SA Finally!

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We have left the warm, familiar, high cholesterol hug of America and landed straight into the not so comforting, blank stares and endless confusion of South America!

The language barrier started before we even left LA, when we entered into our first battle of Charades when attempting to check into our flight and make sure it was understood about our connecting flight through to Lima from Mexico City. Through lots of ‘Si’s’ and ‘Dos Malehtas’ (2 suitcases) we got there in the end, and with relief our bags arrived in Lima when we did!

The 4 hour stop over was semi-bearable, although for one of us suffering the Man Flu was a bit tougher and the first of the airport floor sleeps have begun! After 4 hours of wandering the duty free – noting some of the prices where amazingly cheap – cigarettes $2.20US per pack! We finally got onto our second flight of 5 hours to arrive in Lima at 6.45am.

The first thing we did when we got to Lima, was negotiate a taxi to the hostel - and when I say negotiate I mean he told us the price and we said ‘ok’. Those who have travelled to Bangkok, can picture the city of Lima – except less traffic rules! The only rule seems to be if you have your blinker on it means you don’t really want to merge or turn, unless you hang your arm out the window then you really mean it and people will give way. It takes a while to adjust to looking at the city through bars, fences and make-shift spikes lining the walls for ‘security’. The houses kind of look like what you could imagine Charlie Sheens place would, if he didn’t have his millions.

After a cocktail of Tylenol, Dayquill and Resitvate – the broken sleeps and drowsiness kicked us hard and as soon as we got to our Lima Hostel – Hostel 1900 – we crashed on the lobby couches for at least 3-4 hours, waiting for our room to become available. We did learn, that if you sleep in-front of the front desk – the room does seem to become available a lot sooner than the initial time given – anything to get the bums out of the lobby! We finally got into our room and crashed for a further few hours before heading out around the local block and supermarket.

The hostel itself is nice, the rooms are large and the place itself is kind of like a large old fashioned orphanage with high ceilings and doors leading to rooms everywhere with 3 large halls used now for common rooms.

Back in the room for the night now- tomorrow’s plans are to check out another city district, a city walk and a fountain light show with people from the hostel at 6.30pm and trying not to think about the 20 hour bus trip we have the following day to Cuzco!

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