Lima

Monday - Wow!  We arrived in Lima after a long journey via Madrid and landed in the middle of the rush-hour (fortunately on the runway!).  We negotiated a taxi to our hotel in the salubrious neighbourhood of Miraflores (yes, our airport shuttle didn´t turn-up!).                                                                                   

Our first impressions of Lima were that it was a heaving mass of civilisation moving in the most chaotic of manners, it was clearly very polluted (Jeremy could feel the fumes almost as soon as the taxi left the secure airport area!) and I don´t think that we would have wanted to walk around near the airport at night!

Our hotel in Miraflores was, however, a different kettle of fish!  It was clean and felt very safe.

  Miraflores is the area that most "Gringos" stay-in as they arrive in Lima.  It is fairly cheap by UK standards, but out of the price-range of the average Peruvian.  We didn´t venture-out far from the hotel, we had been flying for the best part of 15 hours and had left Heathrow Airport nearly 24 hours earlier!

Tuesday - We took a walk around.  Lima is shrouded in a thick mist for most of the year, it was colder than back home!  It was easy to find places to eat and drink, although crossing the roads to get to them is an "interesting" experience, we felt it must be one of the new Peruvian "Extreme Sports" we had heard so much about!

Wednesday - We decided that we wanted to visit Pachacamac and also plan our route out of Lima.

   It was easy to arrange a trip to Pachacamac, which is one of the most important archeological sites around the City of Lima (about 35km south).  It dates back around 2000 years to pre-Conquistador and Inca times - and it was surprisingly lacking in visitors.  It has many adobe-brick temple remains and was developed as new cultures / civilisations succeeded the previous ones.  The Temple of the Sun was where the Incas performed sacrifices (which was apparently an honour for the "victim"!).   

We had an early night as we had to be checked-out at 3am to leave for our next destination further down the South coast of Peru - Paracas.