Lima

Coming down from the mountains we reached the Panamerican highway (main North to south route of South America) and followed the coast till the big smoke. The landscape was super arid and somehow not very welcoming. Grey cities, industries and sand. Not a resort type coast...
After the long bus ride we reached Lima at peak hour. After about one and a half month of remoteness and nature, getting to this massive city was quite a shock!
In Lima we stayed at Yulissa's; a peruvian girl I had met a few months before in a night club in Paris.
Yulissa has been really cool to us, she took us to the best bars in the famous neighbourhood of Chorrillos intoduced us to her friends and showed us around the city.
We had quite a few parties as well, as we do when we get in big cities, but noth the best for me as I've got to admit that I had a bit of a "travelling blues" at this point (yes it does exists :) ) .

Anyway, Lima has been pretty different to what we had heard from travellers. Yes it is grey most of the time, but a part of that we didn't find it dangerous or boring or expensive. It has a lot to offer. The night life is rich, there is a good art scene, people are pretty friendly, you can find very good food and overall all that for a reasonable backpacker budget. It is definitely a destination I wouldn't cross of the list for a South American trip.

The other good thing in Lima, for us, is that you can fly paragliders right in the middle of the city, above the skyscrapers of the Miraflores financial district and right in front of the Pacific ocean. So on the second day I took my kit in hopes of flying this unique spot. Unluckily I got greeted with a firm NO. The reason being that there was some road works on the coast making it really hard for alternative landings prohibiting any use of the spot for visiting pilots. What a deception! I tried everything with the local pilots, but being a very comercial spot they wouldn't risk any incident that could put in jeopardy their right to fly there.
BUT, there is always a way.... we came back after the week end wih a contact. Lucho, a local pilot that had been introduced to us by the ecuadorian flying crew. Lucho took the responsibility and signed a piece of paper that allowed us to get airborne. Hurray!

We also had a happy encounter with the people of a small local football bar in Chorrillos.
On a Sunday afternoon stroll in the south of the Chorrillos district we heard some loud music playing looking a bit closer at the streets we saw a few groups of old men sitting outside of what looked like a football club with a few crates of beer. This drawn ou attention straight away :). As we passed by, the old guys invited us to seat and join them for a beer. What a wonderful moment! The one beer quickly became five. And the old guys started to sing old Peruvian songs.

A few beers later we were inside the place with everyone inviting us for more beers. The atmosphere started to get going. And people stated to dance to the sound of the old juke box. A lot of fun!