Lima Love Park Adventure

Yours Truly beside the Sun Window at the Love Park. The inscription reads, "Tu de este lado y yo del otro como dos remos," or "You are on one side and I am on the other like two oars." At this moment, my boyfriend Matt and I are on either end of the Atlantic Ocean! :<

 Lima’s residents have a penchant for public flora…and for public displays of affection.

Gardeners have encircled fountains and granite statues with native ornamentals since the founding of the city.

Lovers on benches, beside the water, against the cold stone, wiggling their toes in the grass: were more numerous than pigeons in Lima’s parks even then.

The Moon Window at the love park. The benches in the park were inspired by Gaudi's manic mosaics at Parque Guell in Barcelona.

Kissing bodies  younger than they should have been or more married than they should have been hid in the manicured roundabouts, screened from view by a moat of muscular horses and grinding carriage wheels.

Today, PDA is no less ubiquitous in Lima. And urban planners have extended the greenbelt with two well landscaped pedestrian promenades.

It is the custom when one makes a commitment to a loved one in the park to make a heart with pebbles in the sand with the couples initials scratched in the center.

Avenida Arequipa’s handholding strollers can walk all the way from Lima Centro to the beach between lanes of frantic traffic with impatiens at every footfall. Tourists more conspicuously walk a similar East/West route through the desirable neighborhood of Miraflores (literally “Look, flowers!”) to Parque Kennedy where cafés and art are in abundance.

Poet Antonio Cilloniz is credited for inspiring the construction of El Parque del Amor, (“The Love Park”) in the early 1990s when he made a public observation that cities only dedicated monuments to their warriors and not their lovers.

"El Beso" by Victor Delfin. Delfin and his wife were the models. They are depicted barefooot!

Planners involved in a coastline redevelopment project, which would be capped with the addition of the dramatic cliffside mall Larcomar six years later, seized the moment and commissioned a sculpture from Victor Delfin. Within months, “El Beso,” the enormous pink monument at the heart of The Love Park was erected with Cilloniz’s quote inset at the base.

There is a small set of risers set into the park across from "El Beso," where, every year on Valentine's Day, Lima residents have a contest to see which couple can kiss the longest!

I visit The Love Park and see a mother taking photos of her son and his new fiancée while wiping tears from her eyes. A gay couple and a straight couple sit holding hands on opposite sides of a long mosaic bench, each blissfully unaware of the other. Hang gliders take off from a neighboring cliff and float overhead like love letters in the sky.

La Ronda Condo Adventure

(L to R: On the balcony of the La Ronda condo with El Panecillo in the background. A five minute walk up Morales brings you to this plaza and an even more amazing view of the monument.)

I had a wonderful time staying at Liliya and Leo’s La Ronda outpost.

It is magnificently situated with a vertiginous balcony overlooking cobblestone streets with the statue of El Panecillo in the near distance.

Readers should know that this handsome, two bedroom Quito unit is available for rental. At the time of this writing, the condo is miraculously available for the peak season (from May 18, 2012 throughout the summer.)  

Frequency Hopper readers who book Liliya and Leo’s La Ronda condo can receive a $25/mo discount!

Bear and I greatly enjoyed our comfortable Queen size bed.

This may not seem like a lot of cash, but as your dollar goes further in Quito, $25 will get you to any of the nation’s borders on a bus AND pay for your snacks!

You can contact the owners and see more pics here.

There are all sorts of other money-saving reasons to use Quito as a base.

Flights to Guayaquil, where all Galapagos Islands cruises board, are about $200 round trip if you pay cash for a local airline instead of booking credit card style with a provider in your home country. (The savings over a flight booked directly to GYE from SFO was around $100 to $150 per person.) 

The only way you can do this is if you are on the ground in Loja or Quito.

Also, from Quito one can more readily book or build day trips to the makets of Otavalo, the natural beauty of Peguche/Lago San Pablo, the not-in-Lonely-Planet adventures of Mindo’s cloud forest, and the hot springs resort of Papallacta.  Again, you MUST be paying with cash. 

A table in the living room area where I set up my writing desk. 

I favored Liliya and Leo's condo over a number of comparable units primarily due to it's location. I had the opportunity to stay in New Town, but the vibe isn't at all the same.

Once one is on the ground in Old Town, bakeries, fruit stands, and family run restaurants are all about. One of the best adventures is finding your favorites. 

There are numerous activities within a quick walk. It is difficult to think of a European capital with so many cathedrals of architectural and historic interest in such close proximity to one another.

The Changing of the Guard at the Plaza Grande is a must-see every Monday at 11 am.  I was fortunate enough to book the first part of  Holy Week and got treated to a street carnival on Palm Sunday.

(L to R: The archway to La Ronda just West of the condo. Yours Truly with my traveling companion Iona outside the condo after Palm Sunday festivities.)

Weekend nights, one hardly needs to venture into La Mariscal (aka “Gringolandia” in local parlance) for entertainment. Andean music, street vendors, and artists populate Morales Street.

When one does elect to explore, the inexpensive transit lines are all nearby. Taxi drivers always know Plaza Cummanda for fetching and dropping off.

I had a guest for two of my four weeks here. We enjoyed cooking meals in the clean, serviceable kitchen and posting details of our adventures online using the secure wireless internet. It was lovely to have a washing machine on site, also, for when we came back wet or muddy.

(L to R: The condo's lovely bath. Liliya's "welcome kit" for renters features dish and laundy soap, spare lightbulbs, paper products, and tea things.)

Liliya has a philosophical attitude about the distractions and annoyances of Quito. I found her wisdom and experience to be a generous bonus.

She and Leo clean the place top to bottom between tenants. In fact, the day I left, they put every piece of fabric in plastic bags and washed it.

I can’t wait to return to Quito for another writing retreat and expect to use it as a weigh-station for future travel in South America.