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Published: August 6th 2007
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The little pigeon girl of Lima´s Monasterio de San francisco
Not to be mixed up with the Homeless pigeon freak of London´s Trafalgar square I have to admit that I found the start of the South American adventure pretty tough. Staff at each hostel we stayed at, other travellers, strangers on buses and guide books all told a mixture of, sometimes conflicting, warnings; "be careful with your bags", "I know someone who was mugged and stabbed", "always carry your passport with you or you can get fined", "leave your valuables at the hostel", "never leave your valuables at the hostel". All that and a dose of jetlag left me paranoid and walking down the street after dark had me nervous...despite the fact that we have been away for a while now and been in other countries with similar warnings it just didn´t happen when we were in Australia and New Zealand and I had got used to it.
Here comes the good news; arriving in Peru's capital Lima had made me feel so much better, even after getting up at 3am to catch the flight. We got past the lottery of a customs department (press a button as you get to the search area and if a green light flashes you and your bags sail through, but if a red light appears you are
Catedral De Lima, Plaza de Armas
The architecture and ambience around Limas central square is magical. A real slice of South America as we imagined it to be subject to a full bag search) to find a taxi driver with a sign bearing the name ´Mac Parry' (close enough), he whispered the pre-arranged password and whisked us off to the hostel.
The drive from the airport took us through some of the more rundown parts of Lima, passed worn our buildings and a dead dog in a heap of rubbish, to a soundtrack of blaring horns whilst small brightly coloured buses full of bodies weaved around us, each with a man hanging out the door whistling and calling out to let would-be passengers know their route.
Our destination was Miraflores, an area reccommended to us by Elaine and Damien in Santiago. Billed as an upmarket area of Lima, Miraflores boasts huge international hotels, glittering casinos, department stores, a broad array of fast food restaurants - Dominoes Pizza, KFC, Burger King and McDonalds (which may come in handy if we tire of 'Cuy'....better known to us as Guinea Pig) - and local restaurants serving decent 2 course meals for a couple of quid.
Our hostel K'usillus has a great central location, we had our own bathroom (which after sharing for all but one night since mid
Andean sunrise
Its about 7am at about 24,000 feet and I am still trying to stop liquid coming out of both ends - but the view helped (a bit) January was like heaven), cable TV in our room and a variety of friendly characters running it, including Jaime who seemed to work 24 hours a day and his sidekick Ricardo whose job consisted of sleeping most of the day or entertaining various women in his room. We had originally planned to spend 4 nights in Lima but extended it to 6 to ensure that Matt's stomach bug and my cold were completely gone, our next stop Cusco is so high up that altitude sickness can be a problem and we really need to arrive feeling well.
With no sense of urgency we were able to take in Lima's key sights at a relaxed pace. First up, a stroll to Pucllana where archeologists had discovered a buried 5th century ceremonial centre, it's set in the middle of Miraflores against a backdrop of buildings. Here we met our first Peruvian dog (called Harla, though hilariously Matt was convinced it was called Carla), they are bald but for a few tufts of blonde hair on their heads and tails and as the Pucllama guide informed us "they are the original hot dog" touching their warm skin is meant to have medicinal
Looking down on Miraflores
Even though I was Sh$tting myself, I managed 2 photos. This is number 1........ powers.
Central Lima houses a number of important buildings, one being the beautiful and huge Baroque style San Francisco Monestary. Here some 70,000 bodies are buried in the underground catacombs and the entrance fee included an English guided tour. The tour was fairly interesting showing paintings including a version of the 'Last Supper' complete with Peruvian details (they were eating Cuy) before we headed to the underground catacombs where there was a musty smell in the air, they were like a maze and without the guide we'd probably still be down there amongst the carefully arranged skulls and femurs on display.
Miraflores is right on the coast and slightly further round is the area of the Barranco, billed as an artsy bohemian place by day and a great place for eating and drinking at night. We headed there on Saturday morning, I was keen to walk over the 'Bridge of Sighs' a 30 metre bridge where legend has it if you make a wish and walk over it for the first time ever holding your breath your wish will come true. Unfortunately we walked over it before realising it was 'the bridge' and then had to walk back
over it pretending it was the first time.......which probably doesn't count.
We are still struggling with Spanish; it takes us at least 15 minutes to order dinner as we get the dictionary out and translate all the available options. We are trying, though I keep dropping in French words by mistake and am yet to find a reason to recite the entire alphabet in Spanish (which is one of the few things I can remember from my school days). Despite our obvious inabilities in the language department people are keen to speak to us, we had a taxi driver give us a Spanish commentary of every point of interest throughout our 20 minute journey, the sum of which we understood was that one building had 20 floors and that when she is in town J-Lo stays at a hotel where you need 'Mucho deniro'.
With time to kill in Lima we decided to do something gnarley and with paragliding costing about 15 quid each it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. We arrived at the take off point but the wind was not quite right and we had to wait around until the conditions improved. When
The original "Hot Dog"
Hairless except for a David Beckham hairdo, the Peruvian Dog acts as hot water bottle for cold villagers. Or in this instance a tourist attraction in Central Lima they did, everything happened so fast, I was first to go and within seconds of being strapped into the harness and then to 'pilot' Michael he ran forwards and off the edge of the cliff overlooking the beach.
Flying was an amazing feeling and not nearly as scary as I had expected, the wind caught us and took us high above the city over recognisable sights like Larcomar shopping centre and high above the Mariott hotel. We flew alongside birds soaring through the air and then over the sea where Michael, who had just informed me that without the wind he is like a gun without bullets, somehow managed to make us spin in the air whilst shouting "do you like rollercoasters?", at that point I was thankful I hadn´t eaten lunch yet as it may have made a reappearance.
I started to notice that the road that runs alongside the beach was getting closer and we seemed to be heading for the rocky cliff faces, it's kind of disturbing to hear the person controlling the flight to say "shit, shit, shit" and after hearing Michael do just that, he began to explain that he had made a
Monasterio de San Francisco
The fountain, square, Library and catacombs of the 17th century monastery bring the immense history of Lima to life mistake and we had lost too much altitude (we were at this point below the landing spot), I was beginning to think we were going to end up landing on the beach or maybe even the road until we slowly began to regain height and were able to land in the same spot we had taken off from.
Matt was up next and watching him go made me realise how high we had been. His trip was slightly shorter than mine (our regaining altitude giving me some free minutes) but no less exhilerating and again featured Michael´s poetic way with words when he announced that when he is flying his alter ego is the 'Lone Wolf'.
We probably had too long in Lima but it gave us a chance to relax and recharge our batteries a bit, as well as loads of time lying in bed watching our new discovery of American crime-o´s (CSI, Without a Trace etc etc). Next stop Cusco.....
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Chris
non-member comment
Got the card thanks!!! That dog is a right fat bot, and having no hair means it's gusset is totally exposed 24 - 7!! Updated the Blog with john shuttleworth night on there. Speak to you soon. Ta Ra!!!!