First visit to downtown Lima

Last weekend, our Peace Corps language teachers took us to downtown Lima to explore. Even though we live right outside of Lima, we live in smaller suburb cities so this was our first time to explore actual Lima. First, they took us the “El Centro Historico” (the historic section of downtown). Don’t think that I am a stuck up snob for saying this, but honestly, I was not that impressed with Lima’s historic downtown. I only say this because I spent six months in Quito, Ecuador which is a city known to have the most beautiful historic downtown in all of South America. So it was with reason that I was not super impressed by Lima’s historic downtown. Quito’s historic downtown is truly stunning with its breathtaking plazas, statues, churches with amazing views of the whole city, quaint shops and restaurants, and so much more. I can just picture myself in Quito walking down the cobble stone streets, through the plazas, in awe of all the beauty around me while always having site of my favorite enormous statue miles away of some virgin saint that overlooks the whole city. Quito is also in the Sierra mountain range so it is surrounded by gorgeous mountains…I get homesick for Quito just thinking about it. But ok sorry, enough about Quito! As I mentioned, Lima is on the ocean and so there are some beautiful ocean views from certain parts of town. But in my opinion, nothing is as beautiful as being surrounded by mountains. The ocean views of Lima can be seen from a part of town called “Miraflores”. We spent the second part of our day in this section of town. Miraflores is the uppity, yuppity, touristy part of Lima. It’s the part of town where you can walk through and literally forget that you are in Peru at all and subconsciously think you are in the US. It is a beautiful part of town, but quite frankly it also disgusts me a little bit. To see e the mall on the waterfront, all the American fast food restaurants and American name brand shopping stores kind of makes my heart sad.  But I guess we live in a material obsessed world and so these parts of town exist in every country. I will be headed back to this section of town to meet up with a good friend from college who is currently in Lima! I am bringing my fifteen year old host sister and we are going to hang out for the day. It will be fun to see a friend of mine from the states!!

Here are some photos from our visit to Lima:

The heart of the historic downtown section of Lima

Our Spanish class in a coffee shop right down the street from the Peruvian white house

The Peruvian white house

At the water from in Miraflores

Miraflores waterfront shopping center

JFK statue honoring him for starting the Peace Corps 51 years ago!