So I arrived at Buenos Aires airport and checked in for my flight to Lima. However, when I passed through security, they noticed I had a knife in my hand luggage (my penknife like, nothing dodgy) so they told me to go back to check it in. At check in they said that I couldn't put it in the bag I'd already checked so I'd have to check my rucksack. Now, really, I just have just dumped the penknife at this point and kept the rucksack with me. But I think we've established already that I'm an idiot, so I checked my rucksack, containing my camera, sunglasses, memory stick etc etc, and without a lock on it.

When I arrived in Lima and got my bags back to the hotel, you've guessed it, the light-fingered baggage handlers had been through my bag and robbed the above items. So, two trips back to the airport, a completed complaint form and a couple of emails to the airline later and TACA have generously offered me 30 US Dollars in compensation. That's compensation for their staff stealing from me. Oh well, that's my moan over. Worse things happen at sea.

I spent a couple of days in Lima before getting a bus North up the coast to Trujillo, where I stayed for 1 night with a mental woman. As well as being a guesthouse owner, she was also a tour guide and, upon my arrival, she immediately whisked me off on a tour in her beat up old VW beatle (in which I was instructed to drape the seatbelt across my body despite the fact there was no socket to plug it into). Around Trujillo there are some significant pre-inca ruins / excavation sites. Chan Chan and Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la luna so she showed me round these, giving me a detailed history lesson (which was in Spanish so I understood maybe 20%). The sites are incredible given how old they are, etchings and colours still remain really well preserved.

The following morning I decided to head off to Huanchaca which is a sleepy beach town a half hour combi (little minibus) ride from Trujillo. It's predominantly a surf town and, being out of season, was pretty much entirely deserted. There was also nothing to do. No naturally, I spent the best part of a week there. All I did for days was read, sit on the beach (it was a bit chilly though) eat, and watch tv in my room. It was quite nice to just do nothing for a while (and spend virtually nothing too.

After I finally left Huanchaca, i got the bus back down to Lima where I checked into the Flying Dog Hostel in Miraflores (smart suburb 5 miles or so out of the centre). Here I met up with Duncan and Rena for a meal out at a place called Las Tejas which served us up some really good Peruvian food. Incidentally, the food in Lima would subsequently prove to be the best of my time in South America. Duncan and Rena headed out the next day to go Sandboarding down the coast in Huacachina. And I went to the cinema to see Wall Street.

There's more to come from Lima, I did actually do some things, honest.