The morning was slow. All the group (minus our leader Andres) got together in the lobby at 8 am as instructed. I finally got to meet everybody, all 12 of us. An hour later Andrzej appeared and took us to a nearby restaurant for a nice breakfast. Then we got into our very cool Mercedes minibus and drove to central Lima. It must have been a beautiful city once, but now you can see years of neglect. Even across from the presidential palace you can see houses falling apart, with boarded windows, etc. Lots of riot police everywhere and armored vehicles parked in front of buildings. A bit spooky.
From Lima, we drove the Panamerican highway (highway #1)to Ica (about 400 miles down south). This highway is the highway that connects Tierra the Fuego with Alaska and our own PCH is a part of it. It was a great divided highway for maybe the first 60 miles and then it turned into a regular two-lane road with lots of big trucks. The landscape was not beautiful yet, or should I say strangely beautiful --- hill of brownish-grey soil with nothing growing on it -- a real desert with groups of tiny shacks from time to time.
We arrived in our hotel in Ica at about 8:30 pm and were very disappointed with the rooms. They are less than basic -- 2 beds, not a table or chair, no place to put anything and one outlet that barely works. No internet here… We had dinner in the hotel restaurant and went straight to sleep.
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