Lima is awesome though. I´ve had 4 days to check out the city before the rest of my tour group arrived and at first it seemed like there wasn´t too much to do and see here. But I found my way to the beach and the waves have been awesome. Really didn´t expect it at all (wasn`t even sure Lima was a coastal city) but a 5 minute cab ride from my hotel there´s a choice of about 5 really good waves. Didnt bring my board though cos I figured it wouldn´t be too much fun having to cart it up the Inca Trail or through the Amazon´jungle. Anyway, I made my way down to the beach and managed to befriend a few locals who were only too keen to lend me a board (had to give the 1 guy a few dollars but the next day I met some other guys who were offended when I offered money). So ended up riding a 4 foot right that went for about 250m with only 6 guys in the water! And this was pretty much in the middle of the city! The locals all wear fullsuits but it was really mellow. Didn´t need one at all. Also got a fun little shorey the other day but had to take it super easy cos not really meant to be in the water with my shoulder yet. I went to some old pyramid ruins down the coast yesterday and could see about 5 km´s of beach breaks - there's soooooo much potential here! So much swell everywhere and hardly anybody riding - I definitely wanna come back on a proper surf trip and explore the whole coast here.
There's pretty steep cliffs right on the beach and it´s paragliding paradise. A Kiwi lady from my group who claims she's going through a mid life crisis (I read that as nothing to lose) managed to convince me to go paragliding with her. Those of you who know how shit scared of heights I am will be impressed. They also go super close to the buildings and cliffs here ( about 2 metres away) which is pretty daunting but my "pilot" told me had been doing it for 17 years and only had 1 accident. But he nearly died and said he was very lucky to be alive so that was comforting. Anyway, the launch was really easy and it´s amazing what a smooth ride it is. Feels like you just floating and you can´t feel turbulence or anything like that. After about 10 mins of climbing the thermals higher and higher we were waaay up! The view of the coast and city was incredible (8 million people live here so pretty big). Have to admit I was battling to enjoy it though cos I was getting pretty edgy being so high up and relying on a few tiny straps to keep me from falling.
Old "Mad Mike" then says to me "Ok amigo we gonna a do whatsa called a dith spiral and drop a good few hundreds of feet in about 5 secondas". "We gonna do a what??" mi says.
Too late, he`s already headed out over the ocean and he just sends us into this huge freefall spiral. Oh the death spiral I think! Death in Spanish is not exactly what it sounds. It actually just means "shit your pants". So there I found myself in the middle of the good old shit your pants spiral and it fealt like my head was gonna explode. It was more of a rush than any rollercoaster I´ve been on and I think we were definitely pulling a good couple of G´s there. When I say "we" I mean "I" and G´s is Spanish for sphincter muscles! I´m pretty convinced at the one stage we were actually a fair bit above the chute cos we were turning so hard - almost like doing a flip/flare. It was more intense than the pressure/forces you feel bungy jumping! Anyway - definitely the best experience I´ve had in years and would love to do it again!! Was pretty convinced it was just gonna be a scenic flight at first but was definitely proven wrong. Might have to try buy one of those things on ebay!
Couple photos attached. It´s hard to get them all in order and sorry there´s so many sunset ones but I like them so tough luck! Few waves there too and some pictures of the shanty towns and some pyramid ruins I went to. I was pretty amazed to find out the sum total of the annual rainfall in Lima is a big fat whopping zero!! Complete desert here but it´s not too hot cos the ocean wind cools things down a lot.
The minimum wage is only $150 per month and 52% of the population lives in poverty. Crime is crazy here! I nearly lost my mobile to a pickpocketer last night but managed to catch my phone as it was half way out. Then I saw some old dude get mugged right outside my bus window in broad daylight today! Security here is crazy though and the rich houses security systems would put some Joburg houses to shame! Quite a few have full time armed security guards who just stand outside in the street all day....
