Bienvenidos a Lima!

I woke up Friday morning in the most comfortable coach class seat I've ever slept in. Although Jesse, a fellow Virtuoso agent and new friend, and I were staring longingly at the LAN business class just two rows ahead of us, I have to admit I slept well for a planeride... a glass of wine and a sleep mask really do the trick.

Flying into Lima was beautiful - the expanse of the Pacific on one side and the magnificent Andes on the other.

We were met by our friendly A&K guide Luis and started off on the 30 min drive from the airport to downtown. Apparently the ride is typically half the time when not in rush hour. In explanation of the excess of political billboards, Luis briefed us on the upcoming elections in Peru, which will take place a week from Sunday. Fun fact #1: Voting is compulsory in Peru; you're fined if you don't vote. (Not as) Fun fact #2: Peru is dry for three days surrounding the elections. Guess I better get my fill of pisco sours before next Friday.
We checked into the Country Club Hotel in Lima's posh neighborhood of San Isidro. The hotel is aptly named and looks just the part, a crisp white oasis within the city. 

Lima's residential neighborhoods of  Miraflores and San Isidro are marked by beautiful colonial style houses with "box balconies" or enclosed terraces usually made of wood with ornate carvings and dressed up with ivy or foliage. It's like Lima's version of the beautiful old Southern homes of Charleston.

We explored Miraflores and did some windowshopping (I'm searching for the perfect alpaca scarf) before returning to the hotel to refresh from the long day of traveling we'd had. I took a book to the little walled pool and then spent an hour engaging in one of my favorite pastimes- hanging out in my hotel robe.

In the evening a few of my fellow travel advisors and I met in the hotel for our first pisco sour. What I love about the hotel is that it is obviously a 'place to be' in the area. The bar was lively, the restaurant was filled with Limeños and a gorgeous Peruvian bride was taking her pictures out front.

Now we are lucky to have a week full of fantastic meals at some of our destination cities' best restaurants (and Lima is known as one of, if not the, top gastronomical cities in South America) so we decided to go local for dinner. The most populous foreign nationality in Peru is the Chinese and they have been here for hundreds of years so they've had some practice mixing cuisines. We were recommended to a local 'chifa' which is the Peruvian Chinese restaurant (they're everywhere) but with their own Peruvian influence. Yum! We all ordered different things to share. In my opinion it didn't taste too different from other Chinese food I've had, but who doesn't like Chinese food!? And it was fun to sit in a little local Chinese dive and experience the neighborhood.

Today we have a full tour of the hotel and then a full tour of the city of Lima with Abercrombie&Kent.  We have a 2:30AM departure from the hotel (yes I said AM) for our flight to Arequipa so we plan to make a night of it. I´ll catch up on sleep and blogging on the plane and ride to Colca tomorrow.