Lima & San Bartolo

After a day of delays in L.A. (the motor on the plane had broken) we finally arrived in Lima still recovering from Las Vegas and a few hours behind Han and Becky who had been expecting us to already be there. Our first Peruvian experience was to take a taxi from the airport to the hostel - it was absolute madness, swerving in and out of the other taxis and putting on the fake police sirens to clear the traffic - we arrived in one piece, just.

We had booked into B&B Tradiciones - a brilliant family run hostel with Angelo at the helm - the most helpful owner of a hostel we had ever met! We got a good nights sleep and woke in the morning to greet Han and Becky. After a history lesson from Angelo we set out to explore Miraflores (a nicer suburb of Lima) including Parque Amor, the lighthouse, the cliffside, and lunch at a brilliant fish restaurant called Punto Azul.

The next day we were picked up by Antonio for our three day surf trip in San Bartolo. The whole three days were absolutely fantastic. We were located on one of the best surfing beaches in the south of Peru, we had our own private apartment overlooking the surf breaks, we went to Antonios house and were cooked three excellent meals a day by his wife, and best of all we got to surf some huge waves.

Due to the consistency of the swell the Peruvians only bother to look for high and low tide. High tide was best so we tended to go out around 08.30am and 16.00pm. At times the waves were the biggest but best we had ever tried to surf and it was a great experience, and a huge learning curve - you don't want to nosedive down the face of some of those waves too often!

The waves were like nothing we had experienced in England, Han notoriously took an 'illegal' left (once getting stranded on the rocks and ending up with sea urchins in her feet!), and Jen took on the role of Kamakazee Kid (paddling into ridiculously huge waves only to suffer sucessive wipeouts and beatings). Lucky Han and Jen weren't together for too long or there may have been some serious injuries!

By the end of day three the long paddle-outs (above) and big wipe-outs were taking their toll (nothing to do with the Pisco Sours and 'local' beer in the evenings), but we were sad to leave and return to Miraflores to say our goodbyes to Han and Bex.

Our last day back in Miraflores was really great, as we met up with a Peruvian family who we had met on the plane from LA. Monica and her daughter Camilla picked us up from the hostel and showed us around downtown Lima, including the cathedral, art gallery and main square. We then headed back to their apartment for a few beers, before being shown around the family run hostel they own in the bohemian suburb of Barranco. To finish a brilliant day we were taken to the private beach complex the family belonged to, where we walked along the shore and looked back on the bright lights of the city. We were then joined by Manolo who had been at work, and the guys then took us for a lovely Chinese meal.

We have had a great start to Peru and would like to thank Angelo and family, Antonio and family, and Monica and family for looking after us so well and providing us with a great impression of their country.