Lima revisited

So, back where we had begun our Peruvian journey, in foggy old Lima. Except that, it was not quite as foggy as we left it, a small chink in the clouds revealed a bit of cheeky blue sky. Turns out we're on the cusp of their summer, very nice for them.
The same hotel and staff greeted us on arrival back to civilisation. I use this term purposefully as after a month of travelling round the towns of Peru it was clear as day the stark contrast in quality of living between the poor rural folk and the wealthy urbanites. I don't know what else to say on this matter except that, despite living in a much more beautiful and culture rich area, the poor of Peru have a definite struggle for existence that is clearly ignored by the majority. Like the world round unfortunately.
As an urbanite myself I felt the immediate benefit of the city's mod cons, the cable tv and the high speed internet, but felt nostalgic for the few weeks we had spent exploring the beauty of Peru. It was however time to embrace the everforward nature of our travelling, a day or two before flying to Argentina, and we were very excited about it.
As we had missed the opportunity previously, we took the opportunity to visit Lima centre and see it's colonial heritage as South America's leading city in its heyday. The centre is actually very pleasant, buildings rebuilt after suffering from the destruction of earthquake, but lovely all the same.
After lunch and a potter round the old cathedral (housing the relics of Francisco Pizzaro no less), we were accosted by a lady selling city tours, including a trip to the city high point. On the back of 'only an hour' we thought what the hell as we had 'only a day' to see the city. What she had failed to point out that the hour was after we were to spend 'only 45 minutes' looping the area around the main square picking up passengers until the bus was full. After several almost attempts at forgetting the whole thing the bus filled up and we were on our way. Between the tour being in Spanish and the guide having a rubbish microphone, Ari decided he would take the opportunity to have a nap, whilst I tried in vain to find something interesting in what she was saying. Eventually we scaled the heights of San Cristobal to reach the vista point, ducked away from the photographer offering framed photos of folk in front of the view and spent 20 minutes looking down at a sandy, sprawling and quite frankly pretty ugly city. Oh and Leo got stung in the hand by a wasp just to round things off nicely. Not the best 'hour' in all but fortunately Leo's hand was fine after the swelling subsided a few hours later. On the way home I was accosted by a guy with a tv camera, asking my opinion as a Brit about the new trend 'rent a husband'. I replied I had already made a permanent acquisiton but sounded like a good idea in theory!
Back at hotel base camp we made plans for the journey the following day. Dismayed to find we had another ridiculously early start we took solace in a few hours sleep on the plane and settled down to watch the US election unfolding on CNN. I particularly enjoyed the way they beamed there presenters in from various states into the main Atlanta studio. Gripping stuff. And so we went to sleep, hoping for great things from the US in the morning, and great things for the Argentinian adventure to come.