Our bus journey to Tumbles was nothing out of the ordinary, however our cute English charm had worked on the bus attendant and he rushed us through the two passport controls, shouting in Spainsh to the officials when they wanted money or us to go to the back of the line. It was all an experience and English are know for their queuing and the South Americans really aren't. There was one poster that caught my eye in the immigrations office, it was a full length poster just with a baby of about 6 months on and a bar code on her hat. The poster was in Spainsh but it was saying you can't put a price on a child and human trafficking must stop.

During our bus journey we noticed another few strange poster advertising surrogacy, animal rights, human rights and pollution. As we were on a bus it was hard to take photos of them but I did manage to get a few. We arrived at our destination to find ourselves in the middle of lots of touts all screaming "Lima, Lima, Lima" at us. We stood aside to collect our thoughts and decided who we would be going with. We had chosen a young man who had as much English as we had Spanish, but it worked. We managed to get our first set of Peruvian money (Soles) and then to the bus terminal heading to Lima. We arrived with 30 minuets to spare and I rubbed my tummy and said "pizza" to our driver and as soon as I had finished rubbing we were hurried onto his half motorbike half tuk tuk and were zooming (well about 20 mph) to a pizza place. We were all cautious of the time as our bus was due to leaving at 8.30, so we decided to get a take away. We finally found a place which sold take away pizza only to find it would take 20 minuets. However as neither of us had eaten a whole meal in a while we decided to chance it and good job we did! We grabbed our pizza and heading back to the bus station with only minutes to spare. We both let out a sigh of relief our bus was still there, however we didn't know what we were letting ourselves into. The bus didn't leave for at least another hour of so as there were some mechanical problems, but we knew some of the people already on it, they were the ones we had pushed in front of at immigration. Luckily they all took it in good faith and we ended up sitting next to a few young boys with one of them speaking fairly good English. We fell asleep quickly and no sooner were we asleep, were we awake again for one of South American "random" police checks. Luckily at these check point they aren't really interested in tourists they are looking for drugs and runaways. We were soon back fast asleep on the bus.

Our nights sleep was restless as the bus kept breaking down and having to pull over, however morning arose and we all jumped off at the bathroom and to get some breakfast. Now if you can imagine a crampt room with no lights, running water in the toilets, with dust on the ground, you will be close to what our bathroom looked it! Becki and I used bottle water and decided to risk peeing on the bus. The restaurant wasn't much better, but luckily we had some trusty tuna so we just brought some bread. However one good thing that came out of the stop was being introduced to "INCA KOLA" history told that most Peruvians was not proud of their Inca past as the Inca were big bullies, but they soon realised how much tourism it brought so took every opportunity to embrace it and through kola was one of them.

Due to the problems with the bus we were behind schedule and two films down we weren't much closer. Nevertheless this delay ment we were traveling in the day so we could take in our surrounding and wow what a mixture they were. Each turn of the corner, each rise and fall of the hills lead to a different landscape. Peru is predominantly desert but we were driving the coastal route, which meant sand dunes next to a heavy surf beach, with the occasional forest thrown in to confuse you. We drove past a number of desert villages which built their houses from sand, cement, mud and bricks, most were unfinished and a even the ones that were didn't have roofs, lord only knows why! The landscape kept us amused for some time, until the bus drivers driving caught our attention. During the trip we have experienced some crazy driving but this time our bus driver was hurting this huge bus full of passengers round hair pin bends rock falls on one side and a shear drop on the other. However we safely arrived at Peru's capital Lima in a combined total of 36 hours on a bus!

Lima was much nicer than either of us expected. We hadn't heard of any death threatening local behavior and we had head that in some places it was like being in a western city at half the price. Knowing this we chose our hostel selection carefully making sure we were staying in the right area and headed to the "flying dog backpackers"hostel. Our hostel was in the centre of town and we had showers, dropped our bags and went exploring. A few meters walk from our hostel was a massive plaza, which had wonder drawings, exotic clothing, local jewelery and much more. We ended up spending some time bartering away with locals for a few bits and bobs. We then went in search of food and decided we would stay a few days here. We ate dinner then heading to bed to catch up on the lost sleep from the buses.

We awoke early both excited to see what Lima had to offer. Our hostel offered free breakfast with our room in a near by hostel which we wolfed down and even better we had our first experience of "coco tea". We had read about this tea in the Lonely Planet, it was the locals legal drug and they used the tea leafs for anything and everything. It was said to cure most common illnesses, help you loose weight, give you energy, make you stronger and keep you "happy". Well I can't confirm it did all those things but it soon became apart of our Peruvian diet. We looked around a few shops and I brought a book called "Marching Powder" which the shop assistant said it was the most sold book in their shop as every backpacker brought it. The book was about a young English man who was thrown into Sao Pedro,La Paz (Bolivias) most corrupt jail.

The book was like a biography of Thomas life, where he explained how prisoners had to buy their cells, own food, medical services and the level of police and judges corruption. He also told how women and children lived in the prison with their criminal fathers as it was safer for them there than on the streets. Also Sao Pedro had cocain laboratory, where they made the drugs, sold it in the prison and on the outside. Although the book told of some crazy and extremely scarey stories the most interesting was that gringos (backpackers) could go on a prison tour if they bribed the guards and Thomas was available. There was even a sleeping area where brave travelers could pay to spend a night in jail, even the Lonely Planet reported it as a sight to see. Unfortunately we have heard that the tours have been stopped the last few months as someone filmed it and put in on YouTube but both Becki and myself are going to go to the prison and ask.

Anyway after buying a book we found a number of ceramic bulls displayed around the plaza all in different colours and designs, so we took our tourist pictures and both came to the joint conclusion we weren't city gals as we were bored and it was only 10.30! We also decided was fate as we tried on a number of occasions to pay for the next night in the hostel and there was never any change. Due to the size of Lima it was easy to jump onto a bus to our next location Pisco!