"Deepest darkest Peru"

We arrived in Guayaquil, Ecquador´s largest city, after the Galapagos and just like Quito we weren´t that impressed. We stayed in a neighbourhood where all the shops were behind bars and whatever you bought was pushed through the gaps. We´d heard some dodgy stories (having bags stolen, muggings or having to pay money to phoney border guards) about the border crossing from Ecquador to Peru so booked our bus trip with a reputable company that would take us straight through to Lima. The 24hr bus trip was fine and fairly comfortable with some incredible sand dunes through the desert. We also had DVDs, big reclining seats and lunch, dinner and breakfast. At the Peruvian border as we got off to go through passport control blokes were offering to fill in forms on your behalf and then told people it was 10 US dollars to have your passport stamped or it was 10 dollars per month depending on which scam artists was "helping" you. We knew it was a trick so just ignored our guy but I think one English guy paid and he was furious and wanted to go and beat the con artist up.

We´ve had a few days in Lima now and have found Paddington but his marmalade sandwiches weren´t under his hat! So far we´ve felt safer here and Lima´s been friendlier than Quito. The pic of Bec is of one Lima´s best known restaurants - La Nautica Rosa - where we had a delicious meal on Sunday and could watch the surfers as well. We didn´t have another go, the waves weren´t as impressive as Bali(!) Was also able to watch my first UTD match live since the opening day of the season, so we had a good day all round on Sunday.