I have done some traveling in the past, mostly with family, but this trip was very different than anything I had ever done before. The way we went about it was different as well. I had never been to Peru, let alone South America or any destination south of Cancun. We had a great pre-departure package from the station, which luckily told us everything we needed to know (for the most part). But once we got down there, things unfolded as we went. We knew we were meeting with the station manager in a small town called Puerto Maldonado on January 31, 2007, and that we were going to be at the station for 2 weeks, from Feb 1-14, and that's pretty much all we knew about that.
Organizing flights and places to stay was not too difficult. We flew Air Canada to Lima, Peru. This direct flight was approximately 8 hours long, and flights from Toronto to South America leave late in the afternoon and do not arrive at their destinations until the wee hours of the morning. Once we got there we realized that Lima does not sleep. The airport at 1:30 am looked like it Toronto Pearson at rush hour. Our main goal at this time was to find our ride, Carlos, to take us to our hostel.
In Lima we stayed in a pleasant hostel called Youth Hostel Malka http://www.youthhostelperu.com/, located in San Isidro, a quiet and somewhat safe suburb of Lima. This was our first hostel experience and we wanted it to be a good one. We chose this hostel for a few reasons: location (safety is extremely important in Lima), they have an airport transportation service (that operates 24 hours a day), and they had food on site, as well as some other fun things to do, including ping-pong and a rock-climbing wall, which hadn't seemed to be used for quite a while. This hostel has no curfew, no lockout, and 24-hour registration, which was important for us since we were arriving so late. Their rates were good, and they have lots of other services provided as well for extra costs. We were able to book both of our stays at this hostel on line, as well as arranging for the airport pick-up. Another bonus, as with many places in Lima, they accepted payment with American dollars. The next day we did the basic tourist thing - we got in a cab to head downtown as we were suggested by the hostel to do. Catching a cab in Lima is not difficult, but it is a little different than in Canada. The taxis do not have meters, so price is negotiated before you get in the taxi with the driver. From our hostel to downtown Lima we paid 7 soles for the ride. And quite a ride it was. The freeway in Lima has lines on the road, but nobody goes by them. In a 4 lane highway, there was probably 6 or 7 'lanes' of traffic traveling on it at high speed. It was a little scary, but surprisingly, we did not see any accidents. Toronto drivers would not be able to handle it. At one point, I looked over at the spedometer and it was broken, sitting at 0 mph.
Lima has its typical tourist attractions: we went to the main Plaza de Mayor, which is surrounded by Lima Cathedral, an impressive structure that takes up a full city block. The Government Palace is also located in this area, and we watched the "Changing of the Guards" at noon. It was busy! For a Tuesday, the streets were pretty much closed with locals watching this event. Its not a short event either, we watched it for about 45 minutes before moving on, and it was still going at that point. They have a marching band that played at least 6 pieces, including the theme song to Star Wars.
We walked down side streets, passing by the impressive San Francisco Church, and walked along one of the many touristy areas near a small creek. One street over from the Plaza de Mayor is this walking street that heads towards the Plaza de St. Martin. The main take home message from this strip is: SHOES. In a 3 block stretch, we must have counted at least 10 shoe stores, including Bata and Payless Shoe Source, among others. We ate lunch down this stretch at a place called Norky's, similar to our... Kentucky Fried Chicken (maybe)?? A mid-sized meal consisted of a piece of fried chicken, salad, fries, a scoop of ice cream and a small cup of Coke, and costed us only S/. 5.40, or an equivalent of only a couple dollars canadian.
From downtown we took another taxi (yes, brave enough to get back in, but had no choice really) to the coast, an upscale district of Lima called Miraflores. We walked through a shopping centre called Larco Mar, and enjoyed seeing the Pacific Ocean. Despite it being HOT and humid (30 degrees celsius or more), swimming in the ocean in Lima is not recommended, since their sewage goes into the ocean, unfortunately. It was nice to see though, and despite the sewage thing, there were still a couple people taking a dip.
We walked from Miraflores to San Isidro, not quite sure what map we were following but we did eventually find our hostel. Since this was our only day in Lima, we wanted to make the most of it. Lima is huge - at a population of about 9 million people, there are 16 districts, and we just barely touched upon 3 of them. But we were happy with what we saw in Lima. If ever in Lima for just a day and want to do some city sightseeing, I recommend our route. There are other things slightly outside of Lima that if we had more time we would have done, but we were limited. By the end of the day we had dirty feet and were quite sunburned (to be expected coming from Ontario in January) but were ready for the next part of the trip: heading to the Amazon. 
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