Lima

On our flight back to Quito from the UK, we decided that rather than continuing travelling through to the end of September and going overland south through Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia and then into Brazil, a couple more months of travel was about all we wanted to do. However, this change of timeframe also meant that we needed to reconsider our route. We had the Inca Trail booked for 17 June and knew that we wanted to do the Salt Flats, Pantanal and Iguacu Falls as a minimum and so decided that the best option would be to fly to southern Peru and head west from there. Oddly however, it was cheaper to fly to La Paz than to Lima (eventhough the La Paz flight stopped in Lima on the way) and we had heard that Lima was a bit of a shit hole so we decided to use La Paz as a base, head west into southern Peru and then double back to La Paz to continue east towards Rio.

We did however have a nine hours stop over in Lima on route to La Paz and so decided to have a bit of a look around. Lima largely lived up to its reputation. It is a large, dirty metropolis which felt decidedly unsafe in all but the most central streets surrounding the main plaza. There was a smattering of impressive and quite unique architecture but sadly this was far outweighed by ugly, unimpressive architecture.

Had it not been for the imposing and fascinating Monasterio de San Francisco, I think our brief visit to Lima would have been largely pointless (and certainly not worth the $32 Lima departure tax which we incurred as a result of leaving the transit lounge). Although almost ruined by the snotty American highschool students sniggering at our guide's accent, the tour of the monastery was well worth it, particularly for the visit to the catacombs. The catacombs were the primary burial site for the city of Lima for over one hundred years and are estimated to hold approximately 70,000 bodies, the bones of which are displayed by bone type in row upon row of burial pits. Eerie.

After a mediocre coffee, at a mediocre coffee shop, overlooking an ok square, we returned to the airport ready to head to La Paz.