South America day 1 - 15th April 2009

Day 1

The long awaited trip to South America is finally here. Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile and Brazil, beginning in Lima, Peru. We arrived pretty late and after the best part of 16 hours travelling we were pretty shattered, but we did manage to get up the road to a cool little bar and have a few of the obligatory 1st-night Pisco Sours – Peru's favourite alcoholic and pretty potent beverage!

We decided to stay in Miraflores, a suburb in Lima known to be a little more modern and swanky than central and other parts of downtown Lima. The guest house (Family Backpackers) was basic, but was perfect for what we needed in our first few days... very relaxed, right by the beach, and very chilled friendly staff.

After a relaxing walk around the town we stopped for lunch to sample our first real taste of the excellent Peruvian food in a restaurant called Lared. Cerviche is a dish of raw fish served in lemon juice and chilli, with a few bits of veggies. Sounds simple, but it's pretty damn good. As typical tourists with a lack of the lingo on day 1 we typically massively over ordered and then Claire bit headstrong into a huge hot chilli and looked as though her head may well explode. I couldn't help but find that extremely amusing, but she's yet to see the funny side.

Miraflores is an attractive area with a stunning cliffy coastline, although the beach isn't that great. So the afternoon was spent just chilling around there, with the occasional ice cream, Pisco Sauer, and cerveza, soaking up the sun.