The journey to Lima was very interesting. It was meant to be a 5 hr journey and took 5 and a half hours - very good by South American standards, but it felt like it lasted forever! Our driver also turned out to be a nutcase. At one point our 67 seater bus was stuck going down a one way street - the wrong way! The answer was rather than to reverse to force all the traffic going the right way to divert instead! In Lima we checked into a hostel in Baranco, a smarter part of town and headed out for pizza. After we went to a very expensive bar with an American (affectionately(ish) named bogroll) that we could not afford and soon retreated to drinking at the hostel. Here we met Neils (Dutch) and Cat (Scotland).

Next morning after a slow start we all went for an hour long walk with the intention of surfing followed by Sushi as it was Ben´s last day in South America. However, we ended up doing basically nothing, although we did eat sushi. I also managed to buy some new horrendous swim shorts. That evening we went to a park full of fountains which was really spectacular. There were fountains that you could run in and out of (with varying degrees of sucess) and a big show where images were projected onto a fountain. After we went for mexican food in town and then had drinks at the hostel in the evening and wandered into town to a rather empty pub where i managed to negotiate 6 free pisco sours with each beer we bought! Despite doing virtually nothing it was a very relaxing and fun day!

Next day after skyping Granny for her birthday we once more achieved nothing as we all felt a little worse for wear. We managed a brief trip into town for lunch and then retreated to the sanctuary of our beds once more. In the evening we visited a chocolate factory and sampled some of their works. After we went for an Italian in town and returned to the hostel for an evening spent playing Tekkan 5 on the PS2 - simply amazing!

Next day was another slow one as we finally left the hostel in search of some food and came across a Cervicheria. We all tucked into a huge plate of cerviche and followed it up with a 2 course meal for 1.50pd. Later on i went for a run with Cat along the beach front to Miraflores where we met the others for a pisco sour at sunset. After i ran back and after showering met Evan at the hostel who was passing through Lima. We finally drank the rest of the bottle of vodka that we had bought for the Navimag trip in Patagonia as i had been carrying it in my bag for 2 months at this point. Evan had also brought a friend and 3 local Peruvians with him so there was a decent group of us to enjoy the drinking games that followed.

Unfortunately, Evan was not on top form and before long had left his dinner in the shower and was escorted home. The rest of us headed out for the night though and were all shown up on the dance floor by 2 Peruvian sisters that were professional dancers.

I also found out that i still had a little bit of my sales/negotiating senses with me as i managed to negotiate us all 6 free pisco sours with each beer that we bought!

Next morning Luke and I were up early and attempted to check out but it turned out there were no staff at all at the hostel which made things a little tricky. Especially, as we were in a bit of a rush as we had a plane to catch to Iquitos. After 20 minutes someone checked out and we grabbed a taxi to the airport. As we arrived we saw that our flight was showing last call on the big boards so we were pretty relieved to jump on the bus to the plane with 6 minutes spare!