Lima, PERU (again, and it´s slightly nicer...)

Hello all,

Not sure how many of you are reading this but I know at least a couple of you are - and it´s a good record for me too of where we are! Sometimes I forget which country we´re in...

Well we are out of Paracas and back into civilisation. Ok, that´s a bit harsh, but it´s such a relief! We managed to get a bus by hailing it down on the Panamericana highway this morning and arrived in Lima at lunchtime. One uneventful journey, we were very happy!

Booked into the Loki in Lima (www.lokihostel.com) - as we are such good guests we received a free t-shirt. We also managed to buy some more underwear today, which was very exciting as it is hard to find decent knickers outside of the big cities! Also very pleased as it means we don´t have to do laundry for a few more days...

Lima is nicer on second inspection, especially as the hostel can recommend cheaper places to eat and so on. Had a lovely 2 course lunch today for $2, so can´t complain. Although apparently Bolivia is half the price of Peru, for which we are very grateful. The cloud is still hanging over Lima, but we were excited by the purchases of underwear, and, I hate to admit it, I really enjoyed a Starbucks coffee. I know, terrible! But not very easy here to find nice coffee (they tend to export it instead). Also treated ourselves to a $4 cinema ticket to watch Madagascar... surprisingly entertaining.

We found the most amazing Christmas trees here - gold and plastic. J took a special shining to them, but refused a photo with them. I kindly stepped in, - photos will follow at somepoint relatively soon. Very strange to see plastic holly, ivy, fir trees, nutcrackers... all when it´s about 20-30 degrees! I don´t think I´ll be photographed again next to a Christmas tree wearing shorts for a very long time... Interesting to see just how far commercialism and capitalism have spread...

Tried to get Hayley´s passport this afternoon, but it´s yet again another bank holiday here, so the slackers at the Embassy are off. We will go down first thing tomorrow morning to see if the passport is there, and hopefully if it is we can then get the 3pm bus to Puno. If not we´ll stay here for another day...

Have to sign off now as the internet cafe smells of wee.
Lots of love from us all,
Al xxx