Lima (Peru)

Ater a 2,5h flight to Madrid, 7h waiting in the airport and a 12h flight to Lima, we finally arrived in Peru. It was awfully cold in the plane, a gigantic difference with the hot and humid climate of Lima.

The first thing that we noticed after leaving the airport, was the terrible and chaotic traffic: lights are hardly respected, the lines that form the driving lanes are completely ignored and the horn is used at least twice per ten seconds. On top of that, the driver was talking a lot, paying more attention to us than to the traffic. Btw, this is very typical for the Peruvian people: they're all very open and interested in the Belgian weather and football league. Very remarkable is the fact that we understand these people perfectly, while we still face some problems understanding some of our spanish colleagues and friends. Although the South-American people speak slower, we still think that Andalucian all have a serious speaking disorder. :-)

Our hotel is located in Miraflores, a nice but touristic barrio in Lima. We spent the first day walking around on the cliffs, watching the pacific ocean and the paragliders flying over the shore, eating the typical Ceviche (marinated fish) and drinking the famous Pisco Sour. To get rid of that annoying jetlag, we went to bed quite early. The next day, we took a 20min taxi-ride to the old center of Lima, which is full of beatiful colonial buildings, an impressive cathedral (of course not like the Antwerp one, but pretty close). Further away from the touristic area, the city becomes chaotic, dirty and noisy. Not very interesting, but perfect to have a gigantic, marvellous 3euro meal. After being interviewed by students, we met some some locals who invited us for a drink. Joke didn't trust it, but I didn't expect any problems. 2 hours later, it appeared that Joke was right after all. We drank too much Pisco, ate great Alpaca (similar to a lama but smaller) and ended up paying for all of it. At least we had an interesting intercambio and a good meal. Afterwards we went home again, heading towards a first South-American hangover. Above all this, we had to switch rooms in the middle of the night, since our toilet decided to flood, leaving 2 cm of water in our room.

The third and final day in Lima, we went to visit Huaca Pucllana, an ancient temple that was once used to sacrifice women to please the moon and the ocean, between 200AC and 700AC. Climbing these ruins was quite tiring, so we went again to the seaside to relax a bit and to eat some Ceviche again.

Pictures will follow in the coming days, since we have to leave now for our 17h busride to Arequipa... Pff..