Up, Up and Away

Today (23rd August) was our earliest start yet with the alarm going at 3.40am!

We arrived at the airport with the designated 2 hours to spare. Fortunately our taxi driver helped us find the right queue and a trolley as the queues seemed utterly random.

For the next two hours we basically stood in various queues. First to get our exit voucher, then the boarding passes, next the airport tax payment, then confirmation we'd paid, then immigration followed by a drugs bag check (they didn't bother opening mine and only did a perfunctory check on Stu's), then standard security checks (except bottled water is allowed on South American flights!). The penultimate queue was at the gate then finally we joined the queue to board the plane. Phew! Lucky we'd allowed the recommended 2 hours!

We finally found our seats on the plane (after a little more queuing as our seats were rights at the back) and could relax. This plane probably had the smallest amount of leg room we'd ever seen. To get one of our bags under the seat I had to stand on the seat!

Once again on time we approached the runway. El Alto (La Paz's airport) is the highest international airport in the world. Due to the thin air the runway needs to be 5km long to enable planes to land and take off. Planes have to be equipped with special tyres to withstand the extreme forces involved with landing as they have to land at twice their sea level velocity!

The engines started and off we went and it felt like it took twice as long to take off than normal with the plane veering slightly to the left and right as we sped along the runway. Finally we took off getting our final and very short glimpse of La Paz before slowly rising above the clouds.

On the flight our breakfast was a tasty chocolate muffin, certainly one up on the slightly stale bread and super sweet jam most places serve for breakfast!

Once we arrived in Lima we took a taxi to our hotel. The drive was interesting; at one point there were 10 lanes of traffic converging into 3 lanes! Lots of horns honking and fearless driving by our taxi driver meant we got through to the 3 lane road pretty quickly.

The taxi eventually came out on a clear road along the sea front. As we drove along we kept seeing signs for a tsunami escape route! Dotted along the sea front were steps leading up the side of the cliff to the main town. Two thoughts came to mind when I first saw these, firstly thank God we aren't at altitude else those steps would be near impossible (I can rub up 4 flights without getting out of breath now!) and secondly how is everyone from the beach and road meant to get up those narrow sets of steps if there was a tsunami?!

Having arrived in the Miraflores district of Peru and our room not yet ready we set out in search of a more substantial breakfast. The hotel receptionist recommended a bakery 5 mins walk along the road so off we set.

The place was really busy and we were lucky to get a table. We each had a chocolate croissant, the best we've ever tasted!

After breakfast we explored the area. Miraflores is noticeably wealthier than La Paz: gated compounds with nice houses, lots of new cars, slightly more organised traffic and some drivers even stop to let you cross the road!

After lunch (same place as breakfast but this time also sampling their gorgeous ice creams) we returned to the hotel to catch up on missed sleep from the past couple of days.

However it was at this point I noticed that our return bus ticket from Paracas was wrong. The departure time and boarding time were 3 hours different getting us to Lima after our flight departs! This was because the departure time is from Nazca not Paracas so the arrival time in Lima is 8 hours after departure not 3.5 as I had thought!

So the next stop was a travel agency to buy some alternative tickets. We'll find out tomorrow if we can get a refund or not :-\ Luckily I'd bought the tickets really early so they were super cheap so not much lost if we can't get a refund (there isn't an alternative bus by this company).

One mistake in 4.5 weeks, moving pretty much daily isn't a bad track record either. ;-) All the connections have been perfect! And at least I spotted now rather than waiting for a non-existent bus to turn up on the day of our flight home!

Before dinner we went out in search of bus companies. Unfortunately all the travel agents deal only with Cruz del Sur who I already have tickets with and don't have any suitable  alternative buses.

We were directed to the waterfront where we were told the bus companies had booths. As we had been planning to have a walk here this evenings anyway we were quite glad to be directed this way.

When we got to the sea front we could see Lima lit up in the distance with two neon lit crosses.

As we went down the steps we saw something we didn't expect, a very western shopping centre very reminiscent of The Quay in Portsmouth, complete with cinema! Unfortunately no bus companies :-( but there was a tourist information desk.

We were told that two bus companies have buses every 20 minutes and no booking is required. Given the journey is almost 4 hours this seems quite frequent so tomorrow we are making a slight detour and confirming with the bus company this is the case.

For dinner we went to the most expensive restaurant of our entire stay. The prices are equivalent to a mid range UK restaurant.

On arrival we were offered Pisco Sours, now my favourite cocktail, that were particularly strong and relatively large meaning it went straight took my head!

For dinner we had the two recommended dishes duck with coriander rice and baby goat with local sweet potatoes. Neither of us has had goat before so we were in for a surprise!

We shared both of the dishes and thought they were both absolutely delicious. After the first one we were full but the second one was too nice not to eat too!

We were so full, we couldn't manage the pudding and worked our way back to our hotel.