January 14, 2024
After being at Sea for Two days, we anchored in the port city of Callao. Callao is a bustling container port. There were also numerous large ocean grain bulk carriers being unloaded. Callao and Lima are basically connected. This morning I hopped on a shuttle bus to the outside of the port where there was supposed to be a terminal with a market. I must not have listened correctly, when the bus stopped outside the terminal, there was no market in sight, just a dozen cab drivers reaching in the bus to pull you in their cab. I decided to ride the shuttle back to the boat, as it didn’t look very safe to me. Meanwhile outside the boat a dozen or so vendors had set up their tables with numerous textiles, jewelry and souvenirs.
For the night I had booked an tour to visit an old house in downtown Lima, where the current family who lived there had invited us for dinner. The bus ride up to the house was something else. The traffic was horrendous. Everything goes on the road. Not much for traffic rules like we are used to at home. A bus ride that should have taken 20 minutes took us nearly an hour and half. When we got to our destination, we still had to walk 4 blocks to the house. With several people assisted with “walkers” , I thought this could become a challenge, but we all got to the house safely and left nobody behind.
Inside the house we were greeted by the staff. The staff were serving Pisco Sours and hors d’oeuvres. Pisco Sour is national cocktail in Peru. ( they are very yummy) The inside of the house was stunning, build in 1532 and kept in pristine condition. The floors consisted of beautiful hardwood and white marble stairways. The walls were covered with beautiful old paintings and a variety of art pieces.
After being seated on two long tables the staff served us an very nice dinner consisting of an artichoke starter, tenderloin main and custerd apple dish for dessert. All of this complemented with white and red wine.
After dinner we walked back to the bus to take us back to the ship. During our walk back, we witnessed local people enjoying the summer night playing music and games on the street. The traffic on the ride back was slightly better than earlier that night. Back on the ship, I closed out the night with a Casa Amigos on the rocks.
Cheers
Cor and Carol
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