Lima

Arrived in Lima after a long 20 hr bus journey from Cusco. Never realised how much of Peru is complete desert, we passed miles upon miles of nothing but sand and barren mountains for most of the trip.

Lovers park

We had also taken one of the (supposedly) better buses, Cruz de Sur which turned out to be hilarious, with the bus steward talking for 20 minutes at a time about what, we´ll bnever now. It was as if he was giving a little talk abotu the journey, what entertainment we´d have, what food we´d have (certainly nothing to talk about), like a regular tourist guide! It all culminated in him handing out bingo cards shortly before we arrived in Lima and calling the numbers over the public adress system on the bus!

Miraflores Lima

Anyway, after consulting our fellow passengers, some of whom told us to stay in the city centre, others who said it was too dangerous,we decided to stay in Miraflores...the posher part of town.

On our taxi ride there I spotted a Dunkin donuts, a Mcdonalds, a pizza hut adn a burger king all withn a few meters of eachother and I knew we´d be okay! We booked into hostel Loki, the partner of the hostel in Cusco. It was pretty expensive adn they were still doing it up, but it was pretty nice and they had a nice bar where we got a chance to meet our fellow travellers adn get a bit of info.

The area itself was very upmarket. It had the real beachy feel to it as well with teh Palm trees adn the warm(ish) breeze blowing in from the Pacific. We onyl planned to stay there for one night so my first stop was Dunkin donuts adn Tadghs was Burger king! We walked down to the coast where they have a shoping centre litterally built inot the cliff overlooking the sea. Here we found Starbucks, andother Dunkin Donuts adn even a Hooters! Poor Tadgh never got his chance to visit Hooters....I´m sure he´s still devasted!

Paragliding in Miraflores

We decided to take in a film there adn finally got to see the Da Vinci code. Their cinema was pretty impressive. We were in the Bar-cinema screen...all the seat were in pairs with a little table in front, a menu and a button to call for serivce....now thats what we need at home!

Didn´t get up to much that evening , save a few beers in the hostel.Next day we took another walk along the coast on their touristy route. The beach there isn´t really for swimming and this is Lima´s foggy season , so there was no proper beach time. Afterwards knowing we had an impending bus journey to Huaraz we decided to feed ourselves well and went to San Antonios in Miraflores....the most amazing sambos, salads, juices adn desserts to die for...I was in heaven.

The raunchy statue in Lovers park

So looking back our trip to Lima really revolved aroudn getting some good western fast food into ourselves before we hit the wilkderness of Huaraz. We caught the bus that night over the mountains in teh freezing cold to arrive in Huaraz for 6am...tired and cold.

Ultra cool cinema