Lentils in Lima

Monasterio de San Francisco
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Another South American city, another warning from the Lonely Planet to not catch unofficial taxis from the airport! This time they were described as 'pirate taxis', so we thought we'd better head the warning.

We got in pretty late again but got through customs pretty quickly, thanks to perhaps the most chilled out customs official ever. He spent the whole time singing along to the music coming out from the duty free shop and didn't even really check our passports (don't know if that's a good or a bad thing?)

We found a great Vego place in Central Lima(Doh!)

Archbishop's palace
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We got a really nice taxi driver and he didn't look anything like a pirate, so we felt pretty safe! He gave us some good tips for places to go, food to eat and was basically a nice guy. Although he kept on yelling at the other drivers on the road “take it easy, I am old - I respect you, you respect me!” He repeated this same sentence about 10 times which was pretty entertaining.

Our hostal in Lima is right in Central Lima and it has been great. The biggest surprise we have had so far was heading out one morning, opening up the front door and finding about 20 riot police and an armoured tank rolling down the street right outside the hostal. No on else looked worried so we just went with the flow. Thought it might be a bit dangerous to get a photo though...

Plaza de Armas by night
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Lima is a beautiful city - the main plaza is amazing and is full of colour. We managed to catch the changing of the guard at the presidential palace on our first day which was exciting and also heading down into the catacombs of Monasterio de San Francisco where about 25000 Peruvians are buried, we even got to see some of the bones (which Em loved!!)

In true Emma and I style we thought it was about time to catch a movie so we headed to the local cinemas and saw The Bourne Ultimatum which was a weird experience as it was in English with Spanish subtitles. Emma found it a bit hard and kept on reading the subtitles instead of watching the movie, oh well, that's one way to learn Spanish!

Pachacamac
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The next day we went on our first organised tour to Pachacamac. These ruins date back 1000 years before the Incas and were mainly used as a ceremonial site. It's pretty amazing, definitely the oldest thing that I have seen. Em and I are still trying to get our heads around the history here so I won't even try to explain it but I have included some pictures to give you an idea. The tour was fantastic and because we were the only Gringos we got our own personal guide - bonus!

We found a great vego cafe in central Lima (d'oh!). We haven't been able to eat too many vegetables over the last couple of weeks as a lot of them come as salads (which could be a bit dicey, hygiene wise), so Emma is in seventh heaven. Watching her get stuck into her plate of lentils and rice yesterday was like watching something on the Discovery Channel! I guess I would be the same if I hadn't eaten meat for a couple of weeks.

Plaza San Martin
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Tomorrow we are heading off to Arequipa stopping off in Nazca on the way. We are travelling on a luxury bus which includes all the bells and whistles. It's even kitted out with infra red detection to detect things on the road 450 metres ahead(I could do with one of those back home) and attendants to look after you the whole way.