Sunday 23 - Monday 24/09/2007 - UK, London / PERU, Lima

Sunday was pretty much a busy day to do all the things left to be done before the trip. It was also a very long day as Gosia slept only 1 hour and Laurence did not sleep at all. We left Balham around 2am by night bus to arrive at Heathrow around 4am. When passing security we got our toothpaste and hand cream tested to see if it did not contain any dangerous chemicals!!! After a short flight to Madrid (we both slept all the way) we got just enough time to swap planes (Madrid airport is really big) and we finally were in our plane to Lima. 10h45min later, at around 5.30pm, we landed in Lima. We easily went through the immigration and as we did not check in our luggage we ended up pretty quickly in the arrival hall. Lima’s airport is brand new and feels very secure, but it is another story when you get out of the airport. Outside there is a small parking where you can catch a taxi for S/40 to Miraflores (the nice area of Lima). As we wanted cheaper taxis we walk through the parking and ended up on a busy road. This was quite scary as the area is very poor. Over there we found a taxi for half price S/20 to Miraflores. The taxi driver was very nice and kept talking to us in Spanish. The traffic in Lima is crazy, cars are everywhere and drivers keep changing lanes and squeeze through any gaps they can find between cars. The weather was very cold and cloudy; it gave a very sad aspect to the city. Lima is a very big and it took a good 30min to get to Miraflores. We drove through poor areas that did not look safe at all. In Miraflores the driver struggled to find the street of the hotel we wanted to go. When we finally found it the place was closed, so we tried the hotel next door but the room was not nice at all so we left and wandered in the area to find another place to stay for the night. We ended up at the Inca Lounge a pretty nice place with a very nice owner and free internet ($10 per person for a double room).