Buenas tardes

It´s been a long road getting here, but we are here in Lima, Peru!
After an early flight to Auckland, where we had a day to kill (3D Superman Returns at Imax, woohoo!), we boarded our 11 hour flight to Santiago, Chile. As usual, on these long flights, it was almost impossible to sleep, so we were pretty knackered on arrival. The flight was a good opportunity for me to do some last-minute studying of our Spanish phrasebook, which came in handy when we wanted to organise a driver to take us around Santiago. The airport officials were all very friendly and helpful, trying to find us an English-speaking driver, and the one they found showed early promise, but we ended up relying on hand signals and pointing quite a lot. Santiago is a HUGE city of 6 million people - the word sprawl could have been invented for it - it stretches from the Pacific almost all the way to the Andes, which tower over everything and remind you that you´re just a few miles away from some of the tallest mountains in the world. After we´d been to Santa Lucia park, (on a hill where the first Spanish conquistadors planned their new city, and defended it), and to the Plaza des Armas (the main square with some huge and beautiful colonial buildings), our driver clearly ran out of things to show us. We stopped on the side of the motorway overlooking the industrial/residental suburb of San Cristobal, we had to wade through the piles of rubbish lining the road. He then showed us the cemetery where his wife and son were buried, before cheerfully dropping us off back at the airport. Lovely man.
It was an interminable wait for our next flight, I´m already sick of the sight of airport lounges, and added to that therewas a mix-up with our gate number so we trekked from one to another before being told to back to the original one - all good though, because walking around was all that was keeping us awake at that point, having been up for 30 hours or so. The flight to Peru was a mere 3.5 hours, and joy of joys, there was someone there to meet us and take us to our hotel. (We´re doing a GAP/Intrepid tour which begins tomorrow.) Aaron was in rapture when he saw our room; we were expecting very simple accommodation, which I´m sure is to come, but this place has all the comforts of home: even a hairdryer! (OK, I admit Aaron wasn´t as excited about that as I was.)
We slept like the proverbial logs, and got up late this morning and headed into town to join the locals watching Germany play Portugal in a pub just of Lima´s main Square Plaza San Martin. (Well, no, they weren´t PLAYING in the pub, that´s where we went to watch.) We were treated to a Pisco Sour (Peru´s national drink) by the friendly bar staff and had fun joining in when the commentator shouted ¨Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!¨
So now it´s a bit of relaxing time before we meet the other people on our trip - I wonder what sort of people they´ll be?
We leave Lima for Cusco in the morning, and will try to update again from there.
Yay All Blacks!