Lima
Trip Start
Aug 10, 2007
1
59
92
Trip End
Dec 27, 2007
Lima,
Peru
Sunday, October 21, 2007
....or so we thought.....as the minutes ticketed by with us still in Puerto Maldonado and no plane in sight we started to become a little fidgety
Lima Church
. It eventually arrived about 1 hour late and we hopped in. This was a disaster and I watched the clock throughout the flight only to discover that very little time was being made up....in fact we were still in the air when I figured the national anthems were being sung and I put my hand to my chest and started singing Nkosi Sikele.....quite quietly to be honest....but in spirit I was there.We grabbed our luggage and ran to find a taxi driver....why we picked this one - only heaven knows. First of all he refused to take us to the address of the hotel we had given him - a place close to the airport which had cable TV. A good start we thought, but no, he said it was a very dangerous area and wouldn't take us anywhere near it! Ok then - what next? We were with a Aussie couple, Fred & Bridget, whom we had met in the Amazon and they were staying the night in Miraflores - a suburb of Lima. So - we just said to the taxi driver - 'Ok - Miraflores' to which he nodded and smiled and proceded to drive us in that direction at an exceptionally slow pace. We were racking our brains trying to think of ways to get him to go faster and tried 'Vamos, vamos!!' only to realise later that is actually means, 'Let's go'. No wonder he just get nodding and smiling at me (sitting next to him in the front seat). Then we tried 'Handele, handele' but I just think he thought we were a bit crazy
Locals enjoying some dancing in the street
. When we tried to explain to him that we were looking for a place to watch the rugby - well we realised that that was pointless. He did, however, give us a tourist guide book of restaurants and shops and we managed to find an advert for an Irish pub in Miraflores which we thought was our best bet of watching the rugby. At this stage the first half had just ended and I was feeling rather tense!Well - 50 soles and 20 minutes later we made it to the Irish pub and of course (bless the Irish) they were indeed showing the game. We sat down in front of a huge screen surrounded by mainly English supporters and let off a cheer when Percy converted....we got the stare...but that wasn't about to intimidate us! We had travelled far to see these 20 minutes and we were going to make the most of it!! It was a nerve-racking time, but we breathed sighs of relief when the final whistle sounded. The barman even came around with free shots of something that was greeny-blue and tasted hideous and of course we threw them back in true celebratory style. He then started bringing us free beers as we had won and so we couldn't really refuse....even Greg had a glass and later complained that his stomach wasn't feeling too good - mixed drinks...that'll teach him!
After a couple of hours in the pub we headed out and walked with Fred and Bridget to find their hotel. We left our bags there and walked around the lovely neighbourhood of Miraflores. We had a sandwich together and then we got a taxi to the airport....to fly out to Mexico City. Our flight was at 00h10 the next morning on Lan Peru.
