Lima, Peru

We get the red eye to Lima and sleep through most o the short 5 hour plane ride.

We cab it to the hostel (we are now more scared of taxis than flying), note that they brew their own beer and head off for a bite and some exploring. Keeping with our routine we find the closest park for a rest and read. Jackpot, this park seemed to be a cat friendly park. All the locals were patting the cats and someone had set up water and cat bikkies for them. I patted a few and chased one up a tree. Better than the stray dogs of the other countries, we rkn.

Next it was time to find a milkshake but Jeff got side tracked by the soccer playing in every restaurant. We went in for a beer and soccer and decided the shakes could wait. So could the beer it turns out. 'no alcohol' they told us. Errr, que? Ok, maybe they can't sell alcohol till after 6 pm (it was early afternnon). We settled for a coffee, Jeff tuned in to the last half of the game and I read about the Statue of Madre Patria - a statue of a woman who was supposed to have a crown of flames on her head. No one bothered to check the double meaning of flames in Spanish so she ended up with a 'delightful little llama on her head'.

We headed back to the hostel and sampled a some of the craft beers sold at the hostel over a few customary games of monopoly deal. The beers were great, especially the IPA. One of the only criticisms we have of SA is the beer is pretty average. Well, by our snobby standards anyway.

We had dinner at a pollo restaurant and ate an entire chicken with salad and chips on the side. Again we were told "No alcohol" . It's Saturday night, what is going on here? I later googled it and found out the weekend we are in Lima is an election weekend, so all sales of alcohol is banned - they don't want anyone 'voting under the influence' . Fair enough. After dinner it was time to test out the casino, which was basically just a pokies room. Jeff accidentally put a max bet on (the button was stuck) and we turned 8 soles into 200! (or aud$3 into aud$80)

We skipped our way back to the hostel after that and hit the hay.

Day 2

We wake up, have some average breakfast (a roll and instant coffee) and head out looking for some stuff for the Inca trek (jackets, waterproof stuff, general camping gear). We were very unsuccessful. Nothing around Miraflores, the place we are staying is open.

Miraflores is a upper class suburb and looks quite nice compared to the rest of Lima we have seen so far.

We cab it to the bus terminal and drop our stuff off. The cab was easily identified by the sticker saying "taxi" the owner had placed halfway up the windscreen. All taxis are agreed, fixed price. You negotiate before u go. I like this concept.

Another side note - every car in Lima is non-stop beeping. It's really a language of its own. They range from "G'day, do u need a taxi?" all the way through to "That is the worst driving I have ever seen, get off the road".

There seems to be an interesting road rule whereby if your car is shitter than someone else's, you have right of way. Mainly because the guy with the shit car doesn't care if he gets hit.

Ok, so we head to the centre of town looking for a camping store. There isn't much on offer. We realise we are gonna have to wait till Cusco. So settle for hunting for a Subway, or something good to eat. Can't find anything.

Lima is very dirty as well. Not in a, there's-rubbish-everywhere, but more in a there's-dust-on-everything kinda way.

We get a cab back to the bus terminal and wait an hour or so. The bus is nice. We are top deck, right at the front.

No daylight savings so it's dark pretty early. We sleep early. Although it was a tough sleep. We are again heading across the Andes on some very windy roads which the driver takes at high speed. So we are thrown around a fair bit.