And we made it to Lima after 35 hours ....
Ola All!!
Sorry we haven´t been in touch for so long, but we have been struggling a little with illness. All good now though, and so much to tell you all.
We landed in Lima on Friday morning and drove through what looked like a war zone. There were so many piles of rubble that used to be buildings - earthquakes are frequent here. At first, I was taken aback by the incredible poverty of the city, people squatting in gutters and stray dogs pawing through rubbish looking for their next meal. The traffic here is crazy too! Almost all the cars are taxi´s and there are no signs or traffic lights; just a case of hurtle yourself forwards and pray - I will never complain about Melbourne Taxi Drivers again!
We kept driving until we reached the suburb of Miaflores on the beach and the scenery began to change. Beautiful gardens and plazas appeared and then the Pacific Ocean, with mountainous islands rising out of it covered in cloud - kind of brings to mind the island of Dr Moreau! We arrived at our hostel and collapsed into our beds.
We spent the next couple of days exploring Miaflores and some of the Museums and Churches in Lima - the beautiful cathedral of San Francisco was a definite highlight! The cathedral has catacombs underneath it where all the people of Lima were burried for the first 100 years of the cities colonisation by Spain. We´ve taken lots of photos of all the sites and we´ll be ready to bore you all to death on our return!
On Sunday, we joined our tour group and moved to a more expensive hotel but there was still no running water or toilet paper! I´ve had to adjust my ´gringo´expectations!
And then .... we went to the Amazon!!
