Our next stop after Cusco was the capital city of Peru - Lima. Despite being a 21 hour overnight bus ride from Cusco, it was surprisingly one of the best and newest buses we've been on. It was also the first time wifi was available onboard, however for some reason we couldn't connect on our laptop, only those with phones could. We could, however, charge up the laptop so we could watch hours worth of movies to pass the time.
Lima is on the coast, pretty much halfway down (or up) the country. It's the biggest city in Peru and is massively spread out. We'd decided to stay in an area called Miraflores, which is popular with tourists because of all the bars, restaurants and shops, and it's a nice clean area with parks and is also close to the beach. Not that the beach is anything to write home about. It's actually pretty crap to be honest. But it was nice to be on the coast again, even if we couldn't actually enjoy the beach. The other unfortunate thing about Lima was the weather. It was usually pretty warm so that wasn't the problem, but 99% of the time it was dull grey skies. Not as depressingly grey as London, but even London gets brilliant sunny days a few times a year.
During the few days we were there we managed to catch up with Jose, a mate of Kurt's he worked with back in Sydney who was born and bred in Lima. He took us through the historic central district of the city where there is loads of colonial architecture (and for some strange reason nearly all the buildings around one plaza are yellow), churches and the Monastery of San Francisco which we visited, including the catacombs that connect it to a cathedral. It was pretty trippy being underground and seeing all the bones categorised into types, and knowing how many thousands of people were buried there. We also wandered through Chinatown and Jose pointed out the best restaurant so we could go back there for my birthday the following week. It was hard to resist the call of delicious dumplings there and then though.
Once again we crossed paths with Derek and Kelly, so had our customary night out together drinking many beers and talking shit. Quite frankly it's impossible not to have a big night out when the beers are so cheap. It makes you wonder why the hell we pay $7 or more for a beer in a pub at home when we were getting 2 litres for $8. I know which one we prefer.
When we got back to Lima after the jungle we celebrated my 30th birthday with an awesome lunch in Chinatown (get in my belly you delicious dumplings!) then many beers. It was a Monday night so there wasn't much happening, but we managed to find some people to drink with at a hostel nearby. The hangover the next day wasn't as bad as I feared, however I certainly knew I wasn't 21 anymore.
We didn't really explore too much in Lima, but we liked the city. It had a good feel to it and seemed liked a decent place to live, but it could do with better weather and beaches. But we left having seen some cool stuff and eaten some great food, and caught up with good friends. Can't really ask for much more than that.
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