Peru - Lima

Arriving in Lima we headed straight for our hostal – The Inka Lodge Hostal – in Miraflores. Miraflores is the “nice part” of Lima and the safest for tourists to stay. Having heard nice things about this area we were a little disappointed! It is a fairly lively place in the evening but we both found it fairly bland and uninteresting. The area is littered with western eateries and cafes, which is always a shame to see but at least it allowed us to satisfy our appetites at Papa John's Pizza after a month of eating chicken and rice in Pisco!

The hostal was really nice and so we decided to spend a couple of days there to relax and get some admin done (significantly a huge laundry session to try and remove the last of the dust and concrete from Pisco!).

With use of a kitchen, we didn't eat out again but did head to the Cinema to watch Ironman 2 (in English!). The cinema is located in a shopping/entertainment centre built into the cliffs by the sea, and was probably the most impressive part of the city which we saw. The coast does have beaches and a walkway but with the very overcast skies (or smog?!?) we didn't make use of it. Although we enjoyed watching the numerous paragliders in the skies above.

So there we have it, we saw hardly anything of this city which may have been a shame but with little glowing reviews from other travellers we were more than happy to head up the coast to Mancora to revive our tans and enjoy some surfing!