Lima

We were surprisingly well organized and arrived at the airport in good time. Some would say "too early" but it meant we could go for a short walk and have a relaxed lunch. The airport was not busy and for the first time ever we waltzed through security only to be held up with an inspection of our carefully individually wrapped spare batteries.

"The plane has been sitting on the tarmac for a while" said Harry "We will be leaving on time."

"What a jinx" I said "as we sat in our back row (number 29 is definitely at the back) 50 minutes after departure time. A group of 40 or so students had walked on each with a sports bag that in my opinion would not have fitted into the "cabin luggage size" box. Each had a little label to say it was fit for the cabin so I guess my opinion doesn't matter. We sat and watched the antics of the cabin crew as they tried to squeeze bags into the lockers. They eventually gave up and about a dozen passengers were told they would have to pick their bag up from the carousel. Thankfully we weren't one of them.

The plane was full. Not a seat to spare as there was another group heading for Denver to a barbershop competition. I had hoped for a flash mob at the airport but will have to settle for watching their progress on the web. Look out for Paccon.

"We are off" said the Captain after numerous apologies. "Not quite yet" he said a bit later on "the airbridge is stuck on the plane".

We did arrive in Auckland with just enough time (no queue at security again) for a snack before boarding our Latam Air plane.

It was a very long trip.  We were reasonably impressed with Latam Air and would use them again. 

Harry did his 10,000 steps walking to the transit lounge at Santiago. And then we were on the plane to Lima. Looking a tad older than most other passengers we got ushered down the "special priority" lane with a few families. I think that saved us about 45 minutes which we lost while waiting for our bags. The customs officer took our passports, asked us a few questions about our holiday and then took my finger prints and photo.  She only wanted Harry's photo and when I asked why, she looked at me with that "It's only for me to know" smile.

Our shuttle driver was waiting where G Adventures said he would be. He took my bag and we raced towards the car park, dodging a few people and cars along the way.  He suddenly stopped - he had forgotten where he had parked the car! Then we waited a few extra minutes for his parking app to work. That's OK we are on holiday.

We are at the hotel. It is a modest and clean  room. The restaurant is open until 11.45 so we threw our bags down and headed for some food. Not much for a vegetarian and mostly deep fried but I am accepting that might be the case for the month. We settled on nachos but they had been eaten by others so had something which I will call a deep fried wrap with cheese inside.  Was o.k. with a herbal tea. 

Our first impressions of Lima in the dark...

• The car fleet includes a number of cars around 40 plus years, lots of Chinese makes.
• There are lethal speed bumps, few traffic lights, very few marked lanes and when cars park on the right they leave their hazard lights on.
• There is a significant police presence and the areas we drove through felt safe with small groups of people waiting for rides,  jaywalking  or walking purposefully to somewhere. I imagine big traffic jams at peak times as some roads were 3 or 4 laned both ways.
• Harry spied a number of ships anchored in the night with lights shining brightly in the dark.
• People are friendly and streets are clean.

It's rather nice being in a country once again where English is not the locals first language. Meal times are always more fun when you have to translate the menu before choosing.  Perhaps we should have looked on the either side of the menu first - yes it was in English.

And so contentedly to bed.

Our first day in Lima.  A very late start - local time 11 in the morning.  The hotel has big wrought iron gates which are opened with a key either by a guard or the receptionist pushing a button in the office.  A couple of times we have had to wait outside until the receptionist spotted us standing forlornly outside.  We found a bakery for a late breakfast and asking for an apple strudel and tea, we ended up with a strudel and a very strong coffee.  We then walked down to the boardwalk. 

What a lovely walk above the hills, busy road and sea below, past the Chinese garden, paragliders and surfers to a pier with a restaurant.  We sat on the board walk, enjoying the view and eating a muesli bar before walking back the same way, up the steep steps to the top.  The road below had six lanes of traffic which rather spoilt the atmosphere of a sea walk.

Some things we noted:

• Convulvulus is being trained to cover the large rocks - presumably to try and stop rocks falling on the road below.  We noticed in Africa it was grown lovingly in plant pots and here it seems perfect as it seemed to grow naturally with a local ground cover that has a little orange daisy.
• There is still a heavy police presence, uniformed people on little motor bikes/scooters making sure people do not climb down the banks ie disobey the Prohibito signs.  They smile and say "hola" and then continue on their journey.  There is something about Police being visible.
• There are a lot of sports facilities: clay tennis courts (being watered down), pools, people playing football and handball.
• There were a few food carts around - the cutest a pink and white rusty comby van advertising hamburgers and others on poised on the front of pushbikes. We were not tempted.
• Weather is warm and still - in saying that we were the only ones that appeared to be shirt sleeves.

We had walked for about three hours, taking a tad longer back than expected as we took a wrong turning at a roundabout. 

For all those kiwis reading this blog. We haven't seen many traffic cones and when we have, they are to stop the public walking on a garden or going through a prohibited space. Quite refreshing.

