Day 1 - PTY layover; half day in Lima

On the way to Peru, we had a brief layover in Pattaya. Wait, Pattaya? Well, the airport code is PTY, so Pattaya is always the first thing that pops into mind. Not sure if I’m the only one. Anyway, the view of Panama City from the plane was wonderful.




Both our arrival and departure flights were in the old Terminal 1, so we visited the old Copa lounge there. T1 gave me retro vibes, a nice nostalgia. The lounge was ok in terms of hardware (I’m being kind). The entrance is extremely unassuming; we passed it a few times before our eyes recognized it.




The food is where the lounge shines - if the goal were to strive for the worst food at an airline’s homebase. Between breakfast and lunch time, there was something like bagel, stale mini muffin, and I forget what else - but a total of 3-4 choices along that line. This was more or less in line with my expectation, having read through the amusing COPA PTY lounge has nothing to eat? thread.

The connecting flight to LIM was on a 737-800 with domestic First class seats. It was uneventful and not as bad as OMAAT’s experience (alas, no overhead monitor - haven’t seen those in 10 years!).




Pleasantly, there was no wait at immigration (can’t say the same for pax who disembarked last). The sign for bathrooms in LIM was interesting. It read: “Hombres/Mujeres en su diversidad (Men/Women in their diversity)”. While I can’t be sure what this means, it sounds like gender-identity inclusiveness; I wasn’t expecting a developing country to tackle a “first world problem” like this.




I booked airport to hotel transportation via TaxiDatum for $18 USD (slightly cheaper in soles). Driver was waiting with my name outside baggage claim. We took off in a comfortable Chinese SUV. The ride to Miraflores took about 50 minutes in the early part of rush hour (4pm), with most of the jam in the last mile in Miraflores.




I used TaxiDatum throughout our trip; it was reliable and reasonably priced. Highly recommend them. As the internet promised, the beautiful coast of Miraflores was basked in overcast sky this time of year. Giant boulders perched on the inner side, quite a unique scenery.




Initially I booked the airport Holiday Inn for both coming in and going back out of LIM, for 23k and 29k IHG points respectively (ridiculously overpriced for a dumpy area). Later I found significantly cheaper options in Miraflores, the place we wanted to spend time in. The Crowne Plaza Miraflores was going for 14.5k. But I settled on Ibis Budget Miraflores for under $55 cash for this quick overnight (leaving early morning). The location was great. Room was small but clean and functional. Stayed there in both directions and would return.

After hotel check-in, we ventured out to explore Miraflores by foot. It was colder than I anticipated, and I barely survived in shorts. I was most excited to try the food, after hearing glowing opinions about it - that it’s the best food on the continent. We couldn’t resist crepes at Besos Frances by the sea. The crepes were good. We walked it off towards Parque Chino but found it closed. We then walked to Parque Kennedy to admire the cats. Finally, we fulfilled our late-night dinner reservation at Panchita, recommended by a friend: the Chicha Morada was fantastic, Lomo Saltado was good, while the Osso Bucco was disappointing (too dry). Not quite the glowing culinary start I was hoping for. That’s ok - we have a week ahead to find better food (spoiler: we did).

A quick comment on Lomo Saltado, the Chinese-inspired Peruvian staple we tried numerous times on this trip. The good ones had great sauce that makes you want to lick the plate, but I found the beef chunks always lacking tenderness and flavor. Unlike in Chinese cuisine which serves beef in smaller tender slices and absorbs the flavor of the sauce, Lomo Saltado serves bigger chunks of beef that are somewhat divorced from the flavor of the sauce. It does seem to use higher quality beef and maybe that’s why it’s done this way - to highlight the native quality of the steak, but I prefer the Chinese way.

Photo dump of our quick Miraflores excursion. One of the more innovative finds was this (what we think is) anti-pee ricocheter: