Now a little recognised fact is that when your ear canals are blocked due to a cold and you get an overnight bus down from the mountain-tops to sea-level, you might awake in agony. Feeling like my ear drums were about to explode I remembered by scuba diving training and used every trick in the book to equalize the pressure. The eventual ´pop´ might have felt like a gunshot in my brain, but the pain was gone and importantly I could now hear. This turned out to be useful as the bus television was showing an utterly brilliant film about Pope Joan - aka the ninth century female pope! Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Joan for more details.
The next morning I awoke to my first glimpse of the sea of my entire trip so far. It may have taken two and a half months, but I finally had come to the beach in the form of Lima, the capital city of Peru. After 5 weeks high up in the Andes I was now back at sea level and I do think I felt giddy from all that oxygen. Alas my dreams of becoming superman after a childhood in Krypton was not fulfilled as my large number of red blood cells quickly reabsorbed themselves and the lethargy returned.
The girls and I were staying in Miraflores, a posh residential district full of sea-view apartments, coffee shops and exclusive members-only tennis clubs.
I went for a walk along the beach then returned to the hostel for a night of drinking games.
Day 65
An early wake up and the girls and I headed to the town center of Lima for some sightseeing. The presidential palace was suitably impressive as was the central square. We then visited the Monastery of San Francisco. Of note inside was the painting of the last supper in which Jesus and the Disciples were pictured eating Guinea Pig and drinking corn beer and the underground catacombs which contained the skeletons of a whopping 70,000 people. About 15 years ago some archaeologists decided it would be ´respectful´ if they dug up these bodies and arranged them in artistic patterns (e.g. skull and femer spirals etc.). It was perhaps fitting that today was the day I reached the ´alas por Yorick´ speech in the copy of Hamlet I am reading.
Nothing works up an appetite like grave art and so we headed to Lima´s China Town to sample ´Chifa´. Chifa is a fusion of Chinese and Peruvian cuisine dating from the 19th century and in a nutshell is Chinese cuisine using Peruvian ingredients. I had a plate of sweet and sour chicken with ´chaufa´, a typical Chifa rice dish.
PS Today was royal wedding day. I didn´t watch it live as that would have meant waking up way too early in the morning, but did spend much of the afternoon watching youtube clips.
Day 66
One of the best ways to try Peruvian food is to sample the ´almuerzos´ or set lunches offered by small eateries throughout the country. For the equivalent of one or two pounds you can have a three course lunch with drink. Today I had an avocado salad, followed by chicken, followed by a puff pastry and dulce de leche tart. Such good value.
Even better value though were my surfing lessons that afternoon. As I am shortly to arrive in Sydney I thought it might be an idea to brush up with skills in Lima. I managed to get a private instructor and rent all the equipment for a mere four pounds an hour.
Yesterday may have been the UK royal wedding, but today was Holland´s ´Queens Day´, a celebration of all things orange. To commemorate this the hostel laid on an evening of party games. Included were such classics as flippy-cups, eating bread from a string, apple bobbing, squatting a nail into a bottle, throwing hula hoops and balancing eggs between bodies. The final round involved dressing up a member of your team as the Dutch queen. Alas I was the nominee from my team.
The night though was young and a few of us from the hostel headed out for dinner. I tried another Chifa classic - Lomo Saltado. This involved strips of beef sirloin marinated in vinegar, soy sauce and spices then stir-fried with red onions, parsley and tomatoes. Very yummy but way too salty meaning that I drank rather a few too many Pisco Sours (the local cocktail).
Two of our dinner group shared a story of their experiences the previous night. They had met a fashion designer (Jorge) from Lima whilst queueing for a train in Milan and they had got on really well. He had invited them to meet up with him when they visited Peru and they had done exactly that the night before. It just so happened that that night was the night of the designer´s fashion show and they had spent the evening meeting celebrities, being chauffered around, downing champagne and going to the best clubs. You can see his work here http://www.perumoda.com/ES/Disenadores/salinas.aspx Then one of their mobiles rang and it was Jorge asking if they wanted to meet up that night as well and, if so, did they want to bring some friends? Well as you might imagine I leapt at the chance.
