According to conventional backpacker wisdom, Lima is a dirty, smelly, polluted city, choked with smoke belching traffic and generally not a nice place to stay. I can't remember how many people had told both Em and I that Lima was best avoided, but being the stubborn pair that we are, we decided to go there nonetheless. There were a number of reasons for this other than outright bloodymindedness; it sounded interesting, we needed to go there to see Oscar (a Peruvian friend we'd made in Mancora some weeks before) and the Footprint guide said we could get some top Chinese food there. I have to admit, the last point was pretty much all my doing, but I was suffering from serious quality-Asian-food-withdrawal symptoms! We decided at first to stay in the area of Miraflores, more upmarket
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