Day 1: Peru: Lima: getting there and getting settled

Fortified by a nice dinner at Lazy Dog outside of the IAD airport, we were ready to begin our adventures. Lazy Dog is a small chain featuring American cooking from scratch. The menu is enormous. Even better, a location is coming soon to King of Prussia, PA.

As our flight was at 1 am, TSA pre-check was closed for the night, along with much of the rest of the airport. I guess that is one way COPA keeps their expenses low.

Our flights from COPA to Lima, Peru (layover in Panama City, their hub) were uneventful though basic. Not even a place to charge our phones, certainly not a screen on the back of the seats, and food was "take it or leave it." For the first leg we had three seats for the two of us. The second leg we were upgraded to economy plus, meaning I could cross my legs without hitting the back of the seat in front of us. The two-hour layover gave us a chance to stretch our legs and explore the Panama airport. 

We arrived in Lima with our carry on bags in hand and were met by Miguel and his sedan. We were his only pickups. That should have been my first clue that the transportation for the trip would be chaotic. Sometimes we were the only ones, sometimes part of the group, sometimes we would add people from other hotels, and very rarely all 13 of us traveled together. We were each handed our own itineraries and had to keep track of how our piece fit into the greater experience.

Miguel spoke excellent English. Something I did not appreciate at the time. He told us everything we should know -- the exchange rate, the weather, what to expect in Lima, how long the ride would be, suggestions for things to do with the rest of the day, as well as answered questions we had about what we were seeing. 

We arrived at the hotel around 1:30 after a 45 minute drive from the airport and immediately checked into our room on the top floor. This would be our room for the next two nights, and the hotel we would return to on the last night. Changing  hotels every two days was as exhausting as I thought it would be. Packing cubes kept us organized. Fortunately we could leave our bags at the hotel during those gaps when we didn't have a room (as we often use VRBO, this felt like a luxury). 

We did a quick change from winter to summer clothes and went in search for food. I love exploring cities. Many in our group prefer nature, to which I say I am glad the planet is large enough we can all find things we enjoy. We don't all have to like the same things. Me, I like cities. I like seeing how grocery stores vary. How there are always places to eat. Always some kind of transportation to get you back to where you started. People to talk to. Street art. All that said, it takes a little bit for me to get my bearings. 

We started to walk towards Parque Kennedy, yes named after our President Kennedy. We made a wrong turn and found a soup restaurant open 24-hours a day. Oddly, though, soup was the smallest part of the menu. They offered a soup of the day and two other items. The rest of the menu was expansive. And in Spanish. We asked for a menu in English (something that has worked in Belgium and France) and were handed a QR code. We still had troubles discerning the menu, so we turned to Google Translate -- a travel game changer. We were too hungry to be adventurous. 

Google Maps, another travel game changer, guided us to Parque Kennedy. Technically the former Parque Central was divided into two parks: Parque 7th de Junio (June 7th Park) and Parque Kennedy in honor of his proposing the the 1961 Alliance for Progress (the more I learned about history on this trip, the more I realized I don't know much about the history of this region and a week was not going to be long enough). Most people simply refer to it as Parque Kennedy. At the one end is a traffic circle under a blue construction tarp (sorry, no picture). The other is the Virgen Milegrosa Church. My interest, though was in the friendly kittens and cats who have taken sanctuary in this park. If I had more time, I would have spent it taking pictures of the cats. We noticed cat houses, or cat castles. While dog's are on leashes in the city, the cats are roaming free.

Very regal

Cat castle

We decided to regroup, so we walked back towards the hotel and aimed for one of my other goals: visiting Pucllano, the pyramid in the center of Lima. I first learned about the pyramid when I saw a content creator Kevin Droniak's post about Peru in a day. Kevin finds cheap non-stop fares and visits places around the world for up to 24-hours. The benefit to short trips is he does not check into a hotel, and ha makes the most of every minute. Often he chooses one must-do thing for his day, and does whatever else he can while he is there, the returns to the airport to sleep on the flight home. His one day in Peru included visiting the pyramid.

Alas, when we arrived they were closed for dinner break. Wanting to make the most of our time, we moved forward to another activity and aimed to go to the pyramid the next day after our guided tour of the city.

We'll pick up the day at our next stop: the Magic Water Circuit.