Day 31 – Lima

It is never a good idea to arrive somewhere as reputedly dangerous as Lima at an ungodly hour so it was with remarkable luck that I arrived at just after 4am. Straight into the sort of sordid looking station that you could smell long before you could see, which was already besieged by all manner of machiavellian looking characters.

After finding a taxi driver who I believed I could beat in a fight, I gave him the address of the hostel I had booked, had a quick pray and headed into the night. It soon became clear the driver had no idea where he was going, which is nothing new in Peru as the plan most taxi drivers seem to employ is to get a punter, agree a price and then worry about the destination.

Eventually he found the place, and after waking the night porter, who was asleep on a bag of potatoes, I got into the hostel and very nice it was too – one knows one is staying in a better class of establishment when the toilet seated is padded – you still have to put the used paper in a bin next to the toilet.

Lima is by far the biggest city that I have visited so far, the hostel is in a very green and tranquil area which is situated midway between the colonial old town and the much more tourist orientated beach area of Miraflores.

With hopes not high about how nice Lima was going to be, our first stop was the ruins of Huallamarca – at least I think that is what it was called as every poster and ticket I saw had a different spelling. The heat was really belting down so I took an afternoon trip to the beach at Miraflores which was like stepping into a different world from the rest of Peru, very modern, very orderly and very clean – I was both confused and amazed, especially when I got the bill for lunch 'Listen amigo, I may be from London but I am not paying London prices'.

The place had some great walks along the cliffs and it was a welcome break. For the first time in South America I came across a McDonalds then rapidly saw the other members of the unholy trio of KFC and Burger King which was then followed by Starbucks and a Pizza Hut – it was time to go.

As it was New Years Eve the British bloke who owned the hostel had organised a party which in typical British fashion consisted of leaving the Australians to fire up the barbeque, the South Africans to make the food and the rest to do the music whilst he stood around doing nothing. Being British I was glad to help.