Simon's despatch:
A very flying visit to Lima. Arrived at 7am after about 15 hours of non-eventful flying. Got taken to a rather nice little hotel in the Miraflores district and immediately bailed on previous plans of a busy day exploring and had a nap!
Once sufficiently recovered we strolled down to the pacific coast to a shopping mall built into the cliffs. Apart from providing a nice view to enjoy a drink over it also provides a wonderful insight into the optimism/short sighted enthusiasm of rapidly growing Peru. The cliffs it is built into are made of pebbles bound by hardened mud and show very clear signs of constant rapid erosion due to rainfall. So my recommendation would be to get down there quickly to enjoy the sunset views while it lasts but do pick a table at least one row back from the edge!
The remainder of the afternoon was less successful as we hoofed it around the city suffering the curse of having a lonely planet from 2010 as it seems veggie restaurants have a short half life in Lima. We ended up in a local Chinese playing charades with the wonderfully patient waitress as our sole preparation, of playing a Spanish language game on the plane, proved woefully inadequate!
After dinner we met up with our friendly CEO (chief experience officer) Ruben and our fellow travellers who are all lovely and went for 2nd dinner (planning fail). This did at least give me a chance to try the famous ceviche (raw sea food picked in lime) and a pisco sour - the Peruvian national drink containing pisco (similar to grappa), egg white and lime juice - a naturally lively drink and this particular one was not dissimilar to the pan galactic gargle blaster... one was enough!
After 2nd dinner we strolled through the local park where a huge crowed had gathered for the Saturday salsa off, that was held in a kind of dance pit (see picture from before dinner when the crowd was smaller). Then it was time for bed as we had an early start (a common theme to this holiday it turns out) to catch a flight to Cusco - capital of the Inca empire.