21st Oct. 2016
As Miraflores is on the sea front, we decide to walk in that direction. We remember the Park Amor with the large statue of a couple embracing and head there first (via Starbucks to meet Dave’s coffee needs of the morning!) to try and improve on the photos we took last time. The sky is still grey due to the water vapour in the onshore breeze being unable to escape over the Andes (we were told yesterday). It just hangs in the air and rarely falls as rain.
It is still only mid morning so to help with our step target we descend the many steps to the shoreline and meander along watching the surfers who seem to spend more time lying on their boards than actually surfing. I had forgotten there was a pier, so cue more photos.
Before long we begin to see many paragliders launching off the cliffs above us in a long procession. They circle around before heading back in a big circle. The in thing now is that each had a long selfie stick filming the punter on his trip around the bay.
It was then back up the steps to head along to the famous Larcomar shopping centre as we had been told it was brilliant with loads of shops. Well if you like the generic Timberland, Banana Republic, North Face etc then you would be happy. However we were looking for memory cards (‘cos we seem to have taken one or two photos – surely not!). We comment that we have not actually seen any shops selling cameras and have only found one electric shop chain weirdly called Coldbox and they only sell microSD memory cards.
Too early for lunch, we head back to town for Peruvian fast food washed down with Chicha Morada made from purple corn. It was better than Inka Cola (just!) We head back to the department store we were in yesterday and this time successfully buy up there entire stock of memory cards (all two of them). What a lot of effort for two little (not micro) items.
Fed up of all the western shops and the feeling we could be in any large city, we head for the local Peruvian artisan market. That is more like it as we admire all the baby alpaca shawls and brightly coloured cloth. As we cannot carry many souvenirs, I settle on a small woven purse for all our foreign coins we seem to be accumulating. In view of the area we hunt out a café serving tea made from proper tea leaves and yet more chocolate cake. Oops! But after all the walking we feel we deserve a sugar fix.
Time for more shopping – this time for water and we remember seeing a large supermarket nearby. As it is near beer o’clock we decide to buy a big bottle to share. However there is a problem at the checkout, I thought he assistant was telling us to get a second bottle but not so. After much head scratching the lady on the next till thrust a scrap of paper under our noses saying in English you can only buy a bottle of beer if you bring an empty one in exchange!!!! Cans are OK to buy but given the queue and the sheer disbelief we felt there was no beer for us tonight. We left the enticing cold beer behind and Dave was not amused.
We had much better luck shopping for supper as we found a small Trip Adviser recommended Italian tucked down a side street selling freshly made pasta, which was delicious. Ristorante Fratello if you are ever in Miraflores and fancy pasta.