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Published: January 11th 2010
Lima
Tuesday 15th December - Day 100 Woke up in Huacachina where we had been camping by the pool...lucky for us there were no plans to rush out. We had a relaxing hour laying in the sun by the pool with pancakes for breakfast.
Once the bus was loaded we headed to Lima, arriving for a late lunch at 3pm. We had lunch in a little place near the hotel which Vanessa knew of. We were told to try 'cerviche' (raw fish) served with onions however not everyone tried it. Lizzy did and enjoyed it.
With it being the last night the group would be together we wanted to have a farewell night out and being in the capital of Peru we thought it would be a great place for it.
We all met in the hotel dining room at 6pm and exchanged our Secret Santa presents while getting warmed up on rum. Once we had polished it all off we realised that we had missed dinner reservations so instead we nipped across the road to a pizza restaurant.
All the group were out including Vanessa and our 2 drivers Oswalso and Puma who were
Ceviche
Raw Fish Disha good laugh. We had given the 3 of them bottles of Pisco to say thank-you.
Once dinner was over Vanessa ordered 3 taxi's and told the drivers which club to take us to. Vanessa and the 2 drivers took the last taxi. When our taxi arrived we stood around waiting for Vanessa for about 10 minutes when we decided to just go in and meet her inside. With it being a Tuesday night it was pretty dead. The club was underground and as we started going down the stairs a bouncer stopped us and got us to open our bags and remove our cameras. We couldn't understand why and didn't want to leave our cameras with the bouncers so decided not to go in We kept waiting for Vanessa when Jack who didn't have a camera ran in to see if Vanessa was inside already. He quickly came out laughing saying it was a Strip Club...we couldn't believe it. Lizzy was really annoyed, convinced that Vanessa had done this purposely, when others were sure it must be a mistake. So, when talked to the bouncers and discovered there was another club with the same name so we got
the address and jumped in a taxi. It took a good 15 minutes to get to this place and it was out of town in the middle of nowhere...this place wasn't a strip club but Vanessa was still no where to be seen.
We ended up being bored trying to find Vanessa and decided to make the most of it...
When we eventually got back to the club, a few of us went and knocked on Vanessa's door who was asleep. We woke her up and told her she sent us to a strip club, which she claims she had no idea that it was. Apparently she had got the recommendation from a friend. When we asked why she didn't come she said that the bouncers didn't like the look of Oswaldo and didn't let them in however we still couldn't understand why we didn't see them. Anyway...funny that our tour guide sent us off to a strip club...thanks!
Wednesday 16th December - Day 101 Today we had to move to another hostal which we had booked as our time with GAP Adventures was now over. A few decided to stay at the hotel we were already in
however it was 4 times the price of a nicer hostal we had found online.
The place we found was a brand new hostal in Miraflores which is near the beach and was a steal at 3 GBP a night. The place was owned by a young English chap who had married a Peruvian girl. Once we'd checked in we went straight out to grab some lunch, being slightly hungover we'd missed breakfast so were starving by this point!
We went to Bembo's, the Peruvian McDonalds place which was near a huge cinema complex, a really modern area.
Lizzy had a cinema date with the girls to watch 'New Moon' as they had all become obsessed with Twilight/Edward Cullan. So while Lizzy was off at the cinema Rick went with the others to downtown Lima where he saw the Catacombs within the Church of San Francisco which contained more than 25,000 bodies.
Everyone met up again at 5pm to say a final goodbye...having exchanged emails everyone promised to keep in touch!
Despite it being sad saying goodbye to everyone, it was a nice feeling being back to the 2 of us again. Being able to do what we wanted.
In the evening we walked round Miraflores which was quite lively. Shops and restaurants all opened late and it was nice to walk around. There were huge Christmas displays everywhere which was exciting to see.
In an effort to save pennies we grabbed a sandwich and took it back to the hostal and chilled out watching TV.
Thursday 17th December - Day 102 Our last day in South America...
Decided to spend it on the beach however this wasn't as easy as we expected.
The first beach we arrived at wasn't exactly welcoming for tourists, it was pretty empty apart from the odd group of locals so we decided to keep walking. It wasn't very clean either.
After a while of walking we decided that this wasn't the best area, knowing there were several beach spots we decided to grab another taxi and go elsewhere. On the way we stopped off at a restaurant overlooking the beach for lunch.
We finally found a friendlier beach area however rather than sand, this was a stone beach but it was a scorching day, packed so we decided to give it a go. What made it
more difficult was that there wasn't much space between the waves crashing against the stones and the walls so you had to find a good spot. We ended up having to move about 3 times due to the waves getting closer and closer until we were finally happy.
It was a major surf spot and it was cool watching them with paraglides above our heads as well.
Despite our efforts, while we were both engrossed in our books suddenly huge wave came up and covered us...us and our books got soaked. We weren't the only ones... gradually throughout the rest of the afternoon we kept seeing this happen to more people however it just seemed like a normal thing to the locals.
At about 5pm we decided to head back to the hostal as we wanted to make sure we sorted before our flights that evening. We had both managed to pick up another stomach bug and didn't fancy eating too much so skipped dinner.
Vanessa had booked taxi's for us from our hostal to the airport (as it's an hours drive away it's cheaper to book through a company) which we were grateful for. It wasn't
until we checked our flight details online that we realised that the flight had been brought forward so we needed to change our pick up time. We kept trying to call Vanessa with no luck so tried the taxi firm direct. When we spoke to them they had no booking under either our or Vanessa's name so it was lucky we called!
When we got to the airport we were stopped by a American Airline employee asking us where we're flying to. We told him LA and he began to tell us the flight had been delayed due to a problem with the plane and there was a 94% chance the flight would be cancelled altogether. When we got to the main desk we found out that it was infact cancelled...they were trying to sort out passengers with onward flights first, if you didn't have an onward flight they were putting people up in Lima for another night.
We said we had a flight booked from LA to Phoenix however we didn't have any paperwork to prove this as we'd chosen online booking where you print the ticket off at the airport.
Unfortunately for us this meant they couldn't
help us...which we could understand but it was frustrating. As we were running out of time the guy said that if we can go to the internet cafe upstairs, print off our documents and get back in 20 minutes he'll help us.
So Rick stayed with the luggage while Lizzy sprinted off to find the internet cafe. Luckily it wasn't too far away but it was full. Lizzy was about to attempt to explain the situation and try to kick someone off for a minute when a woman stood up to leave...Lizzy was back at the main desk with the documents in about 5 minutes.
About an hour later we were booked on a flight to Atlanta with Delta Airlines and they arranged an onward flight to Phoenix for us from there. In the end we were going to arrive in Phoenix sooner than we were originally going to due despite being longer in the air, there was a shorter gap between the flights.
We were just grateful to be able to get there at all...
USA here we come!
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Jane Clarke
non-member comment
Don't faint Lizzie... it's Jane
Hi Lizzie Just read your blog and it all sounds fantastic . I don' t do the on-line stuff very often but saw your Mum today and she sent me the link. She is always sending me stuff and doing facebook etc and finds it highly amusing that I'm still getting to grips with my mobile phone! Anyway, you keep having a wonderful time and do take care. I notice that you are off to Phoenix next... I went there many years ago and it was actually the hottest place I have ever been to 120 degrees or so at the time... so plenty of high factor stuff hey? Lots of love Jane xx