Well, we arrived in Lima a half an hour early, which foolishly led us to believe that we'd arrive at our hotel at a reasonable hour and manage to get a reasonable nights sleep and rise at a reasonable hour the next morning. Alas, the gods had other plans, and "reasonable" was not included.
We had to wait on the Tarmac for 15-20 minutes, so that was a delay, which meant that the line up into immigration was huge, so that was a delay, which meant that the crowds around the baggage carousel were huge, so THAT was a delay. So our shuttle driver couldn't find us...he went one way, we went another, so THAT was a delay....oh domino theory, how I hate you.
However, everything soon fell into place and we shuttled off to our hotel. The ride into Miraflores, which is the area of Lima where we stayed, was interesting, I was surprised at the amount of night clubs and casinos, all lit up Vegas style. But then again, I hadn't realized that Lima has a population of over 11 million. Who knew? It's a huge, cosmopolitan city.
Our guide, whose name is Eddy, is an extremely likable kid with the most interesting past, which I'll tell you about later. He's also very cute and as he was telling us about the cuisine in Lima he mentioned had a sweet tooth, so his nickname instantly became "Sweet Eddy". He was quite concerned that we take our altitude sickness meds, I was planning on only taking them if I needed them, but for them to be effective you need to start taking them a day or two before you ascend, and of course if you wait that long, they're apparently not so effective. It's a half a pill in the AM and a half a pill at night, so what the hell. The travel nurses, doctors and other specialists know more than me. I will discuss this in more detail later.
After what seemed like a lifetime of being on the shuttle we arrived at the Hotel Britannia. Whenever I see the word "Britannia" I get an almost uncontrollable urge to sing that old song "Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the WORLD"' and stomp around like a proud British school child during WW2, but I digress. All of us had been up since about 5 AM and now it was well after midnight, we just wanted our room keys. Is that so much to ask? But the gods weren't done with us yet.
We were asked to give out passports to the clerk, by law they need to record your passport number. It's a common procedure in many places throughout the world. But there's one in every crowd. One fellow refused to give his, he was "uncomfortable" letting his passport out of his hands, to a "stranger". It's not like the clerk was working in a back alley somewhere, it's a respectable hotel. Anyhow, mine is not to wonder why, mine is just to do or die. It took another 20 minutes, but finally it was all worked out and we were give our keys. And a good nights sleep was the expectation everyone had. But the gods had to have one final laugh. We needed to be UP at 5:30 next day. What? Turns out that our flight to Cusco leaves at 9:30 the next AM. Lima is a pit stop until later. Ye gods.... I don't cope well with 4 hours sleep.
My room was cute, very plain and simple, but all you need when your only going to be there for 4 hours. Do I sound a bit sarcastic? But perhaps the gods were testing us.
I arose, stumbled bleary eyed into the little cafe and sucked down some coffee, had a bun with some cheese and pineapple marmalade (yes, all on the same bun. It was early and I wasn't thinking yet) Our shuttle arrived and off we went, back to same airport that we had just been at, mere minutes ago.
Driving in the daylight this time, I could se a bit more of the city. It looks like a cross between Havana and Cancun, I'm looking forward to seeing more it in a couple of weeks
The sky is overcast, Vancouver style, Lima being on a westerly coast as well as Vancouver, but generally with a lot less rain, it's actually quite arid most of the time.
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