¨Sunny¨ Miraflores

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May 25th 2009

Published: May 29th 2009

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Madaz

Toronto - Lima

Pasty, sick of plane food, good times ;)

Hola!

So, here we are, finally in South America and begining the backpacking adventure we´ve been planning for what seems to be a lifetime now. Out first port of call - Lima, Peru >>

The flight from Toronto went quite quickly, I guess it was finally hitting home for the both of us that soon we would actually be in Peru. The first shock was getting off the plane to be surrounded by masked personnel throughout the airport, it was kind of like a scene out of E.T... Getting through customs and immigration was hassle-free, although we had to pick the only line at immigration in which a guy got held up due to a problem with his passport, this additional wait was the last thing we wanted - but it´s not like we were in a hurry, being on a massive extended holiday and all....

We had organised a taxi to meet us at the airport, this service was spot-on, our name was at the exit desk and off we went - this was the second shock, the traffic is mental here, seriously, road markings and indicators are non-existant, the only real rules are use the horn

Toronto - Lima

to let other vehicles know that they are about to hit you, or vice versa, and to let pedestrians know that they are close to being hit - I think one beep is like "yo, taxi coming your way!", two beeps is something like "rightio, getting pretty close now!", and a series of mental beeps is like "cars hurt - do you want to die?!". The ride was about 25 mins and cost 45 soles, AUD $1 = 2.8 soles. The pollution here is also mental, the faithful Lonely Planet was not wrong when mentioning that the Smog in Lima can make the eyes and throat sting after a short while - as soon as we left the airport and got a lung-full of the air, it smelt like burnt firecrackers, crazy.

We arranged to stay at Miraflores House (Miraflores is just outside Lima center), this hostel is pretty awesome, the host provides a wealth of knowledge about the area, places to see, things to do, and where to eat the best food etc. We are heading into the begining of the dry winter season, we still found it to be quite humid and warm, sleeping at night in

Toronto - Lima

our bunk-bed room wasn´t the most fun we´ve ever had, although we had an excessively-sized fan about 1.5 feet wide, which took up half the room, to keep us ´cool´. We spent a few days walking around the area, visiting the Loooove Park (pics), and checking out a small section of the coastline down to Barranco. Surfing is quite popular here, although from the cliff-cline it´s hard to dintinguish between the surfers and plastic bags in the water - nah, it´s not that bad. The cliffs are a bit crazy - they consist of what looks to be quite soft, cumbly earth that would seemingly slide as the result of enough rain or an earthquake I guess, and below the cliffs is the main highway down the coast (pics).

We met a couple of girls at the hostel, Jess (Scotland) and Jane (USA), we got to know each other over many Pisco Sours that the host would provide most nights, whcih were great. The Pisco Sour is the national drink if you like, and I think consists of Pisco (42%), some sort of bitters mixer, freshly squeezed limes, sugar and egg white - it´s a refreshing end to a

Toronto - Lima

hot, sticky day to say the least. With the advice of the host, Francis, we headed (the girls included) to a Ceviche restaurant for lunch, ceviche being fresh raw fish which is ´cooked´in acidic juices presented with onion and bits-and-pieces (pics - these are Jess´, we all know how she likes to photograph every special meal 😉, it was awesome, the four of us shared several different types of ceviche, and along with drinks it cost us about 40 soles each, gold.

Rightio, time to get out of Lima, we plan to head to Huancayo as the first of at least a few locations we´ll get to know on our way to Cusco.

Hasta luego,
Sam & Jess

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