Our flight over to Lima was just fine, although we wouldn't recommend Iberia Airlines for long haul. Didn't have individual screens and not a lot of food for such a long flight. I kept getting poor Chris sandwiches (we know he doesn't cope too well on an empty stomach).

Anyway, the trip is not all about the airlines.

Plaza de Armas

Changing of the Guard

Off tomorrow to Iquitos where we will travel 3 hours by boat to our Jungle Lodge in the Amazon. Can't wait.
Hope you're all well.
Lots of love Corinne and Chris xx

written by  chrishoorweg on September 3, 2007 from Lima, Peru
from the travel blog: and one last trip before we come home.........?
tagged Lima
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Bueno aquí empieza el día curioso...llegamos a la terminal cuatro con tiempo aunque tampoco demasiado. Despues de una larga cola en el mostrado para "chequear" el equipaje llegamos delante de la señorita del mostrador...

- Hola, vamos a volar a Lima

- UYYY...a Lima...me parece que va a haber overbooking...

- Nooooo...en serío?

- Si...y además me parece que va a ser totalmente imposible que voleis si no hay una cancelación masiva....hay 17 personas por delante vuestro.

Bueno, como era de esperar los simpaticos de Iberia empiezan jodiendonos...nos chinamos un poco pero tampoco mucho...sabemos que hay indemnizaciones jugosas de por medio y al fin y al cabo tenemos un mes para viajar por Perú. Nos mandan a hablar con otro tipo que nos dice que ni nos molestemos en intentar montarnos en el avión.... Es muy enrollado y se pasa un rato hablando con nosotros de chorradas a pesar de que hay una cola detrás nuestro bastante grande...al final el tipo nos dice que nos pone en los asientos de la puerta de emergencia del vuelo del día siguiente. Estos asientos son los mejores de la clase turista del avión...mucho más sitio para las piernas que en ningún otro sitio...el tipo además nos dice adonde ir para que nos pagen y nos manden a un hotel... Bueno, esto va muy rápido!!! En nada de tiempo nos pagan 1200 euros en metalico (siiiii...1200 euros en metálico, vamos mas de lo que hemos pagado por los billetes) y nos mandan a un hotel de cuatro estrellas al lado de Barajas. El hotel es el típico antro sin personalidad pero bueno nos acaban de pagar 1200 euros y solo nos vamos a retrasar un día... que más da...Dedicamos el día a cancelar el vuelo a Tarapoto que teniamos desde Lima, a tomar cañitas y a descansar. Lo peor de todo es tenernos que quitarnos de encima 1200 euros...un domingo y con todos los bancos cerrados. Al final tenemos que llamar a una amiga de Lara que vive en Madrid que pasa a recoger la pasta. No queremos llevarla a Perú porque sino vamos a parecer un banco andante...

Nos damos un paseito por el pueblo de Barajas que no parece ni Madrid y cenamos de tapas en una terracita...a las doce en la cama y con ganas de empezar el viaje (de nuevo...)

written by  ivanmax on September 13, 2007 from Burgos, Spain
from the travel blog: NUESTRO VIAJE A PERU
tagged Backpacker, Peru, Madrid, Lima, Viaje, Iberia and Vuelo
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FRIDAY, MARCH 6
Harry, Jimmy, Clara the Yank, Louisa the Pom and I planned our own little getaway to Ica and Pisco for the weekend in an escape from Huancayo's reliably unreliable weather. After an overnight bus we arrived in Lima at the crack of dawn with Jimmy keen on swimming in the ocean for our first time on this trip. He only lives two hits of a 3 wood away from the ocean in Southern Australia. This has had to have be withdrawl for him.

Our taxi dropped us off at beach by a group of twenty odd morning runners stretching. We dropped our pants in the morning haze and ran for the ocean. The sand in my drawers was well worth the refreshing dip before we hopped on another bus to Ica.

Ica is only city of a hundred thousand, yet was still busselling more than Edmonton after a playoff game. We had no idea when we planned our lil getaway, but we arrived on the first day of a two week festival celebrating the start of the grape harvesting season - which is quite a big deal here because Ica is the pisco capital of Peru, even moreso than the city of Pisco itself. I'm sad to say we never participated in the official ceremonies, which included cockfights and pisco making.

