If you’re in Lima with a lover this can be a lot of fun. By “this” we mean a visit to El Parque del Amor or “The Park of Love”. Lima has an impressive assortment of parks but only this one, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and opened on Valentine’s Day 1993, is dedicated to romance. The statue is titled “The Kiss” and was sculpted by Victor Delfin. Apparently Victor liked his gals big, bold and beautiful and he was an awkward kisser.
The benches in the garden will make you feel as if you’re in a Small World version of Park Güell in Barcelona. Gaudi must have failed to copyright his famous mosaic benches as they are replicated in this park. El Parque del Amor is in the Miraflores section of Lima. Miraflores has a series of parks strung along the Pacific. The parks have various meanings or uses, one even has outdoor exercise equipment. So if you don’t have anyone to kiss, just walk over to the exercise park and work out your frustrations!
Alternatively, walk to where you see all of the people hang gliding over the ocean and give that a go. To be fair we can’t vouch that hang gliding is fun because the day Blonde attempted it there wasn’t enough wind. Despite being packed into extensive equipment that involved unknown men adjusting straps in her crotch (worth the money just for that ) and being assigned to progressively smaller men (you go in tandem with someone who supposedly knows what he’s doing) the wind gauge said it was a no go mission.
If you want to hang glide it costs $92 USD and they must be crisp bills in excellent condition. Several bills were rejected for small tears or merely for looking somewhat bedraggled. Supposedly unsavory bills get a lower exchange rate, hence their merciless rejection.
The price is high as you’re probably only going to be in the air for 10 to 20 minutes but you also get a video of your bravery/foolishness that you can post on every social media channel where you think someone might see you. Priceless.
If you do hang glide you can go to Astrid y Gastón to celebrate your derring-do and if you don’t, you can go to drown your sorrows. You won’t get in the main dining room unless you’ve made reservations weeks in advance (and are prepared to eat a 29 course, 3 hour tasting menu). It’s more casual and less expensive to go to the bar and have dinner (or just drinks) there. However, even for the bar you should make reservations so use this link to do that.
This is more than a bar – it’s a performance of precision and perfection with spirits (sounds classier than saying “booze). The bar tenders must spend an amazing amount of time training because they prepare a wide array of drinks each with something that renders their version oh-so-superior to a drink of the same name anywhere else. They dry and ground their own raspberries from their garden on the premises just to have some little powder to sprinkle on a drink. They make all sorts of flavors of dry ice and create infusions that could cause you to need a medical infusion if you over imbibe. Everything is done on the premises and if you’re lucky (as we were) you can learn a lot of interesting things by chatting with one of the bar tenders.
Normally we don’t list churches as “fun” places to go. But Iglesia de San Francisco’s architecture is Lima Baroque and the painted ceilings are beautiful. It’s also interesting to see the slopes and bulges of some of the walls that endured multiple earthquakes.
The fun part is a creepy walk through the underground tunnels filled with human bones. The bones are the remains of approximately 10,000 people who were buried here, one on top of the other, for a very long time.
Someone sorted them into lots of body parts bins and they’re fascinating and a great place for a cheesy photo opp if you’re immature enough to do that sort of thing.
The Museo Larco is a private museum that was moved to Lima from its original location in Chiclin on the northern coast of Peru. The collection represents the work of one man who, working alone, spent his lifetime studying pre-Columbian civilizations, amassing a collection of treasures and building the museum as an homage to his father.
There all sorts of things to see; textiles, vessels showing portraits or depicting rituals, pottery, funerary mantles, and jewelry and other artifacts made of Peruvian gold and silver.
And then, after you’ve seen all of the educational and culturally enlightening displays, you can scurry off for more immature behavior! There is a separate (you have to walk outside and down some steps) gallery for erotica. No matter how much time you spend there you’ll probably end up with the dispiriting conclusion that no one has thought up much (if anything) new in a very long time.
After so much, um, stimulation, you may be appreciative if you encounter Lima’s Elvis after the museum and can get him to sing “All Shook Up” for you.
Remember to give him a generous tip – he works hard for his money and white Crocs can’t be cheap! And how much fun can any city be without its very own Elvis?