K+K Travels: Friday September 4, 2015

We arrive LIM early and are met by Alexa. She and our driver negotiate the terrible Lima traffic (at one point a two lane road is 6 vehicles wide), pass an LDS chapel and arrive at the JW Marriott hotel (using points we are staying at Marriott hotels in both Lima and Cusco.) Our room is nice, overlooking the ocean and the man-made beach. After a rest, we meet our guide Fernando who takes us to the Larco Herrara Museum of Peruvian cultural history. We see lots of ceramic pottery from the pre-Inca Michuan (sp?) era and learn a great deal about the pre-Inca cultures of Peru and about the relatively short Inca period. The museum has a nice garden and an additional exhibit Fernando was eager to show. We then drove through Lima to the City Center where we walked through the Plaza Mayor to the oldest church in Lima, a Dominican monastery. We head back to the hotel to get ready for our 7:00 PM “reservation” at Central. We were excited to read that Central in several lists is the 4^th best restaurant in the world! We walk the 2 blocks to the address of the restaurant but find nothing open. Kurt sees the address above a single metal door and pushes it open to find himself in the kitchen. The surprised staff indicates that they do not open until 7:45 so there must be a mistake. Indeed, there is no reservation for Krieger but they take pity on us and offer to seat us in the bar with a limited menu. We return at 7:45 to learn that even the bar is fully booked, but they remember us and clean up the place where the staff get drinks from the bar tender and add a couple of stools. We enjoy a spectacular meal of a few appetizers: grilled avocado, glazed octopus and piglet cheek with quinoa. Central really is a top restaurant and fortunately for us we were able to enjoy it.