¿Do you know the way to Lima?

Apologies a theme of cheesy song titles seems to be appearing! I left Ayacucho yesterday after the usual bus chaos. There seems to be some sort of unwritten rule which says that although all the seats on long distance buses are allocated and although there is a limit on how much luggage people can bring, there will be a great deal of pushing and shoving to get everything loaded. Also all the people going on the bus will stand outside it until the bus driver starts to edge forward as if he is leaving, at which point all the people will try and get on the bus at the same time jamming the doorway and shouting at each other. It's very entertaining to watch when you've arrived early for your bus and are peacefully waiting for it! Gives you something to do...

I´m now in Lima, which is wearing its winter time cloud cover, yesterday was a bit broken but today is very gray. However, I was surprised yesterday to be really pleased to be getting here. Most people when asked say, oh Lima, it's horrid and scary and gray and previously I would have agreed.

Sadly there's not much that the city can do about the gray bit as that's just winter time weather, but most tourists come in the winter because it's dry in the Andes where the major tourist attractions are. I think the horrid and scary judgements are probably a bit harsh. Most people come to Lima first, get picked up at the airport, experience some extremely hairy taxi driving, go through some very poor sections of Lima at night and it's their first experience of Peru. They decide that it looks dangerous and there's little attractive about it. After a couple of months here, it doesn't feel so different to the rest of the country just a big city and we're all more careful in big cities (seen the signs telling you to watch out for pickpockets in Piccadilly Circus?) At this point in my travels it's quite nice to be somewhere you can go to the cinema and hang out if you want to.

My hostal is entertaining called "Flying Dog Backpackers". I have no idea why. It's scruffy but clean and run by laid back, cool guys who are really helpful. It's also incredibly well located in the centre of Miraflores, which is a very nice part of Lima. So time out in the big smoke is proving more pleasing than I expected, but I'm looking forward to getting back to the mountains next week.