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Beunos from Lima, the capital of Peru!
I was expecting Lima to be a lot more grander than it turned out to be, which was slightly disappointing. It seemed that many of Lima´s beautiful buildings had been destroyed during a war between Chile and Peru and some of the buildings had been rebuilt or adapted.
The journey to Lima took 18 hours. It didn't help that I had a screaming child behind me. The mother didn't seem to be doing anything to help and I felt like grabbing the child and just rocking it to sleep singing some hits from the Lion King! haha. I had a little sing song in my head and this seemed to get me back to sleep, never mind the child! On the bus, we were given food which wasn't too bad...not as good as plane food though- what a statement!
Finally at the hostel, I met a lovely American girl, Jessika. We went out for some food, hoping for a bit of peruvian food but we decided on Italian in the end. I didn't do an awful lot the first day apart from chat to people in the hostel about their travels
so far. Long journeys take it out of me!
The next morning, I planned with Jessika to go on a walking tour of Lima. We met a group of people in a popular place called Miraflores and took a bus to the historic part of the city. Here, we saw the changing of the guard at the presidential building and lovely church in the main square around it. The buildings were beautiful, but I have to say I have seen better. We walked around, looking at different buildings and trying local food and drinks. On the tour, I met a nice German girl called Alex that was studying in Lima. I'm meeting so many people working or studying in the different places I am visiting, makes me jealous I didn't do all this when I was a bit younger.
Myself, Jessika and Alex decided to go out for lunch to a nice restaurant as Lima has some of the best restaurants in the country... and I love my food! I had read on one of many flights that Peruvian food is very up and coming around the world so I was interested to see what was on offer!
I ended up having a beef stu type dish. I was a little disappointed as it was very salty, something I am noticing a lot in south america. If it wasn't so salty, I am sure it would have been a lot tastier. Oh well!
That evening, Marco our hostel owner, made us all Pisco Sours, the favourite cocktail in Lima as Pisco is made there. They were very tasty and I took note of how to make them exactly so that I can make them for Stuart when I get home.
The next day, myself and Jessika arranged to meet Alex in the Barranco district as we hadn't been there yet. We met just outside Barranco by the sea. It was a lovely view. It´s weird to see a capital city with a shore line! Next to the shore was a lovely shopping centre full of expensive shops! I had a walk around and it made me want to be back home and working so that I had enough money to buy new clothes. I have bought a couple of new clothes along the way but I still only have a limited supply of clothes that I
can carry around with me. I cant wait to not be living out of a backpack again haha.
We made our way to Barranco, a lovely part of town also by the sea. We went for mexican food that had been recommended by my lonely planet book. So yummy! Mexican food is one of my favourites. We had a walk around, smelling beautiful lemon scented flowers all around.
It quickly got dark and we tried to get a taxi back to the hostel. Jessika speaks Spanish so it was left up to her to get us a taxi but it proved a little more difdicult than we thought. Some taxi drivers were trying to charge us over double (probably because we were westeners) and some would just drive off. Finally, we found a taxi that would take us for a reasonable price and we made our way home.
As I was up early to catch my bus to Ica, I decided to go to bed early. At midnight, I was woken up by someone rustling in their bag full with plastic bags, brushing their teeth around the room, zipping and unzipping their bag, more rustling with plastic
bags. AAARRGGGHHHHHH!! I climbed out of the bed and walked out of the room. For some reason, I felt like I couldn't ask her to be quiet nicely. I was so wound up and tired I felt like I was probably going to come across badly so decided to just walk out. Jessika was up and I just ranted, had a glass of water and decided to try my best to get back to sleep. Thankfully, the girl had decided to finally get into bed. Ten minutes later, someone else walked in that just arrived, rustling with plastic bags and turning on the light. I was fuming, so much so I couldn't get back to sleep and had close to none that night. I tried to do some yoga breathing I had learnt in Fiji, without the arms and imagine the sea but felt a bit silly. I need to try to be more calm in these situations from now on!
All in all, Lima wasn't what I thought it would be. Hope to find some other brilliant places in Peru.
Tchao
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