whereschristianandfiona?: Lima Longer

From Buenos Aires I travelled to Lima, Peru to meet up with my friend James. We would be spending a few weeks teaching youngsters in the highlands, but beforehand we had two nights in the capital. We visited the city centre and wandered from square to square (something to do with us not knowing where on earth we were), I ate ceviche (Peruvian specialty of raw fish in lemon), we bought bus tickets for our trip into the highlands, and we saw some art that made us giggle. The centre of Lima is nothing to write home about, and so I won't.

One of the many squares of Lima with a fountain. They all look pretty much the same, with variations on the placement of the fountain and palm trees.

That evening we drank the compulsory pisco sours of Peru and tried to find a restaurant that served vegetarian food for James. We were hounded into a restaurant with the promise of plenty of vegetarian options. However, they had basically nothing on the menu that was vegetarian (didn't seem to understand that vegetarians don't eat meat or fish) and James ended up with some very bland pasta. I have my suspicions that the reason it took so long was because our waiter was picking the meat out.

On the day of our bus into the highlands, we took it easy with a late breakfast, and time on the internet. We then took a taxi to the bus terminal. Shortly before we were about to board the bus, I told James that we might need our passports as ID for the bus. At that point, James turned a very pale shade of pale and started rooting through his bag. Not only had he left his passport at the hostel, he had also left a few other important things like all of his bank cards, his international driving license, all of his US dollars, camera, all his flight tickets, vaccination records, staff ID card, watch, USB drive with copies of all his important documents, and travel insurance documents.

A few things James decided he didn't need to take with him!

For this reason we missed our bus to Huancayo and James swore a lot. However, as James dashed back to the hotel in an attempt to get back his belongings, he met a taxi driver full of character, who tried to get him to shout at girls out of the window, and who taught him some filthy Spanish phrases. I ate a nice packet of crisps. So we both got something out of the missed bus. With an extra afternoon and night in Lima we headed to a Miraflores and checked into a very kitsch "Hotel Eiffel".

James had already looked stupid that morning, this was his second chance!

Miraflores is a beautiful part of Lima with nice parks, cats, market stalls and also great views over the sea. We wandered around and did what everyone else in Miraflores seems to do at sunset, headed down to the viewpoint to watch the changing sky. It was lovely and relaxing wandering around the area that overlooks the sea, it has a raunchy sculpture and mosaic walls and seats remniscent of Barcelona. Everyone there seemed to be in high spirits. Even James had finished cursing himself by this point, and we were both glad that his forgetfulness had bought us an extra day in Lima. Thanks James:)