Two weeks in Lima is two weeks too many

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!

For my last two weeks in Peru, I spent most of my time in Lima as I was working on an excavation site. I stayed in a four-bedroom dorm at the Flying Dog Hostel in Miraflores with three other girls from the group, Julie, Christine and Jannice. Also, the hostel cat Pablo moved into our room on the first day as we fed him with cat snacks and let him sleep on our beds. And just outside the hostel is Parque Kennedy, which has to be one of my favourite parks in the world, because it’s a cat park!!!Miraflores is known as the “fancy” part of Lima, although “fancy” in Peru seemed more like middle-class Denmark. It was nothing like we imagined when we first heard about the place, as I honestly thought It’d be like the areas of North Zealand in Denmark where all our rich and famous live. Miraflores is more like you’d expect any Danish city to be like. But within the city of Lima, Miraflores is paradise. The rest of Lima (apart from a few other neighbourhoods) are basically slum, unfortunately. And a lot of the neighbourhoods are also very dangerous with daily shootings and kidnappings, while Miraflores is perfectly safe and tourist-oriented.

We arrived in Lima on a Friday morning and had the weekend to explore before the work at the excavation site began.That first day, we didn’t do much but check in to the hostel and go on a tour of Miraflores by the water, where the city is actually quite beautiful. On the second day, the girls and I spent all of our time at the Inka Plaza market buying carpets, blankets, clothing, jewellery and everything else that we “really needed” as souvenirs. Peru has the best souvenirs – everything is so beautiful and soft (alpaca forever!) and CHEAP!

On the Sunday, I needed some me-time, so I decided to venture into the center of Lima for a day of solo exploration. Sometimes when I’m with a group of people for a long time, I really need to take some time alone, otherwise I’d go crazy. I always enjoy my own company and sometimes I just need it to calm my brain, so it was nice to have a day for myself.

The center of Lima is quite far from Miraflores, and taking a bus would take too long according to the hostel receptionist, so I caught a taxi instead. 20 minutes later, I arrived at Museo Nacional, the national museum of Peru, where I spent the next few hours studying all of their exhibitions. I had imagined the national museum to be much bigger than it was, and there were very few mummies which was quite disappointing.

I then decided to walk to another museum, Museo Larco, a more beautiful privately owned museum of pre-Columbian art. I was happy to find Luise, Cecilie and Maria at that museum and decided to join them for a hot drink after I’d explored the exhibition. The museum is quite small, but very beautiful and interesting, so I’d recommend Museo Larco over Museo Nacional any day.

When the other girls continued to Museo Nacional, I decided to head into the very center of Lima to Plaza San Martin and Plaza de Armas, two fancy squares that look completely out of place in their run-down surroundings. Since the center of Lima is a protected UNESCO World Heritage site, I was surprised that after walking to the next block from Plaza de Armes, what I found was slummy buildings, street dogs, heavy traffic, the smell of pee and people everywhere. I didn’t feel comfortable there at all.

At Plaza de Armas, I decided to pay a visit to the Basilica Cathedral of Lima, a Roman Catholic cathedral from 1535. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite worth the 10 soles price tag to enter the cathedral, as the interior was quite basic. I always love churches, but quite frankly this one wasn’t worth spending money on. So far, Lima really wasn’t for me.

I had one more place that I wanted to see in Lima – the Chinatown! I always love Chinatowns, but unfortunately this one was the worst Chinatown I’ve been to. It’s only a few streets wide and it’s in one of the most slummy quarter I went to in Lima. Not one for the books.

The next four days, I was working at the excavation site from 8-16, so I only had the evenings to explore, although I didn’t really do much of it. Instead, I decided to spend that time relaxing and having fun with my new friends and Pablito!

Since it was a public holiday on the Friday, a few of us decided to go out Thursday evening to test out Miraflores’ nightlife. It proved to be quite the experience with lively bars and fun discos!

On the Saturday, I decided to sleep in and have a slow morning with no stress. Christine, Anders, Brandon and I met up at 2 PM to take a walk to Barranco, the artsy neighbourhood of Lima.

We walked along the shore with views of the misty ocean for an hour until we came to the neighbourhood, which greeted us with graffiti on the walls and youngsters smoking weed. Barranco was a pleasant surprise and turned out to be my favourite part of the city. Not because of the weed, because that’s not my thing at all, but because of all the life, the vibe, the atmosphere and the beautiful old colonial style buildings. Barranco also has the best food scene in Lima, and some of the best restaurants include Isolina, Tio Mario and El Chinito. If you’re a foodie and want to experience the very best of Barranco’s food scene, you can join an exciting three-hour culinary tour with Food Tour Lima!

We spent the rest of the afternoon in Barranco and had our dinner at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the ocean, before heading back to Miraflores again.

Lima isn’t a city that I would recommend going to, as there’s honestly not much to see in the city, and it feels very polluted and slummy. I did enjoy certain things about the city, such as the ocean promenade and the hostel cat Pablo, but I probably won’t be going back there (okay, maybe just to see Pablo again!).

The one thing that really surprised me with Lima is the fact that the sky is rarely seen. I’m not sure if it’s because of smog, or as I was told because of ocean haze. I can imagine that it’s a combination of both, as Lima is a big and busy city with a lot of traffic, where the air feels and smells polluted. For the two weeks that I was there, I really missed seeing the sky and the stars.

I realize that this post has been mostly negative, and I’m really sorry about that, but I don’t want to glorify a place that I really feel doesn’t deserve it, and I want to be honest on this blog, my own personal platform. Overall, I loved Peru because of Cuzco, but spending so much time in Lima put the country further down my list of favourites than I thought it would be after the first two weeks. Lima is not the worst city I’ve been to though (Jakarta holds that title), but I’m sorry to say that it’s pretty damn close. But  there were still certain things that I liked about Lima, in particular the days spent at the excavation site – but more about that in another post!