So long, South America, and thanks for all the fish

The journey from Cuzco to Lima was singularly remarkable in that we got on the wrong plane. As the trip draws to its conclusion, the Peruvian capital being the final destination on the grand tour, it seems only fitting that something as esoterically preposterous as this should take place during our final internal flight. Only in South America could there be two aeroplanes bound for the same city leaving at exactly the same time from precisely the same gate. And only in South America would the wrong airline staff wave you onto their plane. Peruvian Airlines. Star Peru. It was all the same to us. And all the same to them, until a member of the Peruvian Airlines cabin crew, registering the cock-up, came to usher us off the plane and back into the departure lounge. As we boarded the slightly delayed Star Peru flight it occurred to me how gutting it would be should we, having come all this way, end by careering to our deaths in a fuselage fireball. 'If only we had stayed on the other plane' we'd lament while assuming the brace position (if such a stance existed on this continent), 'we might have made it to Lima'.

Make it to Lima we did, but for all my gratitude at not combusting en route, I'm more grateful that we only allocated two nights to the place before flying back to London. The Peruvian capital is, for want of a more colourful word, grey. Not grey in the sense of a few steely clouds on a miserable Autumn day in London. In Lima the entire sky and, by reflection, the land beneath, is a uniformly boredom-tinted block of non-colour all the time. Whether this is the result of the frequent gales of black crap being emitted from the exhausts of clapped out motors or simply Lima's unique microclimate, I'm not certain. Maybe it was just that we were visiting. Upon arrival at our hostel the kindly proprietor offered us a hand drawn map of the city, indicating the main points of interest. These transpired chiefly, our host being quite a big fellow, to be eateries. 'But what are all those emphatically scribbled crosses, coloured in with pink highlighter pen for enhanced visibility, daubed over the bulk of the map?' we wondered. 'Ah yes', our guide elucidates, 'these are places you tourists must not go. It is very dangerous. You will be hacked at with a rusty bread knife, robbed and left profusely bleeding in a dark alley while the rats gnaw away at your still-blinking eyelids' (I paraphrase). So it was that, with ninety percent of Lima off limits, our scope for exploration became reduced solely to the Miraflores area. The focal point of this part of town is a long road of covered outdoor restaurants, all of which are identical in their equipment of jumbo television screens, all broadcasting music videos featuring heavily oiled strumpets grinding provocatively against members of (and belonging to) the Hip Hop fraternity. The waiters stand outside accosting the passing gringo with offers of free drinks. Not so much a vignette of authentic South American life as a stag weekend in Magaluf. One waiter talked so much that we sat down at his place in order to make him stop. Despite the off-putting Costa Del Sol marketing system deployed by the restaurant, the fish we ordered was surprisingly some of the best we'd had on the whole trip (see previous disenfranchised, bad fish related entries).

Apart from eating, there seemed little else to entertain us in the Peruvian capital... until, that is, we realised that after three months without a cut Matt's hair was now long enough to make into a ponytail. So that's what we did.

Oh, how we laughed.

Another chapter in the 'Make your own fun when it's too dangerous to go outside' handbook is entitled 'Why not photograph a bottled water, the name of which, correct spelling and umlaut not considered, is marginally un-PC and slightly comical.

So, that's what we did.

Just when we thought things couldn't get any more wild, we looked out of our hostel window and saw this, a youth quite literally turning tricks in front of cars waiting at the traffic lights.

I don't know which was more impressive, the head-spinning hula hoop display or the sight of South American drivers heeding a red light.

That was Lima and then it was time to go home.

So that's what we did.