had a menu board that looked intriguing, but after we ordered beers, they said they stopped serving lunch. We walked for a while longer, it was a great weather day and the sun was shining. We finally found a place to eat, the Grand Fish Cevicheria, where we had a sampler of ceviche and other assorted fishes and sauces, it was so good, we could not believe our luck.

After we did some more walking around Lima, stumbling onto an indoor mall entirely full of anime and Pokemon and japanamation and comic book figures of all sizes. There were so many shops, and spread over 4 floors; each sold basically the same types of items, and we looked for a long time, amazed at how there could be a whole mall dedicated just to this (little did we realize, until a visit about a month later to Tokyo, that there could be whole neighborhoods like this, but that’s for a future post).

Our feet weary from walking all day, we took a taxi back to the hotel, picked up our bags, and were off to the airport. Our last meal in Peru, was McDonald’s at the airport, but not normal McDonald’s; fried chicken made by McDonald’s, not strips, but real fried chicken. It was pretty good too. All in all, a truly once in a lifetime trip to visit such a unique place like Machu Picchu and enjoy the great food and friendly people of Peru!