Lima

5th September – 8th September 2006

What dedicated and professional travelers we have become, I mean, who else would get to Cusco airport 3 hours in advance of their internal flight to Lima?

Well quite frankly not a lot of people really as we were practically the only ones in the airport at 8.30am on a Tuesday morning. All the other sensible people didn’t show up until around 9.30am and they probably already knew that the flight had been delayed until 11.00am!

Not a great way to start the day and we were already late for meeting Tom and Clare in Lima as promised. We arrive in Lima at 12.30am somehow almost on schedule (don’t you just hate the way airlines schedule 2 ½ hrs for a 1 ½ hr flight?) and we are quickly through baggage collection and into a taxi driven by Michael Schumachers long lost, faster, Peruvian brother. This guy had to be psychic as somehow he knew we had a lunch appointment.

We arrive at our reserved hostel and meet Tom and Clare and after a few minutes it feels like we haven’t been away for long at all. We head off into the “old town” where (amazingly) there’s a central square with cathedral and Government buildings that are rather pretty and colonial is definitely the correct word to describe it all.

We have a quick lunch and then head for a guided tour of the Fransiscan church. Sometimes it’s just not worth listening to the supposed “English” commentary as quite frankly it’s so bad it takes all ones concentration to try to understand. This is another of those occasions as the tour guide is helpful yet English couldn’t be described as even her third language let alone her second.

The most bizarre part of the tour is the visit to the crypts with the bones of people who made a donation to the church during their lifetime all freakily arranged in symmetry. Stu also had to laugh at the guides claim that the former wells (now full of bones) somehow contributed to the design of the building, helping to withstand earthquakes even though there was no obvious structural connection.

After the tour we head off further for a walk around and at this stage Stu was beginning to get some quizzical stares as he was wearing just a T-shirt and shorts whilst all around we wearing coats and trousers.

We stop for a few Pisco sours in a posh hotel (thankfully they don’t turn Stu away) and in the evening head out for a nice dinner in a very modern setting overlooking the cliffs and the roaring sea below.

During the night we get very little sleep as our fellow travelers sharing our digs decide to watch TV until all hours of the morning and it’s Tom who eventually tells them to shut up and basically go to bed.

We say a sad goodbye to Tom and Clare and over the next few days catch up on a few chores basically getting ready for our trip to Ecuador. One evening we head to the cinema to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and have a dodgy looking Chinese meal.

Lima seems a relatively nice, safe city but one has to say that there is nothing special about it. During our time we got the feeling that the city was quite polluted with the weather overcast. On the positive side many types of food were available and at this stage of the trip we are happy to revert to what we know and like as quite frankly we have had enough of feeling sick from one thing or another.

There is a well trodden ‘backpacker’ route through Peru and we have found it to be the most touristy country so far, in some ways similar to South East Asia with many tour agencies and businesses blatantly set up for the traveler industry. There is no doubt that it is a poor country with the majority of the wealth found in the capital cities.

Still, we had a great time with Machu Picchu the highlight of the country for us.

We now greatly look forward to our final South American Country and the visit of James and Margaret, somehow me thinks that the budget might be going out the window for our final 4 weeks……..

Lots of Love

Stu & Amy