I eventually fell asleep at around 2.45am this morning. I just couldn't go to sleep straight away, there's things I needed I get out if my suit case, I had to work out what facilities are available in my room..... and most importantly work out the password for the wifi. I still had a blog that needed posting, and to say that South America has been very tight with their free wifi would be an understatement.
I set my alarm for 8.30 this morning, as I had to be up and ready in order to have breakfast before it closed at 10am. I slept right up to the time that my alarm went off..... I so could have been pushing out z's for quiet a while longer!!!
This morning was a free morning to have a look around Lima. We were staying in microflores, quite a new part of Lima. It was very modern, and so not what I thought Lima would be like. I thought that it might be closer to some of the Central American countries with regards to it cleanliness and development, however I must admit I was pleasantly surprised!!
Jan was the first one to finish breakfast, and was probably the most least effected by the lack of sleep, so she asked concierge for a map. She also asked if they would be able to mark out a couple of the sites of interest, including an ancient pyramid ruin and the boardwalk down on the Atlantic Ocean. She came back with a map, with certain areas highlighted. We were good to go!!
So Jan, Kathy, Rob and I trot off in search of the pyramid. We start heading towards the pink highlighted section of the map. We were happy to all demonstrate our map reading and orienteering skills. We reached a park called Kennedy's Park, and it was in the shape of the highlighted section on the map. We walked through Kennedy park searching for the pyramid, however soon realised that Lima city council should really reconsider calling the park feral cat park, as it was filled with them. They all looked so disgusting, with their fur all tangled and mangie, they actually looked diseased. I quickly escaped the park before I ended up with a scratch or a bite. We continued to look around for the ancient pyramid, however it was nowhere to be seen. After about 5mins of looking without success, there was an executive change of plans..... to the Atlantic boardwalk.
Again we set out, using the map to navigate our way to the boardwalk. Along the way we stumbled across a tourist information booth, so I took the map over to the guy sitting behind the desk, and asked him to show us where the pyramid was located. He placed a large X on the map where it should be, which was pretty much in the opposite direction to where the hotel concierge had marked it on the map. Fair to say that we had been given the royal bum steer!!
As the pyramids were in the opposite direction to which we had already travelled, we thought that we would continue on to the boardwalk. We at least got this one right. We eventually came to the point where the land finished and the Atlantic Ocean began. The point in which we had arrived, was a shopping precinct, that also had a large number of coffee shops and restaurants. We had a nice look around at the views on offer and took photos. The beach had very little sand, as the vast majority of the coast line was made up of rocks. There were some impressive cliff faces, and quite a few piers running out to sea. It does make me appreciate the nice sandy beaches that we have back at home just that little bit more. The rocks obviously didn't deter the surfers, as they were out in force, duelling for waves.
We decided to sit down and have a drink at a cafe that overlooked the Atlantic. Still on my mission to try and kick this cold, I ordered a banana, mango and passion fruit juice, and boy was it delicious. We sat and drank our drinks, enjoying the view before us and just talking about anything and everything!
Keeping an eye on time, we decided that we would start walking along the beach boardwalk back to the hotel. We managed to find our way back to the hotel, on the way stopping for a couple of things at the supermarket. The main thing I needed, tissues I could not find anywhere. After searching for a good 10mins I soon realised that they actually don't sell tissues over here!!!! I would now be delighted to using any form of paper that I can get my hands on.
As Rob and I have been suffering from this cold for a little while now, we have actually started to work out a rating system for tissue alternatives. The best rating was in fact the serviettes used at the hotel restaurant. Main mission back at the hotel was steel some serviettes.
We had a short amount of time before we met the rest of the tour group for our Lima City Tour with our Lima tour guide Adrian.
On the bus I was sitting with our resident New Zealander Jenny, and we may have had a conversation that went a little like this..
Jenny: Adrian's not bad on the eye is he??
Me: I'm more about the personality. We will have to wait and see.
Jenny: well, it doesn't hurt when they are good looking.
Me: still, give me charisma over good looking any day.
Then the bus took off. We went to our first drive by location, and blow me down it's the pyramid ruins we were looking for. Woo hoo, we didn't end up missing out at all. It was fairly small compared to what I had previously seen all throughout Central America. It was good however to know that I hadn't missed out on it. Meanwhile, Adrian was giving the most boring speech in the world about everything Lima. It was all monotone, and pretty much expressed minus personality.
We drove around and had a look at a few more monuments and eventually stopped in the main plaza. Here we all piled out of the bus.... And herded all together near the fountain. Adrian went on and on and on about all the buildings. Far too much boring information, and then he went to move us on to the next location. It wasn't until someone asked if we could have some time to take photos that he let us go for 5 to take a few photos.
We then walked across to a cathedral. This was beautifully old, and had bunting extending from the bell towers, it looked so festive. We went in to the Franciscan cathedral, and again Adrian was more than happy to impart his knowledge on to us. One amazing thing was the fact that he took us to the catacombs. This was far below the cathedral, down some very dark and narrow passageways. Once we had walked into the passage ways, out of now where we came across all of these large areas that were sectioned off. Each area contained hundreds of femur bones. There were thousands of them down there. We came across one area, which was obviously the skull section, there was also one for shoulder bones and pelvis'. I would hate to think how many people went into the making of that!! We made our way out of the basement from hell, and headed back to the bus.
Our next location was a museum. The museum was quite interesting, and actually had quite a few artefacts from the Incan times. What wasn't interesting was the fact that Adrian was droning on about every single artefact. It was B O R I N G!!!!! I thought that he might had picked up on the fact that he was starting to lose everyone after speaking for 30mins about a map....rather than the actual artefacts. People started to just walk around and look at the artefacts themselves, reading the English explanation on the boards. People were asleep on the chairs in the middle of the museum. It was at this point that Jenny came up to me and said 'you're right, personality does play a big role in it'. Nothing else was spoken about it!! Enough was said!!!
I ended up walking around checking out the displays myself.... In the end I was two rooms in front of Adrian by the time I got to the end. It was at this point Fernando our tour leader came in to save the day. He pretty much told everyone to head in for dinner. You could see the relief on everyone's face!!! Thank goodness that is over!!!
We had a beautiful dinner at the museum that night! Great food, great company again!! We have been really lucky with our tour group members. They are really nice and open to conversations.
Once we had finished up at dinner we headed back to the hotel. A few of us remembered that we had a free welcome cocktail voucher for the hotel, so we thought why not use it tonight.
Off to the bar. The cocktail was a pisco sour, which was actually quite nice. So we managed to drink that down and have a good old laugh.
It wasn't a late night though, as I still had to pack, ready for our departure tomorrow morning. Soon after I was fast asleep!!