This morning we awoke at 6am, which was the exact right time, surprisingly. We went downstairs and were joined by Ron from Maroochydore. At 9am we met up with the whole group for our tour of Lima. We have two couples that arrived late last night who are from Heathcote, and a nice couple from Newcastle, and a mother and son originally from Malaysia but now from Sydney. We drove into old Lima - Miraflores is out of town on the coast, part of the "new" area of Lima, constructed after the 1920s. They had an earthquake back then that made the city walls fall down and they decided not to rebuild them because their city was large enough to defend itself (it's now a population of 10 million people). Sylvia, our local guide, told us all about the history of Lima, and Peru. There are over 300 archaeological sites in Lima. They have ancient pyramids that the Spanish came out and destroyed. We were taken into the main square in old Lima where we admired the city hall, and the President's Palace before going in to the Basilica cathedral. This cathedral is only used for mass once a week, so it can be open for tourists the rest of the time. There were beautifully ornate chapels within the cathedral, and it is the resting place of Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish conquistador who conquered the Incan empire who was murdered right there in the main square. The cathedral had two groups of riot police out the front, just in case the people try to demonstrate against the government, because demonstrations are not allowed in the main square! Sylvia says that Peru's economy is growing quite substantially, on the back of their mining and export of copper, silver and gold. But the people want to know where the money is! The street running down the side of the palace had an armoured vehicle (tank) parked down the end. We noticed all the birds on the President's Palace, and flying around the top of the cathedral - they were black vultures! Apparently the river, which runs just behind the palace, has a lot of rubbish and dead animals in it! There are a lot of churches in Lima - every five blocks there is a Catholic Church, but they are for different orders - you choose whether you want to attend a Jesuit, Dominican or Franciscan service! We then walked to a convent where priests are trained. We saw beautiful mosaic walls that were made in 1606! As well as a beautiful old library used by the priests in training and a lovely chapel dedicated to St Rosa Di Lima - their first Saint. After that we went to a museum ( Museo Larco) where they have a huge store of wonderfully historic objects found in their archeological digs. We then returned to our hotel for a nap - some of the group went to a restaurant down by the beach for lunch, but honestly, the amount of food we've eaten over the last couple of days whilst just sitting on a plane..... After our nap we thought we'd go and find the money exchange place our guide told us about and as we got out of the elevator, there were some of our group coming back. Mel from Newcastle and her husband decided to come with us to exchange some of their money too. We walked the two blocks Pepe had told us, and didn't find it but found the major shopping precinct for Miraflores. As we walked along we found Pepe and Lee (the son from the mother and son duo) - who would have thunk it? Pepe then told us that these people on the street wearing official blue money changers jackets could be trusted, so we exchanged $US100, as did Mel, Lee exchanged $50 and Pepe also changed some money - right there on the street corner with shoppers just passing us by! So extraordinary! But safe! * The free wifi in the hotel is in the lobby and the restaurant (just like the youth hostels in Switzerland) - to use wifi in your room costs, so we signed up - approx. $13 for 24 hours. * They don't need Daylight Savings because they have almost the same amount of daylight all year round - due to the proximity to the equator. * Oops - found out tonight that we're not supposed to flush the toilet paper. It is to be put into the bin next to the toilet (Inca sewage is not all it could be?). Oh dear. * they have big cliffs by the sea that seem to be made up of aggregate. We marvel that they are still upright, because they look so fragile, but yes, they do tend to fall down when they have earthquakes, which they do regularly. * "ll" is pronounced as a "y" so llamas are yamas, and paella is paeya....... We had a meeting in a little board room in the hotel before we went out to dinner, and we were joined by Marion Bunnik, one of the owners of the tour company! She's just in Lima on business so thought she'd join us for a bit. We went off for our "Welcome to the Tour" dinner at a wonderful restaurant by one of the pyramid excavations - it was beautiful, the scenic outlook and the food. We both had raw fish in a lime marinade as an entree and we both absolutely loved it. Tom had the beef stir-fry as an main and I had the fish on a bed of plantain (remember that Amazon computer game we used to have girls? Didn't we have to collect plantain?). We had yummy desserts and we also had complimentary Pisco Sour drinks - they were lovely. Now I understand why my mum raved about them about 39 years ago!