Most of the beaches south of Lima are privately owned by apartment complexes frequented by wealthy Limeños at the weekends, but we got a great tip from a Peruvian friend about a little town where this hasn’t happened around 70 miles south of Lima.
We spent a few days in a lovely apartment with a much used hammock relaxing by the sea.
The setting was so different to Europe with desert stretching as far as we could see around an enormous bay. We saw dolphins each evening from a rickety but charming pier, full of locals with single lines dangled into the sea to catch small fish.
Our families sampled with trepidation their first (and last) ceviche (fish marinated in lime, chile and onion). Mum and I had a lovely encounter with locals at a fruit trailer as we tasted local fruits and bought a few bits (including delicious fresh figs) as they quizzed us on England and what they deemed to be our astronomically high minimum wage. My standard beginning to many sentences in Spanish throughout the holiday was ‘my mum says…’ as she was so keen to chat to everyone and doesn’t speak any Spanish.
All but dad ventured into the sea for a surprisingly bracing paddle – comparable to the English North Sea in the summer. We didn’t go far out as the waves were crashing down and dominated by surfers and body borders. We climbed up a cliff on the last evening to see a lovely sunset.
Having missed anything impressive over carnival, we were pleased to see that there was to be a local dance-off featuring Peruvian folk dancers from all over the country taking place one afternoon. The dances were really colourful and energetic.
The poor people had to jump around for nine minutes in the hot afternoon sun, several of them dressed in bull costumes. One group included a live goat while another featured an impressive dancing five year old, who only wilted in the last few minutes.
Having taken a private minibus to the beach, we all returned by our normal mode of transport – the local bus. Mum and Dad had the front seats so were in prime position to enjoy how Peruvian drivers take on a traffic jam. A single line of standstill traffic becomes four lines of traffic whenever vaguely possible, weaving along the dusty verges in amongst pedestrians, sign posts, food stalls and oncoming traffic.
We spent a few days in a lovely apartment with a much used hammock relaxing by the sea.
The setting was so different to Europe with desert stretching as far as we could see around an enormous bay. We saw dolphins each evening from a rickety but charming pier, full of locals with single lines dangled into the sea to catch small fish.Our families sampled with trepidation their first (and last) ceviche (fish marinated in lime, chile and onion). Mum and I had a lovely encounter with locals at a fruit trailer as we tasted local fruits and bought a few bits (including delicious fresh figs) as they quizzed us on England and what they deemed to be our astronomically high minimum wage. My standard beginning to many sentences in Spanish throughout the holiday was ‘my mum says…’ as she was so keen to chat to everyone and doesn’t speak any Spanish.
All but dad ventured into the sea for a surprisingly bracing paddle – comparable to the English North Sea in the summer. We didn’t go far out as the waves were crashing down and dominated by surfers and body borders. We climbed up a cliff on the last evening to see a lovely sunset.
Having missed anything impressive over carnival, we were pleased to see that there was to be a local dance-off featuring Peruvian folk dancers from all over the country taking place one afternoon. The dances were really colourful and energetic.
The poor people had to jump around for nine minutes in the hot afternoon sun, several of them dressed in bull costumes. One group included a live goat while another featured an impressive dancing five year old, who only wilted in the last few minutes.
Having taken a private minibus to the beach, we all returned by our normal mode of transport – the local bus. Mum and Dad had the front seats so were in prime position to enjoy how Peruvian drivers take on a traffic jam. A single line of standstill traffic becomes four lines of traffic whenever vaguely possible, weaving along the dusty verges in amongst pedestrians, sign posts, food stalls and oncoming traffic.
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