JAMES

We have made it to Lima - the first time in the Southern Hemisphere for either of us! Having driven through some proper Florida rain on the way to Miami airport yesterday, and judging by the look of the sky as we were waiting to board, we wondered whether we were in for another bumpy ride. In fact though, it was a pretty good flight, the near horizontal position of the Peruvian lady in front notwithstanding!

Got ripped off for a taxi to the hotel though - in my haste to avoid getting into one of the dodgy taxis, we got into one of the super safe, luxury taxis, and paid twice the going rate for the privilege! Oh well, at least the driver felt obliged to give us a little orientation tour of Miraflores on our way in - helpful this morning, but at 11.30 last night, really all we wanted to do was hit the sack!

Anyway, first impressions of Lima - it is a big bustling city, with the customary over-use of the horn by the local drivers! Not seen too much yet, but have booked up for a sightseeing tour this afternoon, before taking an early flight to Cusco tomorrow. The city seems to be in a pretty cool location, perched on cliffs above the Pacific Ocean - we were enjoying a fleeting glimpse of this on the way in from the airport last night, disturbed only by the driver taking on a monster pothole at 60mph and nearly trashing his car...

KATIE

Wow - here we are in Peru, quite a culture change from Florida, and better weather than we left in Miami too! As James said, Miraflores is a really bustling place, but doesn´t seem to be over-run by tourists despite being the ´tourist´ area. Our impromptu guide last night was telling us how well the economy is doing in Peru, and you can certainly see a lot of building and road improvements (much needed, hence the pothole incident) but then you could also see some pretty rough and poor looking areas on our way out of the airport.

Flight was pretty good on the way here, much better than we had expected given the storm clouds - in fact we had much more turbulence on the way over - didn´t last long but made for an interesting few minutes! Even James screamed like a girl (not really, but he did say it was the worst turbulence he had experienced!). The girl on the row opposite did actually cry out "are we crashing?" but it was fun in a kind of weird, rollercoaster, stomach lurching way....

Have to just mention that I caught a fleeting few glimpses of 2 dolphins playing very near the coast at Marco Island beach - I did get a bit over-excited at first thinking the fins were that of a small shark - despite James being convinced I was making it up and that it was a swimmer - but soon enough we could see there were 2 dolphins playing. They didn´t jump out of the water so couldn´t get a great view of them but it will do me for now!

As you will hopefully see we´ve managed to upload some photos now, so you can see in all the promised glory the wonderful sight of the posing pouch man on South Beach (and I don´t mean the bit of James that I had to get in the photo to make it seem less obvious I was taking the guy´s photo! Wouldn´t want him to get the wrong idea now...)

Why is it that I degenerate to talking about dolphins and strange men when I should be writing a travel blog like James???

Back to travel then briefly (yes, I know, I don´t do ´brief´) but we have a meeting with the GAP tour at 7pm tonight to find out what the plans are for travelling to Cuzco and starting off on our hiking tour proper, we´re expecting something like a 4.30am start to get a very early flight tomorrow morning so that will be fun, no? Can´t wait, and looking forward to seeing more of Lima this afternoon!

Right, back to James, who is feeling left out now!! Byeee....

JAMES

Quickly, because I am getting hungry again...

1) I am pleased that we have ticked off dolphins at such an early juncture as it means we need not waste any more time looking for the daft creatures. (Dream on sunshine - Katie)

2) I apologise for my right breast intruding on the Pouch Man photo but we were unable to decipher the Spanish instructions for cropping a photo, so you´re stuck with it!