Turismo en Miraflores

A couple of days ago, Melissa's friends, Erica and Dave, arrived in Peru to start their 3 week long adventure here. They are currently living in Paraguay, while Erica teaches at a school there. They are diligently making their way from country to country in S. America..hence coming to Peru, plus they get the perk of running into a longtime friend as well and I am sure Melissa is excited to see them too. 

They landed on Sunday night while we were at church, so we opted to meet up on Monday in Miraflores. We have visited Miraflores on a number of occasions, especially during the month that we were taking our Spanish classes there. However, we have never been the acting tour guides, so it was fun to switch things up and show them around. 

We meet up at the Bull in Kennedy Park, aka Cat Park (I think I blogged about it before). Turns out, this is a great spot to meet up. A huge ornately decorated bull is kind of hard to miss and it is very centrally located. 

We then wandered through the park and down to Larcomar to see the ocean and to hunt for internet because I was trying to get the instructions my doctor gave me on malaria pills because we couldn't seem to find the one the doctor here recommended that we get. We literally stopped in at every single pharmacy we passed on the 15 minute saunter down to the mall. Nothing. 

When we got down the the mall I found out that there is a Banana Republic AND Gap here! I am little bit excited. Just a little. Haha. 

From SF to Lima, just like me!

So, after securing internet at Starbucks and enjoying a blackberry drink, we headed out to find out how to get down to the beach. We spotted some stairs that we thought would get us down there, but unfortunately there was a huge brick wall blocking them off. We contemplated jumping the wall, but decided there had to be a better way. Still in search of stairs, we headed in the direction of Parque del Amor. Then, Melissa and I remembered that there were stairs down under the bridge! As we headed in that direction there were a lot of people with body boards and had their swimsuits on and all that jazz, so figured we were headed the right way. Turns out the city built a huge bridge contraption to allow pedestrians to cross over the 4 lane highway below to get down to the beach. Por fin, llegamos! 

Melissa and Erica enjoying the rocks at the beach!

The view up at Miraflores from down at the beach.

This was actually the first time that we spent any time at the water. The beach is all rocks, but there were still a number of people out there wanting to swim and all of the surfer dudes are out there finding people to give lessons to. It was quite nice and the cool breeze off the water felt wonderful! 

As seems to be our touristy place to eat now, we headed to Tanta's for lunch. It isn't touristy in that the restaurant is owned by Gaston Acurio, a famous Peruvian chef. BUT it is touristy because you can get a menu in English and the bathrooms have toilet seats and toilet paper. Oh well, it is a nice place to eat and they have good food, that includes traditional Peruvian cuisine. 

A tour of Miraflores is not complete without a stop at Melissa's favorite churro shop, Manolo's. It may the most expensive churro you can find in Peru at S/. 4 ($1.43), but they are dang good. I got one filled with vanilla, Melissa got the dulce de leche, and Erica and Dave got the chocolate. Yum yum yum. 

Now, I feel I could show someone around Miraflores and take them to good places to eat. Wanna come? :) 

Btw, we did find malaria pills! The very very last shop had them. Thank goodness for notes from my doctor, because we never did find Mefloquine, but we did find Chloroquine and Doxycycline Hyclate. We opted for the Chloroquine. Hope it works! Apparently we are in store for some interesting side effects - crazy dreams are the most common. I'll keep you posted on that front.