Jorge came to pick us up in his car and drove us to one of his stores so he could run a few errands. His name was on the label of each item of clothing and the location of this store was second to none (in between Ralph Lauren and Polo). After a quick stop for him to eat dinner he drove us to his home. As the gates opened I thought we were entering a gated community, but no all this land was his. The others may have been impressed by his swimming pool, horses, car collection or ultra-modern interior design, but for me two things stuck out above all. One was the quality of his bathroom, which even contained a sofa next to the toilet (god knows what for). The other was his complete collection of KitchenAid Appliances. I couldn´t help but think of all the things I could do with just one of those attachments.
We then headed out to a few bars and clubs. Although I didn´t quite get to share in the excesses of the previous night, we did meet a few models and celebrities and I didn´t stroll into bed until 6am, so a good night was had.
Day 67
A lot of sunbathing/recovering from a hangover later I eventually left the hostel at dinner time to try another set meal. This time I had some ceviche (my last in Peru), followed by an escabeche de pescado (fish marinaded in vinegar). Today I finished reading Hamlet and started the Kite Runner.
Then I said goodbye to the various people I had met at the hostel and headed to the airport for my flight to Ecuador. Yes, running out of time on this trip and remembering the hell of my last bus journey I decided I´d much rather fly then spend 27 hours cooped up on another long-distance bus. This marks the point at which I separated from the girls and thus begins the solo section of this travelling blog. I slept the entire hour and a half of the flight and awoke to a boiling hot nighttime Guayaquil.
Day 68
I woke up to an even hotter morning and caught a local bus to the riverfront of Guayaquil, called the Malecon 2000. Guayaquil may not be Ecuador´s capital, but it is its largest city and the country´s financial centre. In addition it is much more left-wing and socially permissive than Quito. I walked around the various sights (including the quaint Las Peñas district), had a humita for lunch (a sweet corn paste) and planned the remainder of my trip.
To avoid the heat I spent the rest of the afternoon in the hostel´s swimming pool.
My first impressions of Ecuador are that it is noticeably more tropical than Peru (there are banana trees lining the streets), the people are little more diverse (Ecuador had a lot of African slaves on its sugar plantations) and queueing is not a national strength. In one particularly despicable display, after I had been queueing for 10 minutes in the supermarket a man strolled straight in front of me and swiped my things that were on the conveyor-belt back into my trolley and placed his down instead. When I protested the cashier just looked at me blankly as if to say "it´s survival of the fittest out here and you lost". Grrr!
That evening I met some much nicer Ecuadorian people at my hostel. I shared out some of my dinner (I had cooked way too much) and we settled down to watch ´The Lovely Bones´.
Day 69
I woke up early and grabbed an 8 hour bus to the spa town of Baños. During the ride I threw caution to the wind and bought a fried thing from a pretty filthy bucket that was paraded up an down the aisle. I don´t know what it was, but it contained cheese. Oh and for breakfast I had a fruit juice made from the local fruit - tomate de arbol (tree tomato). It tasted like sour tomato juice, but I could see myself developing a liking for it.
After a week at sea level I was glad to return to the mountains and Baños is lucky enough to sit at the base of a heavily active volcano, Tungurahua. The up-shot of all that geothermal energy though are the many hot springs that give the town its name. I arrived a little too late for bathing so instead treated myself to a rather nice dinner at a Swiss restaurant called the ´Swiss Bistro´. I was very impressed when they brought me an amuse buche of steak. I followed this with a chicken liver salad and beef stroganoff.
Day 70
This morning I head out to try the hot springs. I went to the Fuente de la Virgin and an old man there insisted on teaching me the local method which consisted of jumping between the ice cold pool of waterfall water and the scalding sulphur bath. I almost had a heart attack.
I noticed a sign near the door saying that the water contained hexavalent chromium, which I believe is the carcinogen from Erin Brockovich. I made sure not to spend too long in the pool.
Afterwards I treated myself to the local delicacy of homemade taffy or ´melcocha´ made from cane sugar. They spin the stuff in the doorways of the shop and it tastes suitably sweet.
Tonight I leave Baños for a five day trek deep in the Amazon rainforest. I don´t really know how it happened, but I walked into a shop and 30 minutes later I left with a receipt for a five day bespoke trip consisting of just me and an indigenous Shuar tribe member. The two of us are going to canoe deep into the jungle and camp in the wild, drinking spring water and killing our own food. A nice little bit of adventure to end my time here in South America don´t you think!
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