Blogs from Lima, Lima, Peru, South America - page 101

We´re just about ready to depart from Lima. Our bus leaves this afternoon for Arequipa and we´ve got hotel reservations waiting for us. Lima is similar to many American cities, we visited their big mall on the first day we were here, craving an American experience. We watched the Golden Compass with spanish subtitles and shopped. That was a bad idea considering it was the day before christmas and the stores were packed. The next day we explored the little flea-market style shops around the little plaza near out hotel. We ate at a local little Chinese restaurant and shopped at the stalls a little. Yesterday we headed to a beautiful shopping plaza built into the cliffs of the coast. The view was amazing over the crashing waves. There were surfers out on the water and ... read more

The border crossing from Ecuador into Peru was easy and the change in landscape was breaktaking. Our first stop in Peru was Punta Sal, a beach town where we camped. When I say ´we´, I mean everyone else but me and two other women. We chose to upgrade for an extra $10 a night so we didn´t have to camp on the beach. I like the beach, but I don´t want sand in my sleeping bag for the rest of the trip. And I´m still kind of nervous about camping seeing as I´ve never done it before. Apparently there are lots of chances to upgrade to a room when we go camping and I will be doing just that. The three days on the beach are a bit of blur because we drank so many cocktails ... read more

Well, almost at the end of our trip. We are now in Lima having completed the last stretch of the journey. La Paz was a city anywhere we have seen before. Complete with a witchcraft market (where you can pick up dried llama foetus and stuffed armadillo..), women in bowler hats selling anything you could ever want and more, and a constant barrage of tooting cars. From La Paz we went to the original Copacabana on the shore of Lake Titicaca and caught a boat to the Isle del Sol, birthplace of the Incas. The contrast with La Paz couldn´t have been greater as we wandered across the island with some great views of the lake in the peace and quiet apart from a llama which wanted to practice it´s spitting techniques on us! We spent ... read more

Happy Holidays Everyone! We definitely miss the holiday feeling down here in Lima. It is just not the same as the weather gets warmer and warmer. Everyday starts off with low clouds followed by clearing around noon. The average daytime temperature along the coast (when the Sun comes out) is about 70-75 degrees. After thinking about it for a long time, Mom and Dad Bergeron decided to come down to Peru for a week for a quick visit. We spent the first few days in Miraflores and Lima getting acquainted with the surroundings, eating great seafood, visiting museums, and sampling a few Peruvian beverages. Dad was very interested in trying the cuy (guinea pig) but after hearing that it had too many small bones, he decided to pass. They were very interested about seeing the Andes ... read more

Flight to Lima We travelled from Puno to Juliaca on a coach transfer that was waiting around for some Americans for ages, so much we worried we would miss our flight! We need not have worried as our flight was delayed and we hung around the tiny airport watching mini-sandstorms skitter across the runway. To our horror the French family from hell (from the train) turned up and acknowleding us, sat right opposite us in the departure lounge. The mum was still as miserable as ever but the kids amused us by knocking each other's heads with an empty water bottle. Eventually our flight arrived and we boarded and headed off for Lima. It was still very windy and the plane tussled with the air on take-off. We touched down in Arequipa to collect more passengers ... read more