There is a restaurant across the road from the hotel - which looked pretty inviting at 4 o'clock in the afternoon for an early dinner.  I enjoyed a grilled eggplant/capsium and zucchini salad and Harry enjoyed the most enormous roast beef sandwich. Nice local radio station on - old songs like "Stand by me" and "Super Trooper" sung by local artists - quite a different and refreshing take.

And then it was time for the light show. Fully guided and driven through reasonably harrowing and tooting traffic.The park was locked and our guide scanned our tickets before a security guard let us in. We wandered around the fountains listening to some of the history of Lima.  According to Yohanna ...

• There are 43 local authorities and 44 mayors in a city of 11 million people - apparently it doesn't lend itself to efficiency.
• The last president lost his job as he committed fraud (big time I think).  He was attempting to flee the country but was caught in a traffic jam!
• The first religion in Peru is Catholicism and the second Football.
• There is considered 3 phases of Peruvian history pre colonisation (Inca), colonisation and independence. The light show displayed the history - the locals seem to feel the same about colonisation as we do in New Zealand.
• There are two types of animals (cannot remember their names) similar to Llama and Alpaca that are wild. Apparently they are captured, shorn for their wool and set free.
• The culture is for families to live in the same house. Each floor sounds like it is self contained and so you can have parents living in one storey, and couples and families living in others. Houses are often not finished because you pay less rates and taxes. I remember seeing a lot of unfinished houses in Eastern Europe for the same reason.
• In the park there are big circles with an "S" in them.  These are apparently safe zones for you to rush to if there is an earthquake.  Hate to think what might happen if the park was busy. We also found a big 'S' in our hotel room, under a beam - so now we know where to go!

Our last day in Lima began early as we headed to the historical centre. Neither of us slept well. Harry blamed the 11 hours sleep the previous night, I blamed the 12 o'clock strong coffee we were given when we had asked for tea. In reality it could have been both. 

We wandered around two squares (plazas) looking at some rather spectacular buildings - most about 100 years old built just after independence was declared. The two churches were almost overwhelming in their opulence, big heavy studded doors welcomed us into a world of tradition -  very large gold, marble and wooden statues.

Interesting thing in this area is because it has a UNESCO designation, all the shops have to be coloured in the dull grey and browns.  Both McDonalds and KFC have had to rebrand with black signs.

We found a lovely old hotel, complete with a model Ford (with flat tyres) and the first elevators in Peru.

Our last stop in the morning was the Catacombs.  I didn't enjoy that.  We have seen plenty before and I have always found them a bit confronting but I have felt most respectfully had left the skeletons in the place where they were laid (or at least didn't show the public the others that were found). However, the guide said they believed there were about 50,000 people buried here and when they excavated the different bones were sorted - so there were piles of femurs, tibias and heads - you get the picture.  

  

On the way back to the van we passed a demonstration - against low wages - we think.  The police were out,  lined up with helmets, guns and shields. We couldn't go down that street, so the van detoured and soon found us.  I would have loved to have taken a photo of the line up of green uniforms but decided not to.

In the afternoon we visited Baranco - an arts and crafts suburb, with rather lovely street art.  Before being built, this was agricultural land with a canal providing a transport link into the city.  The canal had been replaced by a cobble path leading down to the sea.  This was the first place we saw litter scattered around, empty drink bottles and paper messing up a pretty colourful area.

We then went for a wander through a fairly opulent area -  what used to be an olive tree farm, now a suburban area, with a large part of the olive tree plantation still in tact.  The olives aren't used for oil anymore, and so the trees had grown gnarly - one was 300+ years old.  

We stopped at an art gallery - one of those places you can't quite figure out what was in the artist mind.

Our last stop was Pucclana - it was a quick drive by "Do you want to get out of the car?" said the guide and we said "Yes".  Built out of mud bricks over 3000 years ago, it was a place for celebrations.  Unlike other pyramids that are hollow and built as burial places - Pucclana is solid.  Apparently, the mud bricks are placed with a gap providing flexibility to move in an earthquake.  Engineering back then is pretty impressive.  It was hard to get a decent photo with cars and concrete fences, but here is one that shows the difference between the restored and non restored pyramid faces. I wished we had had time to visit, but I guess we might see other similar archaelogical sites during our journey.

A couple of more things we learnt today about Lima:

• The buses run on natural gas.  We guessed that the tanks are underneath the chassis, which means that the passenger doors need to be about a third way up the bus.  The platforms have been built high to accommodate this unusual feature.  
• It doesn't rain much in Lima - only a light drizzle we were told.  The city's water supply comes from the rivers which are fed by the Andes where it rains a lot.  It is usually quite warm - and the sky is rarely blue due to the sea fog (according to the locals, I suspect if I looked it up the air quality might not be that high).
• Macchu Pichu is sinking by about 1 millimetre a year due to the number of tourists.  Apparently UNESCO have capped visitors to 5,000 a day - but Peruvians aren't listening and there is up to 5,700.  UNESCO is investigating and there is a risk if things don't improve the wonderful site could lose its UNESCO status and of course funding.  There is talk of putting in viewing platforms rather than allowing people to work around it.  I almost feel guilty about going!!

We met up with the G Adventures Group in the evening and packed for an early start tomorrow.