Lima, Peru (Tuesday, February 27)

The ship's foghorn blowing, we approached Callao, the port for Lima. As the fog began to lift, we could see it still rolling down the sides of San Lorenza Island,  

Aboard SIRENA, today was the calm before the storm.  After most of the passengers flocked off the ship on tours, there was lots of staff to attend to the few remaining guests.  Tomorrow approximately 600 of a total manifest of 684 passengers will disembark and an equal number of new passengers arrive aboard.  With this in mind, Pam & I had decided to stay aboard today, attending to all sorts of things we wanted to get done, then tomorrow spend the entire day away from the ship on a private tour.

We did venture off the ship long enough to ride the shuttle bus to the main gate to determine where we would meet our tour guide tomorrow.  The shuttle bus ride and wait at the pick-up point for the return trip to the ship confirmed that Callao was uninviting place where the risks associated with wandering around vastly exceeded any reward for doing so.  Even the shuttle bus stop was sleazy; a parking lot full of pushy cab drivers with no waiting area, toilet facilities or other amenities.  And shame on Oceania, no representative there to instill some sense of assurance that we had not been dropped into some new type of survival reality show with a working title of "A Lima Callao-stomy".

Once we were back aboard SIRENA, I double-checked with our guide on precisely where and when we would be meeting him tomorrow.

Callao is a busy (+ noisy, dirty, smelly and reportedly dangerous) port.  The loading and unloading of all sorts of cargo goes on 24 hours a day.

Lima does not have a subway or surface tram, so presumably these are new cars for its elevated rail system.

Throughout the day, the fog hovered.  As evening approached, it started to settle back in for the night.