Lima Round 3: Reunited With Eddie!

The beautiful coastline south of Lima in Puerto Viejo on a rare cloudless day.

       Lima. The capital of Peru. I never would have guessed that I would be here, much less for the third time. Even less for the third time in a year. I caught a bus from Arequipa almost as soon as I got back to the city, heading for Lima and the promise of a warm sunny coastline complimented by cold pisco sours.

        I arrived and got into contact with my old room mate, Eduardo, who was visiting family while on break from university. It was so great to see him and his family again, especially since he hosted me in my first trip abroad, so coming back on round two felt like a really good way to cap it all off.

We of course got up to our old shenanigans.

            We ended up surfing with some of his old school buddies and their friends off the Costa Verde, below the cliffs of Miraflores in Lima. Despite putting on sunscreen 3 times before getting in water for a couple of hours, I was still incredibly sunburned everywhere my neon green wetsuit failed to cover. Still, after months in the mountains where its cold and rainy, a little cool water and hot sun made a world of difference! 

            A couple of days later, he showed up in front of my hostel and told me to get in.. so of course I dropped what I was doing and hopped in. We ended up going to an incredible Afro-Peruvian concert in a really nifty old bar in the trendy Barranco neighborhood of Lima. The entire crowd was animated as the old band played everything from guitars, to box drums to sheep's jaws. I looked kinda random to be honest, but the rhythms they produced were fascinating, and melded together perfectly to get everybody movin to the tunes. We had planned to head to a beach down south to body board a bit, but after the concert ended we looked at our watches and decided to put that on hold. 

           A couple of days later, we finally got around to heading down south. We drove about an hour to wide sandy beach of Puerto Viejo, expecting some massive waves from a big storm we heard was churning way out to the west... And... Nothin! The waves lapping at the deserted beach were mediocre to small at best. I didn't mind but Eduardo was pretty mad. Anyhow, we made the best of it and hopped in the water to catch what waves we could. In about an hour, our personal paradise got flooded with fellow minded folks. Then the water got pretty crowded with surfers... So after a few hours we decided to pack it in and go get some lunch back in Lima. We might not have caught the monster waves we thought, but it was still a great sun soaked day at the beach.

             Later that night I said my goodbyes to Eduardo, who planned to spend his last day in Lima with his family, and headed back to my hostel. It was an exhausting visit, but one I will never forget!

So the only wetsuit they had was this one... They said that at least when I died they would be able to find my body, although they probably wouldn't try anyways haha... Ahhh rockin it in South America!

Surfers get ready to catch the waves

Practice on baby waves makes you better on the big ones!

Hmm I wonder what folks tend to do here... Im guessing it might involve beer haha.

The signs are incredible.... This one is 4 stories high, 3D, and just all around incredibly entertaining... Eduardo tells me that the signs have been toned down in recent years, and that when he was a kid, every sign had a really sexy nearly naked woman on them... but, they were causing too many accidents.

At our Afro-Peruvian concert.

The band uses all traditional instruments, melding their sounds to create some mind boggling rhythms.

Playing a sheep's jaw in a club in Barranco Lima.

Eduardo knows that the job of pourer is no joke, and with the way Peruvians drink, I believe him!

Something about the red flags, crazy surf, spiky rocks, and the large signs that read "PELIGRO!" everywhere... I assume this is not the place I want to casually swim. 15 minutes later it was swarmed with little Peruvian kids. So much for safety.

We made it to the beach and... Eduard is incredibly mad! He was told that swells from a massive storm in the central Pacific were supposed to hit early this morning, but it looks almost too calm at the moment... It did get a bit better later on though!