Four dollars well spent!

One thing that we have learned about the city of Lima is that it takes forever to get anywhere. Traffic is horrendous, and while we've enjoyed our three days here, three days was enough for us. We probably could have done one more day in the downtown core, which would have been fine if we were actually staying in the downtown core. But we were not.

Most tourists who come to visit Lima stay in the "Miraflores" neighborhood. But Miraflores is an exclusive residential and upscale shopping neighborhood. It's not really our style, and it's certainly not what we came to Peru for.

We've enjoyed staying in this average Lima neighborhood just south of the airport where things are a little run down, but the people are friendly and helpful. And it's certainly not touristy.

Yesterday when we were at the church tower, the girl we met was from the Callao neighborhood and she suggested we should go there to La Punta (The Point) where she said there were a lot of inexpensive seafood restaurants.

It was almost lunchtime before we set out. We called another Uber cab and it cost 12.5 soles ($4.90 CAD, $3.75 USD) for the 40 minute ride to go to the old Spanish fortress called Fortaleza Real Philipe. I had read that it was an interesting place to visit.

When we arrived, we started walking out to see the big shipping port instead of towards the fort.

The islands beyond the port are sometimes called "the poor man's Galapagos".

The shipping port.

So we're wandering along the walkway, and we come to a sign that advertises a submarine. We've always wanted to go on one of those big Navy subs, but the cost has always been ridiculous to us. For example, the one they have at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii is $15 USD ($19.70 CAD).

This one, is 12 soles ($4.70 CAD, $3.60 USD).

Sign us up!

The Abtao SS-42.

The Abtao SS-42 was built in Connecticut for the Peruvian Navy and it was in service for almost 50 years from 1952 to 2000.

Here's Ruth, about to go down the hatch!

After we were both down, they slammed it shut and locked it.

There was a local family of five already down there... plus their dog! We love that kind of thing about Latin countries. They are so laid back. Imagine asking in Pearl Harbor if you can take your dog on board?

The torpedo room. 

The right tube has a torpedo in it.

Our guide was really good at explaining how things work.

Notice the guy with a towel? That's a dummy in the shower room!

There would have been 42 men living on board this sub, and they would often be away for up to two months at a time!

Not much sleeping space.

 Me, at the controls. 

Let's take this thing for a spin!

Ruth at the periscope.

It doesn't have many miles on it... barely broken in!

Lots of dials and buttons to play with!

Our guide explaining some more stuff.

We didn't understand it all, but we did pretty good.

The galley.

Big diesel engines.

The engine room.

Me, on deck.

It was kind of fun because the sub is still floating and is only tied off with a couple of ropes. So it still rocks with the movement of the water.

A timeline of the life of the Abtao SS-42 Sub.

Glad we did that. Well worth the price of admission!

We were getting hungry for lunch by this point, so instead of going to the fortress, we continued on towards the point looking for one of those cheap seafood restaurants the girl had mentioned.

I was looking on google and saw a restaurant that had a lot of really good reviews, but when I looked down the street it was supposed to be on, we didn't see a restaurant. We actually had to go looking for it, and a guy outside waved us towards him.

I meant to take a photo of the outside, but I forgot to, so this is a google streetview screenshot...

That's the place... painted green in the center of the photo.

Restaurant Maguila.

A pretty basic looking place, but inside there were two rooms. One was fairly busy. You would never know it from the outside. The other was quieter but near the entrance. We chose the quieter entry room.

The girl brought menus, and at first glance it was pretty expensive compared to the places we had been eating at. But, we thought if it's good, then we'll splurge a bit. It turns out that it's one of the most famous restaurants in Callao!

A beer on the menu was 10 soles ($4.00 CAD, $3.00 USD) which sounded pricey by Peruvian standards. But, I hadn't had a beer yet in Peru so I decided to go for it. And so I was quite happy when the guy came out with a big bottle of beer.

A normal size beer in Canada is 340 ml. A normal size beer in Europe is 500 ml. This bottle was 630ml!

Four dollars well spent!

Bottoms up!

And I like it. I will be having more Cusquena beer!

We each ordered the Pescado Oriental. We weren't exactly positive what we were going to get, other than he assured us it was not made with any wheat flour.

Again, it was pricey compared to the other places we have eaten so far here. 40 soles ($15.65 CAD, $11.90 USD) each.

As we were sitting there waiting for our food, we saw the cook come out and go to the guy outside who had waved us in. We saw her give him some money. He came back a few minutes later with a clear plastic bag with about a dozen eggs in it. We have seen similar things like this in Mexico. Love it.

It came with a bowl of rice.

It was a huge plate of food. Underneath the veggies that you can see there were four big pieces of fish. I think it was the most delicious fish I have ever had. It was mahi-mahi fish. 

We were stuffed. I can't believe Ruth ate the whole thing. 

Reading the reviews, I notice that many people mention that some dishes are enough for two people.

Ruth had two glasses of wine, and I had just the one big beer. Total bill was 98 soles ($38 CAD, 29 USD). 

From there, we waddled our way down the point.

Looking out at the island.

It was a nice walk for the most part.

Some more modern building with some older run down ones.

Too funny.

We're not sure!  

A colorful crab.

View at the point.

More crabs. 

We headed up the beach on the other side of the point.

Not the nicest beach because it is almost all large pebbles.

By the time we made it back to the fort it was after 4:00pm and closed!

Part of the old Spanish fort.

Scenery along the way.

We called another Uber taxi and it took about 45 minutes to do the 7.5 km (4.6 mile) drive back home. Walking wouldn't have been much slower!

But, we had a good afternoon. 

Funny, but our Uber driver on the way back kept asking us to confirm that was our address. He didn't understand why we would be going to this average local neighborhood. 

I thought it was going to rain this morning, but it never did. Temperature about 21C (70F) and mostly cloudy.

Today, we are up early to do a 7 to 8 hour bus ride up into the mountains where we will be staying for a week!

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