After hearing various reports of the dangers of Lima, and of its unattractiveness, I had close to zero expectations of the city ...... but I was pleasantly surprised. Our hostel is located in the pretty district of Barranca, just a few minutes from the ocean, and adjacent to Miraflores, which is the chic part of town with its trendy bars and restaurants.

8 of the group leave us in Lima - Kristina, Martin, Gareth, Sian, Julie, Derrick, Nimue and Breanna. It was a really good group, and we will miss a good few of them, but at the same time, it would be nice to be a smaller group of 7 again.

Martin (our tour leader) brought us round to have tea with his mum, sister and brother, and his dad made a special stop at home to meet with us before he finished off at work (he is a bus driver with Peru Bus). They are a lovely family, and Martin is obviously very highly regarded within the family. We were all still stuffed from the late lunch we had when Martin took us for a quick city tour downtown - but you would not have believed it if you saw us scoff down the 4 trays of sandwiches and panetone, plus the mugs of steaming homemade hot chocolate!