Arrived in Lima Tues 12th April after a long but pleasant flight. Local time was 7pm ish but to me it was 1am!! Waited 45mins for my baggage at the airport then was picked up to be taken to my hostel-The Point. The drive there took around 30mins and was an interesting first experience of south america!!

The driving was mad, -there wasn´t a second when someone wasn´t beeping their horn! On the whole there were no lanes, and police attempting to direct the chaotic traffic! At one set of red lights we saw a knife juggler entertaining the traffic, then waling between the cars for tips!

At one point we drove along a coastal road towards the south of the city, where at one point we were driving very close to cliff edges!! As we neread the part of the city called Baranco, there wre some quaint gardens along the coast. I arrived at the hostel-put in Rojo room (with 2 other guys) and got some food at the hostel and joined in with some other american and german travellers with some drinking games (me on the water after long flight!!) Made myself stay up untill night time there, 11pm so had been awake 25hrs!!

Next morning attempted to go look around Lima, asked about getting a taxi into the centre of the city (after reading about all the unofficial taxis and hearing stories off the other guys in the hostel) but the guy at reception wasn´t very helpful and jus said to hail one of the street, when I questioned this he did offer to ring and book a safe one for me, but then got back to me saying they were all too busy. So instead I got a local map from reception and went off to exlore around the area of my hostel in Barranco. I got directions from the receptionist where the nearest bank and supermarket was, but got extremely lost in the process and what he said was a 10min walk took me an hr to find! woops, i blamed the jet lag! and lack of street names on my map! Whilst on my walk the area seemed pretty clean, there was no litter in the streets. The local buses I noticed consisted of a ixture of what looked like old american yellow school buses, plus mini-buses. Each of these would have a conductor on board triing at every opportunity when the bus slowed to lean out the door and get people on board!

My stomach started to not feel so great so made it back to teh hostel where I just spent the afternoon watchin movies from the DVD selection with some of the other guys.

Went for a walk jus before sunset along the cliff top and around some gardens and found a dominos to buy an expensive pizza!

Next morning I got up to fly to Quito. (after fear I wouldnt make the flight when my booked taxi was 40mins late!)