Lima, Perú

So I arrived in Perú a few days ago, and am now sat in Maria's apartment in Cusco. To get here I flew from Santiago to Lima with Sky Airlines, who are apparently perfectly safe, and cheap. To their credit, they served me a massive lunch in flight, so it can't be too bad.

I arrived at Lima Airport, and got a taxi to Miraflores, the district where I would stay for a night before heading out of town the next afternoon. Seeing as I arrived late, I left Lima's sights til the next day, got some dinner, and went to bed. The next day I got up (relatively) early and headed into downtown, after an extended taxi bargaining session with multiple drivers.

It turns out, taxis in Perú are neither metered nor regulated in any way. I'm pretty sure that none of the taxis I took would have passed an MOT, and they can just be random cars with no outward markings on them. You also have to bargain a fare with the driver before getting in, which adds to the excitement.

Arriving into the centre of town alive, I walked around the city centre seeing two of the major sights in Lima: the presidential palace and the Congress. I was lucky enough to catch the changing of the guard at the former, and you can see a video of bits of it here and here. I then headed to the Congress, and got shown around the national congress by a random security guard on account of me being foreign and looking vaguely respectable.

Last stop was the Convento de Santa Rosa, where it turns out the oldest university in the Americas was founded in 16 something. Turns out it was actually in this room here.

With my time in Lima finished, I headed to the Terminal Cruz del Sur for a 24 hour ride of luxury into the Andes and towards the ancient Incan capital: Cusco.