Roaming with Peter & Marilyn: Leaving Nazca and back in Nazca

Monday, Nov. 29

We leave the lovely Oasis hotel early, as usual. We like to be in lots of time. Rosa has been incredibly helpful. Although it is a little ways from downtown, it is a wonderfully relaxing place to stay.
The security fellow gets all our pictures on video before the bus departs. We have the nice, big downstairs’ seats this time. There are only five of us down here. Of course, the seats are sold to passengers getting on farther down the line. As usual, we are fed a very passable meal.
I can’t believe how far north in Peru the desert extends. There are small pockets of green where arroyos or above-ground rivers flow through the valleys, but otherwise there is nothing - absolutely nothing - but dirt and rocks. As with the Nazca lines, some companies use the side of mountains to draw a long-lasting advertisement in the dirt.
It is dark when we arrive in Lima. We taxi back to the Miraflores Lodge and this driver actually has an idea where it is. Other than the fact we have been double-billed for our first stay here, everything is lovely. The owner, Ruben, bought a large, eighty-year-old house and added an extension on the back with a courtyard in the center. The rooms are simply, but tastefully decorated and the bathrooms are spotless. He also has rooms in the main house. The included breakfast buffet is even better than the one at the Holiday Inn. Ruben will check in the morning about the double billing and, yes, we will not pay this time, and he needs the room as they are full so we can cancel the last night and just leave our bags there the last day and come in to change for the long flight home. He will give Peter the a cash refund for that last night.
Ruben recommends a restaurant just around the corner for our dinner. I have Peruvean soup which turns out to be very tasty. Although it is a proper indoor reataurant with a front-terrace area, it reminds me of Jesus’. There are four tables of diners and, obviously, they do not have enough ingredients in the kitchen. The helper is given some money, disappears, and returns in ten minutes with two grocery bags of stuff! Although the service is slow, the meal is delicious. We go to bed contented.

Tuesday, Nov. 30.
We decide to do a final laundry. Ruben recommends one just around the corner. The lady says we can pick it up the following morning at 11. We say we need it earlier, so she writes 10:30 on the slip. Later, we see the young man from the hotel dropping off towels from the hotel, so, obviously, they use this lavadoria.
We plan to visit a museum so we ask Ruben which is closer, the National museum or the Museo Rafael Larco Herrera. He says neither is close, but he would highly recommend that if we have to choose, we should go to the Larco. We take his advise and grab a taxi on the street (there are hundreds of thousands of them in Lima) and it does take close to half an hour to get to the museum. But what a place! Rafael Larco Herrera was an archaeologist from a very wealthy family and over his lifetime he put together the collection in this museum. The building itself is a huge mansion on an estate in the middle of town. As we walk towards the entrance to the building, there are three or four very substantial, well-dressed gentleman milling about. Each has an earpiece. You know right now that they are guarding somebody! We ask the girl at the desk and she says that the wife of one of the government ministers is visiting the museum. As in Mexico, these people do need protection from kidnapping. Fortunately, it does not interfere with our visit.
There is a foundation that now takes care of the museum and it is not cheap to get in, but well worth every penny. You can get a guide, but the people with guides are in and out within an hour. We are captivated for close to three hours. Everything is displayed beautifully. I don’t take pictures within as the sign says you shouldn’t. The written commentary is in five languages. I don’t know about the French, German, or Japanese, but the English is well translated from the Spanish. As we are leaving we see another few interconnected rooms. Within these are floor to ceiling glass-enclosed shelves where the underplayed collection is stored. Thousands of pieces organized and catalogued. You have to marvel at the amount of artefacts collected.
The grounds of the estate are beautifully manicured. There is a restaurant in the building and about thirty, richer than average, guests are having lunch. From the prices of articles in the shop, we forgo the need to ask for a menu at the restaurant and leave to have lunch elsewhere.
The regular guard by the door to the grounds asks us if we need a taxi. When we say yes, he calls to “Paco” who appears to be snoozing on a bench in the park and this is to be our driver. He has wisps of hair sticking up and only two teeth that happen to be the center-top ones. He rushes us to a somewhat battered car. As it turns out, he has a good command of Spanglish and he gives us a tour-guide commentary all the way back to Miraflores. He offers to take us, another time, to the garment section of the city, that is too dangerous for us to go to alone, where we can buy everything at extremely discounted prices. We pass on the offer, but Peter gives him a generous tip for the informative drive back.
We remain in Miraflores, touring the many “artisan” shops - referred to as tourist junk in Mexico - to get a feel for prices and items we might like to take home as gifts. Dinner is pizza - we never did get lunch - and home to pack as tomorrow we have to pack, go for a last wander downtown, change, and head to the airport for our midnight flight. Just one more day in South America. The time has passed quickly, as it always does as you come to the end of a journey.