Instead, we were staying in a small tourist village/hamlet/resort called Huacachina just outside of town, so picked up presips and TP before heading to our hostel. It turns out Huacachina is an oasis. Not figuratively, but literally. In the middle of sand mountains, there is this smelly lagoon surrounded by lush trees, hostels, dunebuggies and heaps of foreign and local tourists. We quickly ditched our bags and rented some sandboards to hit the slopes. With each step up I slid a half step down making the small treck decievingly long, but well worth it. I reached the peak of the giant sand hill just as the sun set behind the Tatooine-esque horizon (that's a Star Wars reference for those of you claiming not to be nerds). Sliding down was a tease, as sandboarding is much harder to turn than snowboarding, so you're better off just going straight to catch some speed. Unfortunately that makes the climbing to boarding ratio much larger than desired, which in turn makes renting dune buggies much more appealing.

The night out turned out to be a bust for me. Jimmy got sick and I took him back home while everyone partied in Ica. So after he was naked on his bed I ventured to the hostel's bar by the pool and hammocks to chat with whoever I could find. The yankees I met bragged about how much they knew about Canada. I bragged about the new slang I learned. I said that Aussies, and now I, call them sepos. It's short for septic tanks or yanks. I'm glad they laughed. The Columbian I met made it worth staying in as she told me her favourate places to go in Columbia and invited me on a hike in April.

SATURDAY, MARCH 7
We rented a buggy, but unfortunately weren't allowed to drive it. Prolly for the best though. The dunes ran on as far as we could see to the east, with Ica and Huacachina far off in the west. The guide said we would board faster on our stomaches, which was true, but that didn't satisfy ol' Ryan. Standing up offered much more of a thrill. Unfortunately, it also offered a greater chance of catching an edge, which resulted in a full front flip and landing on smack on my back. The pain is still splitting from that one.

After washing off the sand in the lagoon and then the smelly lagoon water in the hostel pool, we headed to the town of Pisco, where we were to catch a tour of the Islas Ballestas (aka "Poor Man's Galapagos Islands") early the next morning. The hostel was family run with an incredibly hospitable son, Julio, and a daughter whose smile will make you blush. It's too bad she had a crush on one of her brother's friends. Potential wife, I tell ya! They were getting ready to party in Ica, so we shared our 2-6 of pisco with them and their pilot friends. They invited us to come along, but warned us they would only get back at 6am and we had to leave at 7am for Islas Ballestas. No problem. Turned out to be an epic night. On the way home we dropped off the pilots at the airforce base.

SUNDAY, MARCH 8
It turns out Julio is right, the perfect cure for a hangover is coffee. One cup a joe and a 2 hour boat ride is nothing! From the boat we saw shore birds, pelicans, vultures and sealions. I didn't get shit on and slept on the way back to shore. Perhaps that excursion would have impacted me more under different circumstances. ...or if I wasn't a sardine jammed in a boat of touristas.

Later that day we stopped off at the small surf town of Cerro Azul. The rest of our crew went to the beach after lunch, but I opted for a nap. Best nap of my life! Harry and Jimmy couldn't wake me by banging on the door, so they crawled the ledge between the girls room and ours. After dark Harry, Louisa and I headed to the central plaza for a BBQ dinner from a street vender. I tried cow heart. Not bad. The large moon offered plenty of light for a walk on the beach before I retired again for another incredible sleep.

We caught the bus back on the side of the highway between the dusty town of Cerro Azul and the sand mountains. All said and done, it was an exhaustingly good weekend.

written by  ryanmyers on March 10, 2009 from Ica, Peru
from the travel blog: Ryan's First Sabbatical
tagged Sandboarding, Lima, Ica, Huacachina, Pisco, CerroAzul and IslasBallestas
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Hoping to get a better understanding of Peru´s history and culture, we ventured into the Museo de Nacion which had some interesting exhibits; we were particularly affected by a photography exhibit which captured the shocking civil war struggles between the government and revolutionary groups such as MRTA and Shining Path. What was most shocking was how recent many of these events were an d that, despite the official end of the Peruvian civil war in 1992, these groups are still active and constantly gaining support – particularly that of the poor.

The museum itself was badly designed and confusing – we spent fifteen minutes wandering staircases and finding dark empty rooms with no apparent function whatsoever. We decided, after emerging back into the actual museum, that we should probably just get out before we all became victims to the treacherous labyrinth that seemed to lurk behind the exhibits. We had also signed up for a five-a –side football match later that day and I wanted to get a few squat thrusts in beforehand. Though we ended up being comprehensively beaten we (mainly Josh) managed to put a few good moves together and we were praised on our performances. I particularly enjoyed the first ten minutes before the dizzying exhaustion kicked in.

That evening we played beer poker in the bar – this involves using beer as the stakes (ie. I´ll raise you two fingers, etc) with a maximum of ten fingers per round. The winner doesn´t drink, everyone else does. Good eh? After obliterating a couple of Americans with my very first four of a kind I was invited by a new mate of ours, Mike, to go to the casino. We´d been hanging out with Mike for a few days, as well as having the indispensable advantage of speaking fluent Spanish he was also by far the funniest guy we had met so far. Therefore, with gambling spirit and a couple of beers buzzing through me, I made my way to the casino. I was actually going to sit at a table this time.

