Arriving in Lima

Well after our stay in Caracas, we we're about to throw it all in and book an early flight home... But instead we booked a flight with LAN to Lima, Peru. Great choice!! The booking process was quite interesting. As we had to do it through a travel agency.. Put it this way, I'm glad we are actually in Peru... and not the Philippines. (man i really need to learn Spanish, you feel like such a spaz not being able to talk..)
Arriving into Lima was such a surprise. The airport was ultra modern on new. We both were like 'are we in the right place'. We couldn't help but notice all the banners hanging through out the airport which said APEC. APEC is being held in Lima this year and we reckon APEC is one of the reasons as to the upgrade of the airport. None the less the airport was sweet, customs was a breeze and out of there in no time at all.
I had organised our accommodation back in Caracas through the Internet and booked a couple of nights a the Flying Dog Hostel, Lima. I also organised a pick at the airport from the hostel, because it was late at night.
We walk into the arrivals area and was greeted with banners all bearing names of arriving tourist. It was promising to see so many names, unfortunately our name was not shown. Crap. We had arrived at 11:20 pm and was out into the arrivals area by midnight. We wait for our pick up service till 12:30 and when they didn't show up we decide to take a taxi to the Hostel our selves.We find a taxi and head into the city of Miraflores where the hostel was located.
The taxi ride again was life altering....It turns out that the driving we experienced Caracas is typical for Lima also. The taxi driver was driving at 'light speed and with complete disregard for human and animal life..' Nuts... Taking corners like he was on a rally time trial and red lights - what's that????
Lucky to step out of the taxi with our lives we proceed up the stairs of the hostel, only to find out that I had booked our accommodation for freaking

NOVEMBER 24 instead of OCTOBER 24

this explained why there was no airport pick up... There was never a booking.... Leover you dip stick!!!!
So it was 2 am and we had nowhere to sleep.. Lucky for us the receptionist was a nice guy and hooked us up with dorm rooms at the hostel across the road (also a Flying Dog Hostel) and then for the following night we were to get a double room.
So after the crappy error that I had made, we finally made it to Lima and got some sleep....
Peace

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