AlternateRoute

By the time our transfer to the airport arrives, we will have been in the hotel for only 13 hours. Our 1515 flight eventually left the ground at 1715, stopping at Arequipa on the way. Arequipa sits at the bottom of two massive snow capped mountains in the middle of what seems to be a desert. It is the stop-off point for Colca Canyon, the deepest canyon in the world and the next stop for the rest of the group we left in Puno, although they were going by bus.

We are back at sea level now which would make it easier to breathe were it not for the additional oxygen being matched with additional levels of pollution. It was another interesting ride from the airport, with the driver at one stage requesting Sue to take her bag off her lap and put it out of sight. I had tried to give Lima a second chance, but my first impressions remain. Sorry to all the citizens of Lima.
The room in the hotel is huge and easily 3 times the size of the room we had on our first visit and features a king-size bed. However it is at the front of the hotel, above a busy intersection with only a thin pane of glass between us and the mobile cacophony. Diagonally opposite us is a modern looking office block belonging to a government ministry. Across the street we look down on the unfinished rooftop car park of a bank where a woman is doing her washing in a plastic tub. It is somewhat of a contrast.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 14th, 2007 at 1429 and is filed under South America 2007.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.