Lima, Foxtrot, Bravo

Here's a tip for the aspiring traveller: Don't eat raw fish ceviche from a beachfront restaurant when you've booked an 11 hour bus ride. Fortunately we broke open Chris's travelling pharmacy and ate every medicated item we could find, and somehow we held it together until Lima but it was touch and go there for a while. On reflection we probably should have worked this out hypothetically but I suppose this is how you learn and Chris now has good reason to avoid fish forever.

My expectations for Lima were low. The books in general are not kind to Lima. Apparently Herman Melville called it 'the saddest, strangest city on earth' which seems very harsh when you take Hull and Bognor Regis into consideration. All the guidebooks we read heavily implied that we would be murdered, kidnapped and otherwise inconvenienced more or less upon arrival. No traveller we had met to date had had a good word to say about the place, including 'Unbelievable' Oscar who gave us a long list of don'ts for our visit. 'I live in Lima now, but I lived in Toronto for 20 years'. 'Really? What's Lima like? 'Well... I really miss Toronto'.

So I'm going to break the mould and go on the record here: I liked Lima a lot. We went on a free walking tour with an engaging Australian guy called Timmy who provided us with some thoughtful insight into the place. True, it had some odd bits. A man tried to sell me drugs at 10am. There is a pavement full of old men with typewriters and kitchen scales in which to weight your household gold (huh?) Elvis is alive and well and selling rock cakes from a tupperware container near the Plaza San Martin, where, incidentally, there is a statue of the Virgin Mary with a llama on her head. (For the record, I didn't buy those drugs. This is all true)

But Lima also had an impressive array of historic buildings in the colonial style, some nice looking restaurants, a couple of great churches and what looked like several convivial drinking establishments which I was whisked past. The hostels are cheap and friendly. The gringofied area, Miraflores, is cleaner and safer than its corresponding sector in Quito. We had a nice meal and then checked out some impressively creepy catacombs under a church. Lima also has an array of cool stories from its past that are well worth a read, from the conquest of the Incas to the more recent civil war. Apparently during the cvil war in the 80s and 90s the Maoist group Shining Path surrounded the city, cut the electricity supply, surrounded the town and then lit up the Cerro San Cristobal hillside with a giant hammer and sickle in burning torches. Pretty cool stunt in a scary as hell kind of way, no? Anyway, the long and short is, there was some good stuff here and I think it's time Lima got a bit of good press for a change.

Heading south we have spent a few days in some dusty desert towns lying in hammocks, drinking beers and playing frisbee in swimming pools. It might sound weird but I think we both needed a holiday from travelling. We have answered to the best of our ability all questions put to us by the locals on the subject of the monarchy in general and the Royal Wedding in particular, which got live coverage even in the desert town- population 200- we were in for it. Hope you all enjoyed the bank holiday back home. We're now heading towards Arequipa where we intend to immerse ourselves in culture and tip the contents of our rucksacks into a long overdue washing machine.

The only other news to report is that for a few days I had a mysterious bump growing from the left side of my forehead and for a while it seemed I was growing a horn in the manner of Venger from the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon (look it up). I am pleased to report that it seems to be subsiding but if anyone wishes to send ice creams or get well gifts these can now be mailed c/o the British Embassy in Lima.

