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Well, here we are. 6 years of dreaming and planning and we´re in Peru at the start of what is certain to be an amazing journey.
Day 0 Our flight was long and tiring. A brief stop in Madrid before a 12 hour jaunt across the atlantic, over the amazon and dropping over the Andes into the fog of Lima courtesy of Iberia. The flight presented nothing of note other than the dissapointing viewing position for the poor selection of inflight movies, my scalded right thigh from the kind stewardess who poured tea into my lap, couldn´t manage an apology or a napkin and my curious walk and stretch routine to the cockpit.
When I say the fog of Lima I wasn´t joking. Passing it off as an occasional occurrance, we have today established that the Lonely Planet guide clearly states Lima will be shrouded in Fog between April and December... presumably we skipped that bit when reading at first!
On our arrival at the airport we were greeted by Enrique, our friendly pick up driver who sported an impessive tache and a sign for ¨Claire Rosario´! After negotiating our way around a car which turned out to
Our Peruvian friends
Left to Right... Claire, Kevin, Ursula, JuanMa, Gustavo, Carolina, Renzo, JuanCa, Alex & Veronica.be driven by what looked like an eight year old boy, we soon found out that Peruvians drive like they are in fact eight year old boys! No signals, no lanes, no brain.
Nevertheless, we arrived safely at the Point Hostel in Barranco to find our prebooked double room had been swapped for a 4 bunk dorm. Thankfully nobody is a match for a tired Claire so we at least managed to secure a private room for the first night albeit with a window which didn´t shut! With the window fixed I then realised that during the transit from Airport to Hostel my mobile had made itself a home on Enrique´s back seat and despite a call to locate, it seems someone is now the proud owner of a Nokia with all my number in. brilliant!
Somewhat fed up, we hit the sack.
Day 1 Keen to overcome the gloom of the night before, we noshed some breakfast and tea with funny milk and walked along the clifftop to LarcoMa, a beacon of Western commercialism perched upon the cliff in Miraflores. After aimlessley peering into closed shopfronts we ended up in a quaint peruvian cafe... Starbucks
Patricio!
Veronica and Renzo´s dog Patricio. Named after Spongebob´s sidekick. I think it was called. Coffee sunk we then turned our thoughts to food and found another local delicacy in the form of a KFC Zinger toasted twister!
Ashamed but strangely satisfied we walked back to our hostel to loaf in a hammock and play few games of ping pong. Having already made contact with a Lima local prior to our departure we decided to give Carolina a call to see if she could show us around on what was a quiet day being election day. Carolina arrived soon after and took us for a drive around Lima on the way to her friends apartment where we were treated to Lasagne whilst watching the Peruvian election results come in.
Carolina´s friends Veronica and Renzo were simply wonderful hosts and the afternoon was a fantastic experience. After a morning of sampling nothing of Peruvian culture it was so nice to be in the company of real peruvians and to learn so much more about what it´s like to live in Lima than we could ever acheive just walking the streets.
Carolina, Veronica, Renzo and friends, self proclaimed
normal
Peruvians without Llamas or knitting skills were wonderful hosts and demonstrated that although our lives were very different in some ways, they were in many ways living very similar lives to us. It was amazing to talk so easily about so many subjects and to be made so welcome in their home. A massive thank you to them and we look forward to spending more time with our new friends over the coming 6 days before we start our Tour of Peru.
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Laura
non-member comment
Hey you two! What a difference a few days can make hey! From Shoreham to Peru....Looks like you're well settled in with the locals anyway, and very impressed with your speedy blog entry! Strange being on the other side of the travel blog world. Looking forward to you're next update...Take care xx