The tournament began today in Lima. I didn’t play, since I play the winner of a match. Same with Luisa Gouveia, so we decided to practice at the Promotor location. What we didn’t know till we walked down there was that the tournament was using all the clay courts there for the tournament. There were 3 neglected hard courts (and one that seemed to be turning into a clay court…bags of red dirt were stacked on the side of the court)…which is where we hit gently. It was a very fast hard court too, and the balls were very light. Nonetheless we had a pretty good hit. The walk to and from the courts was lovely, along the sea promenade with views of the Pacific.
Every match at this tournament has a ball boy/man and an umpire. Amazing! That’s the good news. The bad news is that it is midnight and no results have been posted from today’s matches. Also it took one person I know 1:45 hours waiting in line to pay and check in. More good news…there’s not one but two restaurants at the club and both seemed to be good and reasonably priced.
On the way back from the courts we stopped at Lover’s Park which has a mosaic wall similar to that in Parc Guell in Barcelona, and the wall is covered with quotes about love lost and found, all with views of the Pacific Ocean. It was a really pretty spot.
After lunch, around 3pm, we met up again and took a taxi to the historic center, about 30-40 minutes away (bad traffic). The Historic Center of Lima is a Unesco World Heritage site. It dates back to the 1500s, but was damaged badly by an earthquake in the mid 1700s. There are still some beautiful plazas (and a strong police presence was everywhere), the Plaza de Arms, the Plaza de la Vera Cruz and the large Convent of San Francisco. There were also pedestrian streets lined with stores of various kinds, including popular Churros spots (with long lines).
Churros in Peru, the ones we saw anyway, look more like a long crescent roll than the long skinny ones we are used to and others look more like thin donuts. However they looked, they were popular, as apparently is the McDonald’s ice cream…the line there being 10 deep while the Gelateria across the street was empty.
And that’s a wrap on Day 3 in Peru. No one in the 65 singles plays tomorrow so I probably start on Thursday. I asked the Tournament Director if there was any chance I would not play on the 12th, today…never received an answer…only to find out my first match is on the 15th! I think this tournament is so popular it needs another week in the calendar, two weeks in all.
Enjoy Carolyn!!!