After a nine hour bus journey, we arrived into traffic-clogged Lima. We thought we were making good time until we reached the outskirts and moved at a snail's pace, beeping horns providing background noise. Once at the bus station, we got a taxi to the Miraflores area, with the taxi driver telling us he knew the road our hostel was on. However he didn't so he ended up dropping us fairly near and we had to walk the last six blocks when he tried to double the agreed fare!

As we arrived in Miraflores, we both thought that we could almost have been in a European city. It's probably the most modern part of any city we've been to on our trip so far with nice houses and lots of restaurants and bars.

After checking into our hostel, we went out to find some dinner. After no luck at the first place we tried (it seemed to be a shop not a restaurant) we found a very popular fast-food/juice bar on a corner and enjoyed some unhealthy food alongside a great salad and juice in the chaotic and entertaining place.

We spent the majority of our first full day in Lima exploring the historic centre. We negotiated the local bus to get there although got some help from a nice lady on the bus who looked up where we were on her smartphone for us. We spent a while wandering between large squares surrounded by grand buildings and through the streets, admiring the architecture. In one square we were slightly alarmed to see police in riot gear, but it turns out they were there to watch a digger break down a small covered area of a closed down bar. In the same square we went to see a statue of a lady with a small llama on her head. It seems that the message to put a crown of flames on her had been lost in translation. In the main square, we were approached by several people, including children, and mostly indigenous people, selling things like sweets. We found a nice cafe for lunch then walked round a bit more and went into an old Priory which was beautiful inside, then got the bus back to the hostel.

We spent some time in an internet cafe where I (Katy) tried to make an online transaction which was blocked. Back at the hostel, I was on the phone to the bank when the room started shaking; like a train was going past. Except there were no trains nearby, and then it got stronger: we were in a small earthquake! Simon ushered me to the doorway as I politely asked the man on the phone to hang on for a moment as there was an earthquake! It was all over in about 30 seconds or less and were later told it measured 5.3 on the Richter scale by a San Franciscan woman who seemed rather obsessed by earthquakes. After this bit of excitement, we headed out for dinner. We were lured into one of the touristy restaurants by the prospect of a free Pisco Sour (the local cocktail made from Pisco, a grape spirit) although it turned out to be a bit small. However we had a good meal, and Simon tried some local ceviche (raw, marinated seafood).

After this, we wandered round the area and through a small park (Parque Kennedy) across the road from lots of the restaurants. Here we found a small amphitheatre where the local older population were enjoying dancing in couples, watched by lots of others. Also, to my delight, we found that this park was a cat park! We saw lots and lots of lovely cats, roaming around and then saw a stand for the charity which looks after them and rehomes some of them. The cats are either feral or people have dumped them there, knowing they will be looked after. They were everywhere and were provided with small bowls of food and water. Needless to say, we also returned the next day to see them too.

Our second day was spent seeing more of Miraflores and going down to see the coast. First, we went to the adobe ruins of Huaca Pucllana, only about four blocks away from our hostel. There was an obligatory tour (in English) which was good but we were the youngest by a long way. The ruins are right in the middle of the city, and up until 1981, were not protected, it was just a big hill that locals used for all sorts of recreational activities. Now it is a protected site, although not all has been conserved as some surrounding buildings have been built on part of it. A lot of it is still being restored by archeologists. We learnt how it was first built by the Lima culture, who used it for ceremonies and sacrifices, constantly building new layers between 200- 700 AD. After this it was used by the Wari culture as a burial site. It was really huge and it was hard to believe it is sat in the middle of such a big city. We saw some more hairless dogs and our guide told us that Peru tried to gift one to the Obama family (because one daughter has an allergy to dog hair) but it was turned down due to being too ugly! How rude.

From here we walked back down to Parque Kennedy for lunch where I had some lovely sushi and Simon had fish and chips, complete with battered chips: not my favourite but Simon is convinced they can take off in the UK. After a quick glimpse of the cats again, we walked down to the coast and found an extremely upmarket shopping centre, built into the cliffs. As upmarket as it was I couldn't find stuff for re-waterproofing my shoes (perhaps the second driest capital city in the world is not the best place to search). From here we walked along the coast, on the top of the cliffs, through parks until we got to the Park of Love where we had a short rest and walked back towards the hostel. We stopped off at a posh supermarket for some dinner supplies, also buying some sweets from the man standing outside.

In the evening, we once more got on the bus (we had memorised where to get off the previous day so as to avoid taxis) with our dinner supplies, to go to a large park, where five evenings a week a fountain and light show is held. We joined all the locals at this popular event - there were very few Western tourists - and walked round the park, looking at all the fountains being lit up and doing different spraying sequences. At certain times in the longest fountain, they projected images and lasers into the water, accompanied by music. It was really nice and Simon managed to take a ridiculous amount of photos. We headed back early for our early bus start the next morning.

We found Lima to be a nice city, contrary to a lot of what we have read and heard. As with many large Latin American cities, Lima has a reputation for being dangerous but we did not feel that it was anymore so than anywhere else we have been; in fact we felt perfectly safe. Although this was in part due to staying in Miraflores, which has security patrolling at all hours.

We had a funny experience with the man in charge of the hostel. He was able to book buses for one of the better bus companies, Cruz del Sur, and seemed intent on getting us on their buses. We told him which company we were planning to take next as they went at a convenient time but he strongly warned us against them, and pretty much any other company, saying that we should take CDS because they are much safer and safety should be our primary concern. Of course we want to get to our destination in one piece but it was quite funny after the hundreds of "unsafe" buses we have taken up until this point as there has been no other option. We did end up booking one bus through him later, to keep him happy, but the one out of Lima that we wanted, with CDS, didn't appear on his computer system so we booked it ourselves! We think that his main concern was getting the commision as he spent a while trying to persuade Simon into taking one that was on his system and more expensive, but too early. In another conversation, we told him we are planning to take some more Spanish lessons in Cusco and he said he couldn't understand why people learn Spanish here when they could learn it in Spain and thinks they must be spies!! Anyway, he was helpful as well as being quite strange and waved us off in the taxi at 6am.

Katy