Marmalade Sandwiches

OK I know I said i wouldn't be blogging for a while but having found a computer with a fast connection I decided to take advantage. We spent the most part of last week in Cuenca, southern Ecuador. Go at once is my recommendation. It is a beautiful place with lots of characters (by which I mean churches and history as well as bars). We spent the first day taking pictures of everything and generally enjoing the feeling of being able to walk around without fear of being mugged as Cuenca has a far more relaxed vibe than Quito. We stopped off at the Panama Hat museum- Cuenca being the centre of the hat trade- although it was really just a glorified shop with a couple of women sitting around with very old Singer sewing machines a bit like that scene from the Three Amigos. The shop people couldn't have lost interest fast enough when they realised that we were only there to confirm Chris's suspicion that he really doesn't look good in panama hats, and we left empty handed. We had a delightful night with our friends from Poland, Natasza and Joanna, and were sad to see them go as it felt our last link had been broken. The next day Chris was ill, actually properly ill rather than self inflictedly. I spent the morning mopping his fevered brow and playing clock patience quietly in the corner of the room but despite my best Florence Nightingale ministrations he refused to get well and entertain me and instead began feebly asking me to pass him objects. At this point I decided he/we needed a complete rest and so took myself off to the Wunderbar to watch Chelsea get knocked out of the Champions League which as we all know is the cure for everything. Several beers later I came back, having been consoled by an Ecuadorean octagenarian for the Michael Jackson statue at Craven Cottage, and Chris was promptly sick and felt better. This was fortunate as the next few days were all bus trips- the first to Loja. Nice town with many thoughtful touches including the Latin names on all the trees in the main square but a parlous lack of bars blighted the town considerably. Peculiarly everyone on the street in the evening was a man in a pair. This set me thinking- did everyone have just one friend? Was this a rule in Loja? Was there an unusually high prevalence of non-identical male twins? Was this the gay capital of Ecuador? I dismissed this last due to the absence of convivial drinking spots. In a half hour search we only found one bar and that appeared to be having a lock in. I hammered on the door until my knuckles bled but they refused to open up. Fortunately we did find somewhere at last for me to have my 'last beer in Ecuador'. As Chris points out, there is always an excuse for everthing. The 8 hour trip over the border took nearly ten hours. The initial hold up was at the border control. The man called Chris into the office which almost caused me to have a heart attack as I envisaged us being thrown in the slammer, but it transpired that the chap was finishing his shift and wanted to catch our bus into town, so was dawdling to get it to wait. Later we were stopped for an inordinate amount of time by some friendly policeman who had a problem with the bus driver's licence, but did keep waving at me through the window to reassure me. Northern Peru is hot and flat, a world away from the Andean highlands we had come from. As in Ecuador, but more so, every flat surface and all the rocks are covered in election graffitti. In Peru it seems you have to write a number down to decide who you want, a bit like ordering a Chinese take away. I leave it up to you to decide whether this would enliven British local government elections. 'I'd like Mayor number 6 and a portion of egg fried rice please'. We could hand out prawn crackers in the polling booths. But I digress. Piura, where we are currently, has very little to recommend it besides not being a bus. It sort of loomed out of some scrubby desert that looked like a sandpit with a load of birds buried head-down in it, and it is full of those tuk-tuk rickshaws and noise and chaos. It feels a bit like Delhi, if you've ever been there. But we have cable TV, we've seen the world's most unconvincing transvestite, and the don't serve rice with everything. If we can avoid physically melting before we reach Trujillo, Peru does seem to have its own unique charm. Chris has started to eat marmalade sandwiches and is already the owner of a stupid hat, so we should fit in nicely...

In Transit

Bad news- we have now left Quito. After three amazing months we are now heading to the Peruvian border to avoid a week's stay in the visa office. We're not going very fast as my backpack is full of children I have stolen from the markets. Well actually not, but full of tins of tuna and something else inexplicably heavy and invisible. I've had a good look at all my possessions and am compiling a list of things to throw out of the bus window en route as otherwise we will never make it to Cuzco in a month. Chris and I managed to successfully navigate our way to Riobamba without incident and from here we are off to Cuenca. Apparently it is very beautiful and historic but the most exciting thing from my perspective is a report from our friend Eva Wunderbar that they don't have stray dogs roaming the streets in packs there. Post- Cuenca we head south, hopefully stopping at a town called Zamora along the way so that I can take a bunch of posed photos with the Fulham mascot Billy the Badger, in honour of the great man himself. (If you don't get this reference, shame on you). So in about four weeks, assuming that we haven't got very lost, I will update from the dizzy heights of Cuzco. In the meantime, go and make a cup of tea or have a glass of wine and I'll be right back xxx P.S Apparently if you're very lucky you can get your feet licked for free by strangers in a certain park in Lima. I'll keep you posted...