Lima, Peru (Post #117)
Saturday, May 13th, 2006Mike writes…
On April 5th, 2006 we left Nazca on a Flores bus at 6:15 a.m. bound for Lima. The funny thing about most of the long distance South American buses we have ridden is they are both long-distance and local buses. This means that while our ride from Nazca to Lima could probably have been made in 3-4 hours it took about 7. It can be really frustrating when the bus stops in the center of some small town to pick up a handful of passengers (who end up standing in the aisle for lack of space) only to stop 30 seconds later to pick up a couple more (the second group COULD NOT have been bothered to walk to extra 100 meters to the actual bus stop). Anyway, besides the mild frustration of stopping every 10-15 minutes, the bus ride was uneventful.
Upon arriving in the bus station in central Lima we were greeted by a taxi driver with an official looking badge on his shirt who offered to take us to the Miraflores district where our hostal awaited. Twenty minutes later we arrived at Albergue Miraflores House without incident. Upon arriving we were greeted by the House´s jovial owner, Francis. This ended up being one of our favorite budget-level accommodations on the entire trip and most of this is due to the friendly and dedicated attitude of Francis. As a demonstration of Francis´ dedication to having a great hostel, after we rated the place (very highly mind you) on Hostelworld.com and commented that we would have traded the T.V. in our room for a mirror and some hooks (for clothes, towels and such), he went out and bought these items, installed them in the room and emailed us pictures of the improvements. This is all in the matter of 2-3 days! Wow!
We didn´t do too much in Lima besides go out to dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet and spend the night in the relaxing Miraflores House. The next morning we prepared for our flight to Cuzco at our leisure and took a taxi to the airport at around 10:30 (for a 1:15 flight).
Upon arriving at the airport and going to check in , we learned that our flight would be delayed until 4 p.m. but LanPeru gave us a voucher for a free-of-charge lunch. We spent the next few hours eating and using the internet cafe to write up our blogs about Arequipa and Nazca.
About 1 hour before our flight we headed through security and, shortly after, to the gate from which we expected our flight to leave. Our flight was supposed to stop in Juliaca and continue to Cuzco. When we got to the gate, the attendents told us our flight was canceled. This was quite confusing to us because the sign at the gate clearly indicated the flight was going to Juliaca. Apparently, the plane was only going to Juliaca and stopping which we learned after practically forcing our way backwards through security and standing in line for an hour back at check-in. Our primary concern at this point was that our luggage had already been checked in. Fortunately, it had been pulled off the plane before it departed for Juliaca.
Michele Harmon