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Lima
Schills was arriving the next day so I decided just to bum around the hostel, find out whats good in Lima and have a little walk around the area. I sat in the hostel rooftop bar awaiting Schills which resulted in sweet sunburn on my first proper day. He turned up at 4 in the afternoon so got a few beers and pisco sours in, and foolishly didnt eat. Was battered by 8 stumbling around the bar where everyone else was stone cold sober. Schills chundered and his english charm didnt quite work on the fat American bar manager or the other guests so when we woke up in the morning we decided that we should probably leave before we got kicked out.
We found another hostel nearby with a twin room and so moved our stuff there, and generally felt sorry for ourselves all day, unable to do anything productive. We still go back to the Kokopelli bar cos the owner likes us and its quite good for meeting travellers there. Saturday we went back for a couple of social cervezas but again it got out of hand. Schills challenged the hostel owner (whos about 4 foot tall) to down a large bottle of Cusqueña to win a free t-shirt. He lost, disgracing himself, England and UBRFC and had to buy 2 shirts, and the round of drinks. We ran out of money so started a tab which became quite substantial by the end of the night. We had booked 2 tours that were leaving at 4am the next day so the sensible thing would have been to go to bed by 10pm. However we ended up bevving until 3 then got a taxi from hostel to bus station, via Burger King. Error!
So I wake up on the coach at 6.30am and can´t remember what time we are supposed to arrive so stay awake to make sure we don´t miss the stop in Paracas. We arrive at 7.30 and head off on a boat trip to the Ballasteros Islands. The islands are cool with loads of Sea Lions and Penguins and we´re able to see a 180m candelabra that was carved into the Peruvian coastline hundreds of years a go. But 8am boat rides when hungover / still drunk are not ideal and I think we were both regretting the decision to meet up in South America. After the boat trip we got a VIP bus (it was sick) to Ica and then a taxi to Huanchinero for sand boarding. When we got there we were going to have to wait 4 hours to do the sandboarding and because of our hangovers we considered sacking it off and going back to Lima. We managed to blag an earlier session and headed off into the desert in a dune buggy. Sandboarding is pretty cool and is a bit like sledging or snowbaording down massive sand dunes. Plus the dune buggy driver was pretty mental so it was a pretty cool drive through the desert, which was otherwise so vast and peaceful. After that we got a bus back to Lima and hit the Kokopelli bar.
The next couple of days didn´t amount to much. We visited a pre-Inca ruin in the centre of Miraflores called Huaca Pucllama which was pretty unspectacular. And we went on a city tour where we got to look like bellends with headphones on walking around the city. Being our last proper day in Lima we thought we should sample the Peruvian national dish - Cerviche - which is basically raw fish (like sashimi) in a lime and chilli sauce. It was quite nice but I probably wouldn´t have it again. We also went to a Chifa restaurant which is supposed to be a fusion of Chinese and Peruvian cuisine. In reality it was just a Chinese restaurant in Peru and was s***. Certainly no Dragon Fountain!!! We also met up with our Inca Trail tour group in the evening in Lima, but having spent the afternoon at Kokopelli bar we turned up a little merry and didn´t really make the best first impression. There´s a mix of people of different ages and nationalities and seem ok but not really that bants.
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