Lima

 We booked to go with the 'luxury' tour company, Cruz del Sur, to go to Lima , because we had been told that to go with any other company would be dangerous (plus our hostel had a deal with cruz del sur so it made it easier).Why dangerous? Because in the last month alone, there have been three cases of buses being hijacked in Peru. We immediately noticed the heightened security when we got on the bus. First you had to walk through a metal detector, then you were frisked, then a man came round with a video camera and you had to look at the camera. Add to this that there would be no toilet stops – the bus just went straight for 21 hours. They played us a video when we got on about how safe it was and about how they were the best company. It was actually a really nice bus. Big wide leather seats that reclined and everyone had headphones to watch the films that were on (some good films, like Shutter Island). They also served meals. So the journey was quite pleasant for the first 18 hours, we were making good time. And then we hit a road block. A group of protesters were gathered, blocking the road with rocks, stopping any traffic from entering Lima – Peru's capital – the main artery in and out of the city. We waited for an hour or so for the protesters to leave and were told to draw the curtains in case any rocks got thrown at the bus. We waited another hour or so, and another. In the end, we sat still in that traffic jam for 7 hours!!!

The traffic tailback

 The bus did not move and the police did not come! The traffic was lined up all along the motorway with people just sat outside their buses waiting in the heat. The whole place stank of toilets too as people werent allowed to use the bus toilets when the buses were stationary. Nobody knew what was happening either or when the block would be cleared. All we could do was sit and wait. A Scottish girl off the bus realised I could speak Spanish and asked me to talk to the driver and ask him how long it would take. We had been sat there since 11am and it was now 6pm and she had a flight to catch at midnight. She had reshuffled her whole trip and payed extra to get a flight out of South America as she needed to get home (something had gone wrong on her trrip) and she had paid twice to catch flights that she had missed. She had paid £500 for this one and couldn’t afford to miss it as she had a connecting flight in Rio. Well, it didn't look good for her because from the road block to Lima would take at least 2 hours and from Lima to the airport would take one hour. If she was going to make the flight, we would need to move by 19.00. The coach finally moved at 19.10. Only to stop again a few metres along because someone lit a fire in front of it. 30 minutes more of waiting and we were finally on our way. If the Scottish girl moved quick, she would be able to catch her flight. As we were pulling into the bus station, an Argentinian brother and sister latched onto us and talked at us for about 30mins. They wanted to share a taxi with us and wanted us to come out to dinner with them in Lima that night. By this point we had been travelling 32 hours and were very tired. They followed us to the hostel we had chosen and expressed the desire to share a room with us. As we couldn’t really say no, we ended up sharing a room with them, but I drew the line at going ut for a bbq at 11 at night. I made an excuse and Jemma and I went to McDonald's instead. After McDonald's we were so tired, we flopped into our bunks, ready for a good night's sleep after a very long day (s). Didn't happen. We just so happened to be in the dorm that was actually IN the bar and there was a live music session on until 2.30am. We may as well have been sleeping in the bar because the music was that loud, it was as if there were no walls. The next day, after a quick (and horrible) breakfast at the hostel, we swiftly left and looked for another one, leaving our Argentinian room mates behind.

We wandered over the road and luckily stumbled easily into a new hostel called the Flying dog that was a lot more peaceful. We spent the day wandering around Lima. For lunch, we went to an incredible sandwich shop that is famous in Lima. It is called La Lucha and they do the best baguettes, fruit juices and chips in the world. Jemma had read that the down town area was nice and wanted to walk there. So we set off, on what she assured me would be a 40 minute walk. An hour into the walk, along a motorway, she checked the guidebook again and realised that she hadn't read the map properly and that down town was actually a 7k walk. We gave up and turned back, and decided to get an open top tourist bus to down town and the fountain park. We had tea at a cheap Chinese chain restaurant and then caught a night time tourist open top tourist bus to the downtown area. It was excellent. We paid about £15 and the bus took us all around the centre of Lima, which is beautiful, contrary to what we had heard. We had heard so much negative press about Lima but it was not what we were expecting at all. It had some lovely grand buildings and was quite historic and regal. We had a lovely evening, wandering around the fountain park (which has about 20 different fountains, all different colours, with music to go with them). There was even a fountain tunnel you could walk through and some magic fountains that stopped and started depending on where you stood.

Fountain tunnel

 After the fountains, we went to the Sheridan for tea and cakes and got chatting politics to a Peruvian lecturer who had lived all around the world and two American University International officers who were working with her. All of this, plus a little Peruvian concert in the hotel, was included in the tour. It was the perfect end to the night.

Photos of Lima (at the bottom of the album) : Lima