Lima

ABOUT LIMA:
Lima is Peru's buzzing and busy capital city, and the second-largest city in the Americas behind São Paulo! Despite its colossal size and chaotic areas, if you explore the capital's streets, parks and plazas you'll discover a real gem of a city.

Lima was founded by the infamous Conquistador Francisco Pizarro in 1535 and was formerly the administrative centre for Spain’s 20-minute in South America, making it the continent’s most important city for nearly three centuries. It became a city of great wealth financed by the massive quantities of gold and silver that were mined in the area and became the capital of independent Peru after its liberation from the Spanish in 1821.

There are many museums in Lima showcasing the finest artefacts from the country's many ancient civilisations, and you can visit the finely preserved catacombs at the Church of San Francisco. There are many excellent restaurants in the city and a thriving nightlife in the lively district of Miraflores.

8/9/18
We climbed onto a private bus, which we had all agreed to pay an extra USD$12 each to have a private coach so that we could leave at 4 am instead of 2 am, to get an additional 2 hours sleep, sigh! I fell asleep almost immediately when on the bus until we reached the border in c4 hours. The border was an absolute nightmare and easily the worst I’ve ever been at, and I thought Madagascar and Zimbabwe were terrible! The problem again was the Venezualeans trying the crossing the border; however, there was no three line system like at the Columbia/Ecuador border.

We formed an orderly queue, and it took ages to make any progress as they gave priority to people with children, pregnant ladies and what felt like anyone who wasn’t a gringo. Our tour guide was watching our bags around the corner, so she didn’t see what was going on, she eventually got a police officer to watch the bags and came around to sort it out. It took her quite a while, but she finally got us inside the building to join the new queue inside the building. After 3 ½ hours, we finally had our passports stamped and officially in Peru. It was now that we said goodbye to our Ecuadorean tour leader and made our way by 20-minute taxi to the airport to catch a 2-hour flight to Lima. I slept the as soon as in the seat, I woke up

halfway through the flight, shocked that we were in the air!

Our new Peruvian tour leader, Carlos, met us at the airport and we caught a bus and arrived at our Lima hostel at 5 pm. This was the beginning of a new segment of the tour, so we had a welcome meeting at 6 pm. We say goodbye to the four travelling together and the two German ladies, but welcome, a new Aussie couple from Balarat, fascinating English guy (my new roommate), and English girl all travelling through to Rio. All of us went to farewell/welcome dinner at a traditional seafood restaurant, and I had a spicy trout. I was very happy with it, the first time something was actually spicy!

9/9/18
Today started with a walking tour of Lima; we walked from our hostel to the nearby Metro station, which we caught to the city. Firstly we went to the Plaza San Martín, walked down the main street to the Plaza Mayor de Lima (Main Square of Lima), where the tour ended. Most of us went to the Catacombs, which was weirdly interesting, seeing that many bones. No photos were allowed inside.

We decided to get lunch and went to Tanta a nearby restaurant chain owned by a famous Peruvian chief. We got there to find everyone else from our tour there.

We walked around the city for a little bit more but then caught the metro back to our hostel, which was quite a mission. It isn’t possible to purchase a single ticket etc. and a card isn’t worth buying for the one day that we are in Lima. Therefore, we needed to give money to a local for our trips and he let us travel on his pass.

We had dinner at the bustling sandwich restaurant close to our hostel. The sandwich was really nice, they asked if I wanted chips with my order, to which I said yes, and the number of chips that came was ridiculous! The pile was bigger than the sandwich itself!