Lima!

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After a series of almost catastrophic events including lost train tickets, wrong train time and inaccessible airport terminal we did finally arrive in Lima. We managed to meet up and get into our taxi, well we think it was ours as the name was Helena Moran! Our new travel nick name! Our hostel in Lima is swish, they even make the beds! We were woken by some crazy drumming teenagers advertising Cristal beer, the national beer or Peru. Good welcome to Lima!

We spent the first day wandering around Miraflores, a suburb next to the Pacific. By far the best bit was the HUGE craft market selling classic peruvian jumpers, hats, socks, bags, jewellry, gloves, rugs, blankets, purses and much much more! So we mainly shopped! Probably not the best plan as we have to carry this stuff across South America but what the hell! We also visited a pre inca mound in Miraflores called Huaca Pucllana. Basically, a truncated pyramid with surrounding pre inca village. The first of many ruins we think.

We spent our second day in central Lima. Waking up to an anti G8 march outside our hostel. Full of school kids and children in traditional dress drumming, chanting and singing while a band on stilts led the way on the road into central Lima. Naturally we decided to join in the fun. Abandoning the march we had an interesting bus ride into Lima city where we didn´t know where to get on or off, how much to pay or how to pay! So a bit hit and miss but all good fun and getting off about 10 blocks too early paid off as we saw backflipping boys at traffic lights and had fun dodging the crazy traffic!

In central Lima we found a strange market full of printing and photocopying stalls and a street full of shoe shops and medical equipment including dentists chairs for sale! In the main Plaza we were accosted by school kids wanting us to fill in their questionnaire - in Spanish! so naturally we agreed which caused a lot of excitement! Probably filled it out all wrong but did get the gist eventually despite the laughs of the kids when we ticked a box! We tried our first Inca Cola which tastes like irn bru but is yellow! All very pretty buildings in Lima, churches and cathedrals everywhere. We went to buy a congratulations card but as our spanish is pretty poor at the moment we have to tak the mans word for it that amistad means congratulations! Later deciding to invest in a dictionary we find this means friendship - oops. But we do appreciate Mazza´s friendship muchos! On the way back our bus journeys become more exciting as we witness a fight over some guys headphones! at least that is what we think, no such thing as a dull moment!

Our last day and we have to change hostels to meet our inca trail group. although when we get there it is actually a 3 star hotel complete with animal hospital! Today we do more shopping at the market, improving our spanish haggling techniques! For lunch we try the local speciality - ceviche which is raw fish with lime and yucca! Very nice though we were dining with a load of local business men! We were a bit out of place! Later in the evening we meet our inca trail group at the hotel. There are 10 of us in total, mainly british but with some canadians and swedes and one token fake australian thrown in. They all seem nice and we go out for dinner with a few of them before going to bed ready to get up at 3am for our flight to cusco!

So far, every day has been an unexpected adventure and we can´t wait to start the next chapter of our travels.

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