We arrived in Lima at midnight on Sunday, where we finally managed to get our heads down for the night at an average hostel in the popular Miraflores district.

After a lot of early starts, tours, long distance bus journeys, and constant travel from place to place it was time to set up camp for a good few days and regain some routine to recharge the batteries.

A lovely AirBNB apartment on Avenida Benavides was our base for the next 10 days.. a perfect spot located a few minutes walk from the lively Parque Kennedy and just another 10 from the beach.

Lima isn't the most appealing of cities to spend a decent amount of time but Miraflores was definitely the best choice of area with an abundance of bars, restaurants and shops to choose from, as well as being considerably safer in comparison to other local districts.

The climate of the capital is somewhat unusual, almost depressing.. it was a comfortably warm 21 degrees, but a solid blanket of dull grey cloud was a permanent fixture throughout our whole stay, with only a little sunshine managing to pierce through every now and again. Apparently it's like this here for around 6 months of the year.

It was a saddening start to the week as the shocking news of the bombing back home in Manchester began to filter through. Feelings of deep sympathy obviously went to those poor families involved, but also an empty, hollow feeling that this has become the world we live in today. It's about time the world began to take a more pro-active approach into destroying these mindless, brainwashed f***wits before they continue to take more innocent lives! Sorry.. rant over!

I had a very relaxed time in Miraflores.. it was so nice to catch up on sleep, watch some Netflix and cook some great food. I put my chefs hat on and smashed out a few lively curries following my ma's secret recipe, aswell as a wicked chicken fried rice. I'm a damn good chef you know! ;)

On the steep coastline of Miraflores is a complex called Larcomar, a lovely modern shopping mall carved into the cliff edge overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It's quite a beautiful setting so we had a couple of wanders down to check out the shops and restaurants there.

We had another day shopping when we visited the massive mall at Jockey Plaza, a half an hours drive away.. adopting the name "Jockey" due to the plaza's location next to the city's horse racing course. It was extremely modern and pleasant to walk around as it was so spacious and not too busy. The collection of shops was pretty good.. all the main stores you'd expect to see in any UK shopping centre, as well as a splattering of high fashion brands.

We had short walk over to neighbouring Barranco one afternoon which was supposed to be another nice, safe and popular area in Lima. But I didn't make much of it, it was an odd place with not all that much to see or do.. thank god for the gelato shop!

Later that evening we went to a techno night called La Tribu at Mia Club. I've followed a DJ called Monoloc for several years now and by chance he was playing in Lima while we were there. It was a decent night and the music was cool.

We decided to check out the local beach one afternoon. Not only is it difficult to get to being at the base of a massively steep cliff but it doesn't actually have any sand, just a heap of big rocks and a hard dusty path adjacent to a very busy highway, which is noisy as hell! From above looking down, it looked pretty pleasant and nice.. how wrong were we?!

One of the main attractions in the city is Circuito Mágico del Agua.. a collection of water fountains at Park of the Reserve. The fountains vary in size, have interchanging colours, and flow in numerous ways.

During the evening the park hosts three performances where visuals are projected onto the largest collection of fountains displaying all that is great and important to the country of Peru, and accompanied by a traditional soundtrack. It was quite impressive and very cleverly thought out.

The interactive fountains were a lot of fun.. like a maze of water. The aim being to dodge jets of water bursting up from the floor in between short pauses, where they completely stop before randomly starting again. I did get a bit of a soaking in the nether regions having mistimed one of the pauses.. walking away it looked like I had wet my pants!

I celebrated my 35th birthday while I was out here in Lima. It was a pretty low key day but still very nice. Waking up to 12 Krispy Kreme doughnuts was a fantastic way to start the day.. I'd demolished half of them by mid afternoon! Thanks Ria x

A few drinks in the afternoon at the Estelar Hotel's rooftop bar was a nice touch. 21 floors high, the bar offers panoramic views over the city. Looking out, it made me realise how glum Lima actually appears on the surface - dull grey skies, neglected grey buildings, GREY! No oil painting that's for sure.

Ria treated me to a meal at an Indian restaurant in the evening before we headed back to the apartment to chill.

The first day of June signalled the end to our time in Lima and Ria's 6 weeks travelling from Chile to Peru. The travels and tours were tiring at times but we had a lot of fun and saw many cool things together. I'll see you in Oz :)

Having said a sad goodbye and waving off Ria on her bus to the airport it is also my turn to make an exit. I've decided to skip travelling through Ecuador to fly to Bogota, the capital of Colombia.

Time to reset and explore a new country after spending almost a month travelling through Peru. I've heard many great things about Colombia from dozens of people during my travels so I'm looking forward to finding out for myself.

Caio Caio xx