Lima

There's no central bus station in Lima, instead each of the many bus companies have their own terminals spread all over the city. This meant we needed to get a taxi to our general destination of the Miraflores district, apparently the better part of the city. Thus was my first encounter with the affluence of Lima, as the fare was far higher than any taxi fare we've paid in Peru. Being the capital city I'd expected higher prices, but the difference has taken a bit of readjusting (in fact, prices for things in general in Peru and Bolivia have rarely made much sense to my Western way of thinking, especially food - e.g. a 3-course set dinner in a cheap place can be literally a 10th of the price of just a pizza in the not-so-fancy place next door (2.5 soles as opposed to 25 soles), but anyway...).

Sarah had spent some time investigating Lima's hostels on the Internet and she decided the first place to try would be Hostel Nice Place, mainly because our friend Glen from Cusco was staying there and he'd recommended it. It's a lovely old mansion, and although not cheap, we decided to stay in a dorm (as the place was very quite, and we had a good chance of having the whole dorm to ourselves, which we did).

That afternoon Glen let us use his computer again to upload photos to Sarah's Facebook, and to burn them to DVD and then he took us for a stroll around the local area and to have dinner in a nearby Chinese.

Next morning after a lovely breakfast we saw Glen off in a taxi (he was heading off to the jungle and then Columbia, where we might well meet up again), and then we went exploring Miraflores ourselves. It's a nice district alright, all very posh with lots of expensive shops and the like, you could be anywhere in the West really. The coastline in the city is very impressive though, with high cliffs dropping off towards the Pacific, and lots of paragliders riding the permanent winds (it sure is a bit weird seeing them glide overhead while strolling down a mad traffic filled city street).

The next couple of days we explored the city centre, which has most of the main museums and churches that are worth seeing (although a couple of the main museums were closed for renovations). Most impressive was San Francisco church and convent with it's fantastic old-world library with books from the 1500's and looking like something straight from Harry Potter's Hogwarts, and the catacombs that hold the remains of up to 70,000 people, many of the bones and skulls still on display.

Also impressive, but in an annoying way, was the museum of the Inquisition. It was in this building for 250 years (1570 to 1820) that the Catholic Church literally tortured and murdered (including public burnings of heretics) thousands of innocent people. As I've traveled throughout South America, seeing lots of churches, monasteries, convents and the like, the more convinced I've become of just how utterly ridiculous the whole Christian faith thing really is - I've always known it's history was dodgey to say the least, but at times it's really sickened me (and to think that a lot of intelligent, educated people still believe fervently in all this 'old guy with a white beard floating on a cloud and smiting evildoers' stuff, I just don't know...).

Anyway, I also checked out the logistics of getting up to Ecuador, and it turns out that the best option is to get a direct bus from here in Lima to Guayaquil. I kinda wanted to stop off at Huaraz and maybe do some more hiking, but that would work out more expensive and we don't have proper multi-day hiking gear (and Sarah is keen to move on to another country anyway). It means we pay a bit more than getting a bus to the border and then another bus on the Ecuadorian side, but it saves us a fair bit of hassle, as apparently we don't even have to get off the bus at immigration (we'll see about that!).

That evening we ate at one of Lima's best restaurants, Astrid y Gaston. It was another fantastic dining experience I must say - probably not on a par with Casa Cruz in Buenos Aires, but still a mighty fine feed.

So later this afternoon we hop on a bus for what could be 29 hours or so. We've now spent 35 days in Peru (the same number as in Bolivia), and again it's been fantastic. It's good to be feeling that wee familiar frisson you get knowing you're moving to a new country, and also weird to think that there is still so much more to see in Peru. Every country I've been to, regardless of spending up to 3 months in some of them, still has some place or thing that I still really want to see. Even going back as far as Kenya (I'd love to climb Mount Kenya), and Uganda (all transport options to Murchison Falls were full), it's mad to think of just how much more amazing 'stuff' the world really has to offer - there's certainly plenty more ammo there for future trips, and always will be of course.