Peru Day 1/2

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18th/19th September

Our trip started with an early morning flight from Manchester to Amsterdam, where were we were given "fastlane" security to avoid any queues. Apart from a slight delay in landing at Schippol due to adverse weather conditions, we landed with enough time to make it to our connection to Lima. Despite the 12 hour duration, the actual flight wasn´t too bad, and we even had a spare seat next to us. The food was frequent, and quite nice, and they brought round water on a regular basis. All we had to get out heads around was that Amsterdam was one hour head of home and Lima was six hours behind!

We were met at the airport but our travel rep, and whilst waiting for the rest of the party, spotted out first Peruvian in traidtional national dress, on his mobile phone!

We arrived at our Hotel Las Americas, which is in the heart of Milaflores, the main tourist district of Lima, at around 17.30. We got a welcome drink which was Pisco Sour, which is the national cocktail of Peru. Our room was very nice, with all the facilities you wound want. We freshened up, and went out to look for somewhere to eat. After something fairly light, we found a Sports Bar that was showing a replay of the Chelsea game, but we had to bail out at 21.30. After being up for almost 24 hours, we were shattered.

The next morning after breakfast, we had chance to check out potential "treasures" before our afternoon excursions.

We were picked up at just after 2pm for a city tour of Lima. Our guide first showed us a couple of the main parks in Milaflores, including the "Love Park" with a sculpture of two figures kissing which was erected at the end of a period of terriorism within Peru. There was also some mosiac seating reminiscant of the Parc Guell in Barcelona.

The next stop was Huaca Pucllana, which is an excavated pre-Inca pyramid built out of clay bricks covering a large area. Unfortunately, to go round the site would have taken too long, and so we only went into the small display.

We then went to the Plaza de Armas, a UNESCO World Heritage site, which has important buildings on all sides, including the Government and Presidential Palaces, and the Cathedral. The Cathedral was the first church to be build by Francisca Pizarro and it contains his remains, discovered in the crypt in 1973.

From here we walked the short distance to the San Fransisco church, which has an impressive Moorish style domed roof and is still inhabited by Fransican monks today. Under the Church, lies the old public cemetary, now the catacoombes, which housed over 25,000 bodies, stacked up five at a time. Now they have been excavated, and displayed as a public attraction.

On the way back tot he hotel, we noticed that on nearly all the street corners there were people with green flourescent jackets, which our guide told us would change euros or dollars into Peruvian Sols.

Tomorrow we have an ealry start in order to catch the plane to the Amazon jungle.

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