LETS TALK TRAVELLING: Lima

I arrived into Lima (the capital of Peru) around 9am after a nearly 12 hour night bus with very little sleep. First impressions were that it was cold and a bit grey and there was the most amount of traffic I have ever seen in a city! I’d booked a free walking tour in the afternoon in the centre of Lima so a group of us decided to head into the centre and explore beforehand. We took the local bus down from our hostel which took around 40 minutes to get into the centre, the centre was how you’d expect any centre of a capital city to be - busy with lots of tourists!

Of course a visit to a coffee shop was first on the list - Peru’s coffee is great, they rave about it loads here and it certainly lives up to expectations. We also paid a visit to the chocolate museum before the walking tour which was great for samples! The guide on the walking tour took us around the main sites of the city including the church, the main square and an area where there is no security/police and ‘anything goes’ - we all clutched onto our bags very tightly!

The area our hostel was in was called Barranco. It was much nicer than the centre of Lima and was known as the hippy/edgy part of town - an added bonus was it was close to the sea. After the walking tour, in the evening we went for dinner and drinks in Barranco - there was a cute little fair on with clothes and food stalls and some live music. We ended up in a bar called Ayahuasca which was like a swanky central London speak easy bar, we went in and took one look at the drinks menu (which didn’t fit in with our travelling budget) and made a swift exit. Luckily happy hour was on in like every other bar so it was rude not go for a drink or 3!

The next day some of us decided to be cultural and check out an Inca ruin about an hours walk from the hostel (which apparently used to look like the Pyramids) we had a guide lead us around and tell us all about how the Pyramids came to be there. Later on in the evening some of us went to watch the sunset before getting burritos for dinner and heading out to the local bars and a salsa club. Hopefully by the end of the trip I’ll actually be able to salsa (got a long way to go until then!!)