Lima

After our 21 hour coach drive (and 5 films) we arrived in Lima! Glad to be off the coach and walking but Lima didn´t give a great impression to start with. We were staying in the touristy area; called Miraflores. We had a nice hostel with lovely people but the actual place is very Westernised and had a lot of American chains - McDonalds, Pizza Hut and lots of casinos.

We wondered down to the beach front hoping to be able to get down to the sand. Unfortunately it´s not possible to walk to as there´s a huge cliff so we just went for a walk instead. Lima is also very grey at this time of the year. Apparently it´s hot and sunny in January-March but seems to be quite grey the rest of the time. Getting out of Miraflores gave a more positive impression of Lima - less business like and rich, upper class Peruvians.

The next day, however, we headed to the centre of Lima. This is a much nicer area. There is a park in the centre that is filled with random art work and a theatre that looked like Hanzel and Gretel´s house! There were chalk drawings on the ground which were amazing and seemed to be there just for the sake of being there.

There are also two main plazas in Lima - Plaza de Armes and Plaza San Martin. We were very interested in the Plaza San Martin as there was meant to be a statue of a woman with a llama on her head. We weren´t disappointed! There was a mistranslation in the instructions for the statue - it´s meant to be a crown of flames. A llama is much better though. The other Plaza is gorgeous. It´s surrounded by impressive buildings and has a fountain in the middle. Like most plazas it´s very symmetrical and had lots of grass and flowers. Really nice to walk through.

We also visited a Church while in Lima. We felt we should be a little cultural (we also tried to visit a museum but after much walking around never did...). The Priory San Domingo is just off the Plaza de Armes and included in the entrance is a free tour. It was well worth it and very interesting. It´s a beautifully decorated Church with handpainted tiles in two courtyards that were painted in Spain in the 1600s and shipped across. There was some replacement work in the 1900s to fix the damage after an earthquake and you can really tell the difference in quality. The 1900s tiles are much more faded!

Although Lima gave a bad impression at first it really grew on me. I don´t think I could spend much more time there but it was great getting to know the city centre. It´s bigger and busier than Quito (Ecuador´s capital) and this has it´s disadvantages (Starbucks) but also meant that there is a lot more to do there, almost all of which I really enjoyed.

Tomorrow we´re trekking in the Huaraz region, which we´re both excited for. Time to burn off some of the food we´ve been eating! Hope all´s well in England