Lima, Peru Sunday, June 14, 2015
Upon arriving back from last nights dancing we found that we weren't the only ones to still be up, some of the people from the other tour group were still up, so we got to talking about more of their trip and vice versa. Sounds like we are all going to a lot of the same places despite not being on the same actual tour, so it's good to get to know them before the actual trip. We organised catching up with them tomorrow and head out to see some of the sites.
Finally got to sleep at around 5am this morning so was able to get a few hours sleep before getting up to meet the others by 11am. We meet up with Beth, Genny and Rebecca and then headed off for a walk to go see the paragliders'. Due to the lack of wind they weren't able to take flight until later in the day. Although one guy did end up getting off the ground ever so slightly, but at last minute pulled out of taking off the ground.
We decided to head down to the coastline and take a walk to a restaurant called 'La Rosa Nautica' a little restaurant over the ocean. We felt a little out of place there as we walked through, not from being foreigners, but the fact that we were all in our casuals (shorts, sneakers, t-shirts), while everyone else was dressed up. The restaurant was quite nice inside and you could feel the water hitting the restaurant underneath your feet as the waves came crashing into the pillars. We ordered our meals and then noticed that the water and bread rolls that came out were charged to us (despite us not even requesting them). While we weren't that happy about it, the food that came out looked and tasted amazing and well worth the price in the menu book they brought out... Or so we though, out comes the bill, on top of the water and bread, and our meals, there was a tax which apparently includes tip, then they expect you to tip on top of that... So while it looked alright, by the time you added it all up, it added about another NZ$5 to each persons meal.
Finally back at the hotel we spread out to do our own thing, Bruno took off to catch up on some needed rest while I sorted out some stuff with backing up my photos, before heading downstairs to play some cards.
Getting close to 6pm I heard from Chris that he was nearby at the mall, so I thought that seeing my foot was feeling much better (thanks to the over the counter drugs I got) I figured I'd run down with his shirts we borrowed from him the previous night to drop them off to him before we head off tomorrow. I bid him farewell and ran back with just enough time to shower and meet up with our new tour group.
We had our intro meeting and our guide Luis "Lucho" talked us through the events of what would be happening during the tour, as well as what we might be able to expect, I was beginning to feel a little bad as I was beginning to dose off, then he actually pointed out one of the other people beginning to dose off, which we all laughed at, only to find out that there was actually a good 2 or 3 others feeling the same... No reflection on him, just the fact we were all completely stuffed. After all the intros of each other and paperwork sorting we thought we would head out for a meal with each other. We headed out to find the restaurant that our guide suggested, unfortunately we couldn't find it but did end up finding a fantastic alternative, no idea what it was called, but wonderful meals.
Everyone appreciated having Bruno with us as he was was able to translate everything for us as our guide ended up staying back at the hotel sorting out paperwork etc. Still early days at this stage, but everyone so far seems to get on well.