We headed to Lima today. We decided to fly to Lima (1.5 hours) rather than take a bus (about 18 hours). Have you ever heard of Taca airlines, we have now and we got to Lima for less than USD$160. Beats sitting on a bus for 18 hours.
Between Arequipa and Lima there are the Nazca Lines. These are really cool pictures that the ancient Incas made on the ground and the only way to seem them is from the air. Unlike the geoglyphs we saw out of Arica which were on the hill side. The only problem is that Nazca by bus is 10-12 hours from Arequipa and 8 hours from Lima. Although Nazca has an airport it doesn’t do flights from other cities. So the only way to Nazca is by bus or tour. As the bus trips are so long, they will be overnight. The best time to see the Nazca Lines are early morning or late afternoon when the sun is right. So one option was to take the overnight bus from Arequipa to Nazca, get in around 8am, go to the small airport and wait in line for a flight over the Lines. This wait could be anywhere from 20mins to 4hours. Then that night catch the overnight bus to Lima. There is nothing in Nazca apart from the Lines. We decided that this wasn’t for us, so we flew to Lima instead. We found a couple of websites that were touting they would offer a tour in a small private plane directly from Lima, over the Lines and then back to Lima. A tad more expensive, but beats those nasty bus trips. So last night we emailed these companies, hoping we’d get a response in a day or two.
Thus we flew to Lima. Taca airlines was good, the plane was really new and small (two and two down each side) and it was a quick flight to Lima, take off around 10.40am. Around 11am they came forward with the food and drinks trolley. The food was a warmed up little cheese and ham empanada and small scroll. The drinks trolley offered either tea, coffee, water, juice or bizarrely straight spirits (vodka, rum and whiskey). No beer or wine was available at 11am.
Landed in Lima, it is hot and humid (compared to where we’ve been at altitude). We caught a taxi (cheapest way) to our hotel in Miraflores which is near the beach and unpacked.
As it was lunch time, we walked out of the hotel in search of it. We found a little hole in the wall restaurant which served the promotion menu of the day for lunch, seems to be typical here. The owner of the place kept an eye on us, talking in Spanish and calling us kids. Lunch was soup, main (Peruvian chicken or beef with rice) and then desert. The drink that came with it was fresh apple juice. So, PEN$11 each (Peruvian New Sol) later, about AUD$4.50, we were full and went for a walk.
We headed around to the next suburb Barranco, which is supposed to be full of small art galleries. It is. So we had a poke around some really cool little galleries featuring local artist, and it was excellent work.
Feet and knees were getting sore, so we headed back to our hotel for a rest before heading out to dinner around 8.30pm.
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