I tried to work out the number of hours between 9pm Saturday in Perth and 6pm Sunday in Lima, but tripped over myself somewhere across the dateline. Then there was the 2 hour reduction between Santiago and Lima but for practical reasons I'll call it 36 hours .. of airport terminals, waiting lines, flight times, snotty noses and dry throats. But I made it :D.
It wasn't until the snowy caps of the Andes guided us through the cloudy understorey approaching Santiago that I actually felt the first tingles of new experiences awakening. The airports and flights ... Phht .. Forget that.
Now having landed in Lima, I was greeted by a Peruvian named Ivan who commnenced to do the 45 minute drive to the hotel in 25 minutes. Not the most attractive of cities, I found out that it's 11 million people are holed up in 42 districts and speak one of three main languages - the native Quechua, Aymara or Spanish - all while soaking in the preternatural shade of the predominantly drab brown buildings under the uniform grey light of the cloudy dusk evening. I only snapped one photo along the way, of the natural cliff faces along the coast which have been draped in netting to catch loose rocks. Maybe that explains the driving style of Peruvians, or merely Ivan, as they've developed an innate knack for swerving, lane-hopping and tooting horns while using their mobile phones, just in case the cliffs decided to play doogs with them!
Tomorrow starts off with a 3.5 hour drive south to Paracas where we'll meet the elongated head people. That will be interesting. I wish they could talk. They would have had funny sounding voices with heads shaped like that.
