Advertisement
Published: January 13th 2010
Edit Blog Post
So after trying to have a nap and failing I headed back out into Lima; this time it was a beautiful sunny day, and I wandered down to the cliff top again to watch the paragliding. I rocked up and started talking to one of the guys inside the pen, just as a Canadian guy appeared as well.... after watching for a bit I thought "what the hell" and jumped in. My pilot was a Japanese guy called Akita, who had been in Peru for 19 years (thank goodness he spoke English as well). Once the canopy was up we were pulled around all over, despite the third guy holding on to us, but we straightened up and just lifted off... no running, nothing...
We picked up height pretty quickly and flew down the coast towards the shopping mall built inside the cliff, but we veered towards the apartment blocks, getting close enough that I thought I could shake the hand of one of the girls leaning out (but she didn´t see us), and then all of a sudden we were climbing again - Akita had used the building for extra lift. We repeated this in front of the Marriot hotel,
and now we were really high up, looking down on the top of the mall, and the other hotel where George Bush had stayed. After about 15 minutes (that went v quickly) we headed back to the take off site... I thought I was going to have to run up the top of the cliff as we were coming in low, but a lasty minute updraft saw us on to the plateau again, and a quick hover and down. Canadian chap came in just after, and turned out he was just in Lima for the day as well, so we wandered to the shopping mall for lunch in the sunshiner, watching the more acrobatic paragliders just above us, then a quick wander into the Gold Museum, and to the beach before heading back to the cinema... watched avatar; was a good laid back way to end the afternoon, and Martin split to catch his flight.
A bit of an early night for me, with the dorm to myself, but I still couldn´t figure out how to get the shower to give me hot water!
Up relatively early the next morning, and into a cab... took me pretty much to Centro,
but he had to stop a couple of times for directions. Still put me at the bus station way too early. Oh well, just read my book and waited, hoping for a nicer bus to turn up..... but no.... When it was time to hop on my heart sank still further as I smelled the coach, and realised just how much the travel agent had skimmed off the top of the fare :o(
We set off across town, to another bus station and the coach filled up, then started the long trek north. We were quickly embroilled in traffic and the driver pulled a U-ie, and took us through a huge fruit and veg market, with the stall´s umbrellas scraping along the windows. After a little more traffic we finally left Lima behind, and I could finally see that despite all the flowers in Miraflores, Lima is actually still in the desert. We wound our way along the coast, past spectacular hills and sand dunes, or at least they would have been if the sun had come out. Once again Peru was hiding from me, although to be fair I wasn´t so worried about this as I was concerned about getting my camera out on the bus.
We stopped once for food at 3pm, and again at about 11 (and I don´t want to think about what was in my soup), then travelled on through the desert, past seas of lights, and a huge fire. I woke up at first light, and finally saw un-irrigated vegetation! Not long after we stopped on muddy streets to clear Peruvian customs, temperature rising rapidly, and me frantically looking out for mosquitoes as my anti-malarials were in my checked luggage.... Over the border and through another market, then onto Ecuadorian customs... fortunately with sunshades, then ever northward, through the banana plantations; and my word, how many of them there were. Surely this is most of the world´s supply? At one point we passed a town built entirely on stilts, and then more banana plantations....
Two food stops, then the climb up into the Andes: coming down into Quito was almost like flying over the darkened city. I started to get a little worried as we seemed to pass through the city, but then we stopped and I hopped into a taxi for the nicest hotel I´ve stayed in on the whole trip. Arrived at about 11, so that means 38 hours on a bus..... The others on the bus were heading on to Caracas, Venezuela, still another 3 days away.... ouch, the toilet smelled bad enough when I got off!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.118s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0523s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb