Daaaaave arrives.......wooohooooo!

Trip Start Nov 25, 2004

109

169

Trip End Jan 26, 2005

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Flag of Peru Lima, Peru
Saturday, July 2, 2005

Equipped with signs, balloons and a special party pack, we jumped in our taxi and headed to the airport (the taxi driver did try it on abit when he tried to get the full fare out of us at the petrol station!!! Hmmm!) You should have seen us stood waiting for Dave in the arrivals hall, we had 6 huge balloons with heads, antennaes and everything, some abusive signs and obviously our smiley faces imagining Dave panicing about his luggage and if we'd be there or not! Hee Hee! We finally saw him heading through being unusually calm, cool & collected (I wouldn't go as far as sophisticated!), went through the barrier and waved everything in his face while hugging him at the same time! Well I was anyway! With all of us talking at the same time, we managed to grab a cab and head back to the hostel for a quick freshen up!

Talk, talk, chat, shower, chat, laugh, chat, breakfast, chat, chat, another taxi, talk, talk, laugh and we got on with the serious task of speed sightseeing in central Lima as we needed to head back to the infamous sports bar at midday to catch the replay of the Lions test

At the main square in Lima

! Everyone we'd met & talked to seemed to imply that there wasn't much to see in Lima but we had to disagree, the Plaza de Armes is really nice with some really cool buildings and like a cloistered walkway all the way round...the only bad thing when we visited was the weather as for 3 months every year Lima is covered in grey cloud and it's all a bit dreary but even so it's certainly not as bad as everyone makes out! Back in a taxi again to the sports bar in Miraflores, we'd obviously got our wires crossed as they were actually showing Australia v France!!!! Hmmmmmmm! So.....

What to do but to have a 'Welcome to Peru' party for Dave back at the hostel! And what a party it was...2 litre bottles of beer, a bottle of bubbly, 1 party face mask, 1 party popper and one blowy thing that makes a noise! We definitely managed to find the tackiest party kit ever!!!! With me still suffering from dodgy guts, I left the boys to it and they got on with the business of beer drinking and catch up! After 40 winks they both deny they didn't have and a quick stop by my hubby at the chemist for some runny poo medicine (he had to resort to sign & noise language to make himself understood and eventually had 5 women in the chemist rubbing their tummies and making raspberry noises! Hee Hee!), the boys went out on the town! Mucho cervezas, a few pisco sours and not many memories later they stumbled back and on asking them what they remember of the night...that's about your lot

Daves first bit of culture

!

The next morning we headed back into Lima to do a bit more sight seeing before moving on! With our great timing again, there was a huge street parade going on with brass bands and the works which we followed through the streets for most of the morning...quite amusing watching Dave marching along besides them!!! Weird gringo! Our main aim was to visit the San Francisco monastery and it's famous catacombs which you can visit underneath the church! The church itself is a really nice building and the adjoining monastery has an amazing library just like you'd imagine in the old days or in a Harry Potter filmset with ancient texts and those stairs that slide along so you can get to the ones on the top shelves! The catacombs are a bit eery with skulls and bones laid out everywhere and sometimes in carefully laid out concentric circles but the whole experience was really interesting and we had a lovely guide too which always helps! After our bit of culture, we treated DW to his first almuerzos (Like a set menu! Unfortunately no chicken feet in sight this time! Boooo!) and then headed back to pack up and get ready for Dave's first bus journey in Peru!