Early morning wine tour…. wine not??

We left Nasca at 7:30 a.m. for a 2 hours ride on a local bus to the wine region of Peru, Ica. We dumped our bags at Cruz de Sur in Inca as we were taking the 2:30 bus to Lima that day. After negotiating with a cab drive we were off in search of a winery or 2. First stop Tacama, we have been enjoying their wines while we were in Peru. The winery was a beautiful restored monastery where we got to try some new wines and of course the famous Pisco. Then off again; this time it was the cab driver choice for a winery and he took us to an artisanal Pisco winery, it was a great choice. We learned how Pisco was originally made plus this particular winery still stomps it grapes by foot..yup by feet power. Back to the bus station and a quick lunch and off we went on our 5 hour bus ride to Lima.
We stayed once again in a Pirwa hostel in Miraflores a suburb of Lima. First day we decided to go to downtown Lima and take a free walking tour of the historic center. Free really means they work for tips. The tour was 90 minutes long and gave us tidbits about Lima’s historical centre and of course more info about the Inkas. Next day we hiked around Miraflores and went for a relatively expensive lunch on the water front at La Rosa Nautica. (We found out afterwards that this is one of their premier restaurants.) As we were sitting there watch the surfers and the waves coming in we felt a slight movement in the restaurant thinking it was just the waves hitting the pillions we continued on with our appetizer seafood lunch. Later that day we learned that we had experience a little earthquake.
We woke up to a beautiful sunny day which is not normal for Lima this time of the year and took a bus tour around Miraflores and just enjoyed the last day in Lima/Miraflores before our flight back to Canada the next day. We had planned to do some shopping for final souvenirs but Lima was at least twice as expensive as anywhere else and at the airport 5 times more.
Next stop Canada via San Salvador El Salvador then Toronto. While we left Lima 30 minutes late (and we only had 50 minutes to connect in El Salvador) we had no problems and arrived early in Toronto. Karen’s brother Bruce was waiting for us at the airport and whisked us off to Niagara Falls. It has been a while since we have experienced traffic jams, and at 10pm you really don’t expect them. We guess it was Toronto’s way of saying “Welcome home”!