Last Day in Lima for a While!!!!

Instead of wondering about tomorrow's introduction to the Amazon rain forest, I will tell you about my low-key day. Following some confusion about my room number --Say what? MY room number??--I'll clear this up before I go on, then, just so you're not confused. So, it was like this--No wi-fi in my room, so I sat in a downstairs lounge near reception to write my blog. When I finished, I phoned Mary Anne and Jim-no answer. After a few minutes, I tried again--still no answer. Confusing. So I went for a brisk walk to the cliff walk, passed the mall and looped back to the hotel. It was then, when I opened my door with the room key, that I realized I had phoned my own room! No wonder they didn't respond! I did feel a little sheepish, but all was well. They went for a walk too, when they didn't find me in the downstairs lounge! 

Anyway this is the area on the clifftops where there is a shopping mall built into the cliffs! I didn't enter the mall, it seemed like a regular upscale shopping center with this grassy plaza in front. The tall, shiny buildings are bright and attractive, it's a very pleasant area. Then back down a a busy street to 28 July Street, a few blocks ot the hotel. I moved quickly, and it felt good.

We convened at 11:00 to meet our local guide Dante, who gave us an orientation walk similar to what I'd just done. Politely, I didn't say so, besides he gave history and geography lessons, always fascinating. Lunch followed where we tasted Chica morada (or something like that), which Jenn, Jeff, and I had tried in Reno, and which Mary Anne and I had enjoyed the day before. That put me at an advantage in the contest to guess the main ingredient! Mary Anne didn't know, so I must've learned it in Reno--the main ingredient is purple corn! No berries or anything else purple, though there are herbs and sometimes apples in diced chunks at the bottom of the glass.

We continued our walking along the busy street, through a pedestrian street to the back side of City Hall, where cats are cared for, apparently by the city! Here are just a few, as there were dozens wandering around.

Here is the front side of City Hall and an adjacent church 

beside this lovely park

where painters were selling their work. It seemed a very slow day for them, alas. Maybe midday is not the best time.

The last few days caught up with me, and I declined to accompany Mary Anne and Jim to a major museum and dinner, choosing instead to nap and read.

I am feeling anxious about the rain forest, as I have all along.  What was I thinking???!!!!! I will be relieved to actually see what it looks like there. We fly to Iquitos then travel on the Amazon 25 miles downstream to our lodge. The river is two miles wide there, I cannot conceive of that! I need to see it, and tomorrow I will!

Until then!