Lima

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The bus trip to Lima was uneventful though somewhat tiring, I slept for a few hours on and off and awoke around 5.30am to see the beginning of the sun rising over the desert. It had mellowed as was less symmetrical with its cliffs and deep quebradas and had smoothed out into rounded windswept dunes and gentle contoured vastness as far as the eye could see it threw of hues of pinks browns and oranges as the sun rose further and another day dawned.

First impressions of Lima were not positive, the eternal grey sky did nothing to help the look of the structures of woven grass walls, tin or grass roofs that greeted us at the far north of Lima, litter decorated each street with dogs and grimy little children playing in the dirt, this gave way to breeze blocks and a woven wooden tinder wall covered in a mud plaster for insulation that kept warm those accommodated within. As the city grew closer a more western style of building appeared, The monotony of the Pan American highway was replaced with over/under passes and copious amounts of carbon monoxide. Lima is vast and it took us almost 2 hours to get near the city centre.

Lima drivers are nuts and although there are officially rules of the road, they are a mere formality and for the most part completely ignored.

Street venders stand on every corner selling a massive variety of wares including, mobile phone covers, fruit, cigarettes, Icecream, window visors, newspapers, maps, empanadas, wooden toys, lotto tickets, tv antennas, bottled water, drugs of various kinds, cd's, dvd's, cheap jewelry, churros, and a whole lot more.

There are few street children in Lima or at least what I observed unlike Quito where there seems to be so many, This worries me a little as I don't see that Peru is an awful lot better off, Perhaps they have better child resources. In certain areas the shops are all grilled at the front and commerce takes place though these grills, I noticed also some of the taxi drivers are encased in a wire grill which was ominous, more about Lima taxi drivers later.

We got to the bus station, disembarked sent our extra baggage on to Cusco, I was a painless process and all in all Cial bus was helpful and efficient, We had done our homework with all the buses available in Peru seem to have bad reviews and good ones so I think it may end up depending on the route and the drivers.

We had booked into a wee B&B called hotel Gemina in Barranco district, It was fine clean and tidy if not somewhat dated but the staff were great especially Ceasar on the front desk who was a huge help with orientating us to Lima. Tomorrow we explore Lima.

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