The table which I was destined to sit at was one which I had been assured only cost 5 soles per game. This is about a pound. I was also assured that as long as you played, no matter how slowly (in my case once every couple of games), free drinks would be brought to you! And they were! We stayed until the early hours and by the time we left I had (very slowly) lost 40 soles which I thought was well worth it. It was a surreal but very enjoyable experience to sit at a table and drop the little hand gestures which indicate how you would like to play the game. The pleasure, particularly when playing for small money, is as much in being a part of the game as it is the winning. Or at least that´s what I told myself when I knocked back my eighth whiskey and coke and left with my pockets empty.

We had arranged for an overnight coach to Huancayo, a place I knew very little about although I had recently got my hands on (that is to say stolen from the hostel) a guide book so I intended to read up once we got there. Rather than simply hanging around the hostel all day we finally managed to watch the new Terminator film (which was as action packed as you could possibly have hoped for) and after a final taste of Lima´s delicious restaurant food we bid Mike and our other newly acquired friends farewell. Up until now it had been relatively easy to leave our new friends behind. Everyone is doing it. On this occasion, however, we were really disappointed not to be able to do a bit more travelling together. What we did take with us was a particularly useful expression which he taught us the first day we met him. It involves putting two fingers up to your neck and saying “NO HORA!” which – if used carefully – is a very effective way of saying ´don´t fuck me!´ His first demonstration halved our taxi fare and even got a laugh from the driver. You can understand why I liked the guy so much.

written by  steve_stamp on June 9, 2009 from Lima, Peru
from the travel blog: The art of being lost
tagged Lima, Football, Casino, Terrorism, Terminator and NoHora
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San Francisco Monistary in Lima

Paul, Helen and Jason at km0 bar in Cusco

Nursing bug bites, sore knees and calves, we opt to take it easy in Cusco over the next couple of days. I do some exploring around town for a few more photo opportunities, but mainly we spend time being lazy and figuring out the next stage in our respective tours.

The final night in Cusco we head to the km0 bar in San Blas and throw a few back while enjoying a band playing cover tunes into the wee hours of the night.

The next day I part with my friends who head out to Iquitos, presumably for some adventuring in the Amazon basin. I head to Lima in preparation for my flight home.

Killing time, I catch a cab to the Plaza de Armas and do the tour at the San Francisco monastery. In addition to some remarkable architecture and art the tour includes the catacombs below, which include the remains of over 35000 people.

Back to the airport, my tour comes to an end. This time there are no mishaps on the way home, just a very long day.

-Fin-

written by  paco on October 31, 2009 from Lima, Peru
from the travel blog: High-Altitude Peru
tagged Peru, Cusco and Lima
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Lima is a hectic, loud, and crazy city. It's also extremely diverse socioeconomically, I guess like most other giant cities. I started in the touristy historic district where there is lots of old colonial Spanish architecture (nothing in Lima pre-dates the Spanish - no Inca ruins here). I went to the catacombs of San Fransisco monastery which were pretty cool, got some delicious 3 course Peruvian lunch, and started to walk. About 6 hours later I had made it across the city to the ocean. Here I am in the ritzy Miraflores district, sitting at a trendy, brand new oceanside mall situated on a cliff overlooking the Pacific. The last hour or two of my walk had been through very nice sections of Lima. This is where most tourists stay, and where the Lima elite live. Before that, I passed through Barrio Chino, Lima's Chinatown (lots of Chinese people and restaurants in Lima) - which was crazy. I had continued on for a few hours through areas that were quite poverty stricken. Most of the vehicles in those areas where old, loud, smoggy buses packed to the brim. In Miraflores much more private cars (and also public bathrooms with toilet paper!). The change in atmosphere reminded me of walking from East Harlem into the Upper East Side of NYC (though even the ritzy Lima district doesn't really come close to the UES). Lima, in general, is completely different than the other cities I had been to in Peru - where the economy seemed to totally revolve around tourists. I walked pretty much the whole time without getting touted or hassled, which is pretty much unheard of in the other cities I was in.

Anyways, it was a great walk, and now I'm going to grab some food before grabbing a taxi back to the airport for the late night flight back to the U.S.

Overall, it was an exciting, if at times exhausting, great trip!!

¡Adios!

-Ben

written by  bhkann on August 18, 2010 from Lima, Peru
from the travel blog: Peru 2010
tagged Lima and Miraflores
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