Lima, Peru

It was almost noon before we docked in Callao which is the port city for Lima and is the largest port in the country.  Since this is a busy port the authorities only allow three buses on the pier at a time so our tour left about an hour late.  Our tour drove us through some of the nicer neighborhoods with beautiful homes and expensive condos.  Our guide said that the condos went for 1 to 1.5 million US and are priced in US dollars. There was a lovely old golf course surrounded by high rise condos but we did not see anyone playing. Most of the foreign embassies are also in this area . We drove by some ruins from about 1000 years ago that are currently being restored. We were scheduled to tour this ruin the next day but luckily we had already turned in those tickets. We visited a private museum, "Pedro De Osma"  that was in a house built in 1910.  It was mostly religious items but they also had a large collection of antique silver pieces.

Front entrance to the Osma Museum

One of the rooms in the museum

One of the items in the silver room

 We also had a short stop at the "Love Park" that is on top of the cliffs in the area called "Miraflores". There was a large sculpture of a couple kissing.  Next to this park was an area where they were taking off and soaring with parachutes.  Below these cliffs was an area with lots of surfers in the water.  Later we drove by some other beaches that were packed with people enjoying a sunny Saturday afternoon. This area of Peru only gets about 4 inches of rain per year and is often overcast and foggy because of the cold Humbolt current.

Parasailing off the cliff

Huge pier with a restaurant at the beach below the cliff

The "Love Park"

Our ship stayed in this port overnight and the second day is the end of our first segment out of four. It is a day that about 400 passengers will be leaving and we get a whole new bunch.  It is always a very busy day for the crew to completely change and prepare the rooms.  They would prefer that we leave the ship and go on tour but since we have been here before and seen all the highlights, we are just going to stay on board and try to stay out of the way.

The first couple of days with a whole new group of passengers is always interesting.  They don't know their way around the ship and you always see them looking at the maps on the wall.  They also do not know the procedures for going out on tour and it takes a few days to get them "trained"!!