Back in Lima again, I started to feel quite settled in there. It is a huge city with many distinctly different districts so I was only familiar with small parts of it but I was really comfortable there - I had a good deal on a hotel in Miraflores (a nice room with cable TV and helpful staff for less than the price of some hostels in that area), I could go to Starbucks by Parque Central for breakfast, the internet cafe on Tarata street to sort out my travel plans, the great 24-hour Vivanda supermarket, the cinema and the shops at Larcomar - it was nice. It was good have access to department stores and good pharmacies to stock up on things that I needed as a result of extending my trip - although daily disposable contact lenses cost me three times as much as in London!

On my first day back after being in Iquitos I went to the bar El Estadio Fútbol Club in Plaza San Martín in the city centre to watch Man Utd v Arsenal in the Champions League semi-final. It was a football-themed bar, decorated a figurines of famous players and lots of football paraphernalia. They had a special area with three big screens set up the show the match but only three people turned up - very odd! Happily Man Utd won 3-1 with two goals from Ronaldo The following day I watched Barcelona v Chelsea in the other semi-final at a cafe in Miraflores - Barcelona scored an equaliser in injury time that put them through on the away goals rule; I never thought I'd say it but I actually felt sorry for Chelsea, the referee made some terrible decisions that went against them.

Carla arrived in town at the same time as me and we hung out together a lot over the next week or so. I went for lunch with her and her girlfriend, Carlita, who is absolutely lovely. The next day I went for lunch with her and her school friend Gabi. Afterwards Carla and I went to Polvos Azule, a big indoor market full of counterfeit goods, where she bought a new backpack and I bought a watch to replace the one I lost in Iquitos.

Sunday was Mother's Day in Peru which is a really big deal there, it is almost like Christmas - typically all the family get together for lunch and they buy big presents for their mums; there were loads of special promotions in shops and on TV. Julio arrived back in Lima on Saturday night and he invited me to join his family for lunch at his parents' house on Sunday. In the morning he picked me up on his motorbike, which was fun, and then he borrowed Beto's car so that we could go to the market and the supermarket to pick up some things for the party. I had been so preoccupied with making sure I was wearing the right thing and saying the right thing that I completely forgot to get a present for his mum and I felt terrible about it so I headed back out to the market and bought her some flowers which she seemed quite pleased with. In the afternoon his sister's family and lots of his aunts, uncles and cousins came around. His dad made a big barbeque in the back garden with huge racks of ribs. It was a lovely family get-together, they were all drinking and gossiping and making fun of Julio, saying he was 'flaco' (skinny). Valentina was running around with a big funny hat on, dancing, singing and doing magic tricks, while Julio's mum was freaking out about her standing on the furniture with her boots on. I had to concentrate really hard to keep up with the conversation in Spanish (I was so tired at the end of the day!).

Julio's friend Shiidy, a tour guide from the jungle in Puerto Maldonado (Southeastern Peru), flew into Lima that day for an interview the next day - she had never been to the city before and didn't have anywhere organised to stay so Julio invited her to join the party as well. She was lovely and friendly and it turned out we knew someone in common so we had a good old gossip. She was telling me about Puerto Maldonado, it sounds like an interesting place to visit (there are lots of macaws) - maybe one for my next trip! After the party, when the cleaning-up was done, Julio drove us around the city and gave us a tour of Lima at night, it was interesting - I learned some new things about the city and saw some parts that I hadn't seen before, like the pretty Parque del Amor with a huge statue of two lovers and also the red light district!

Also while I was in Lima, I went to the Museum of Anthropology, Archaeology and History. I went to the cinema a couple of times too - to see the Angels & Demons when it was first released, I liked it much better than The Da Vinci Code (though I hadn't read either of the books). I also went to see 17 Again - a cheesy teen comedy.

I spent a lot of my time organising a trip to the Galápagos - it ended up being quite a stressful process... To visit the islands it is necessary to join a boat tour so I contacted several operators by email and got no response, plus their phone numbers didn't work. When I eventually did get hold of a good company that had a space free the following week, they would only accept payment by bank transfer to an American bank account, which annoyingly only one of my banks in the UK was capable of arranging while I was abroad but it would take weeks to do so it wouldn't be possible before the Galápagos trip started. The alternative was to fly into Quito a few days before the trip and pay in person with travellers cheques or cash so I spent half a day tracking down an American Express office in Lima to go get travellers cheques and they said they couldn't sell them to me because they couldn't accept any of my cards as payment (including my AmEx card!), aghhh! So I ended up having to get AmEx to allow me to withdraw cash on my credit card and then I had to go around about ten separate ATMs in Lima to gather up $2,000 cash, praying all the while that I didn't get robbed! At least it all worked out in the end and I got a very cheap deal for booking at the last minute.

I was quite sad and emotional when it came to leaving Peru but I had a fantastic last day with Carla and Carlita - we went to Mangos at Larcomar for lunch and had a seafood platter and pisco sours (with me dressed in my Peru football shirt). I left them and went for one last run around all the sights in the city centre. In the evening we met up again and went to Bembos (it is like a Peruvian version of McDonalds, but better!) and then we wandered round the shops at a big swanky shopping mall. Sebastian was arriving at Lima airport around the same time that I was leaving so we met up and went to Starbucks for a catch up, which was fun.

I was very tempted to stay in Peru, I felt really 'at home' there and I certainly hope that I will be back!