Lima, Peru

We had a relatively short stay in Lima (2 days) as we'd arrived a little later in our trip than we'd planned and had already booked our flights to Colombia. Despite the time being short, we saw a fair bit of the city including a rare sighting of the President during the changing of the guards at the Governor's Palace, and were able to catch up with a family friend that I hadn't seen since her visit to Colorado 14 years earlier.

Our hostel in Lima was fantastic (Miraflores House $40/n - dbl) primarily due to the very nice and helpful owner/host who upon arrival gave us a 20 minute run down of the sights and markets of Lima, and served free Pisco sours at 8PM every night -which were incidentally the best we'd had in Peru.

In addition to sightseeing and catching up with Diana, we had two great meals in Lima that were so good that they're worth mentioning here. The first was at a chain restaurant called Pardo's Chicken where we tried the delicious Peruvian delicacy called anticuchos which are seasoned and barbecued strips of cow heart. They were so delicious that I ate an entire plateful of them and probably could have eaten another if I hadn't already filled up with french fries and picante sauce. The second noteworthy meal was at a seafood restaurant called Mar del Sol? that served Lima's signature dish: ceviche, which is raw fish in lime juice with raw onion and spices. The ceviche was delicious and very similar to raw fish we've had in New Zealand, only without the coconut milk it has more of a lime flavoring.

On our third day we said goodbye to Peru and almost missed our flight to Colombia due to a mad traffic jam en route to the airport, and the unlucky coincidence of this being the only on-time transport we'd experienced in all our travels through South America.