Last day Lima

Wed 25 May
Arrived Lima last night from Puerto Montanaldo.

It's my birthday today but I certainly don't feel like celebrating as I have lost my (actually, Andrew's) camera ... Setours have checked with the car that brought us from the airport last night. Now they are checking the airline.

So off I went to the police station to make a report - my first visit to a foreign police station. Sebastian at Setours warned me to be patient - that things proceed slowly in South America; that it could take a couple of hours. I was lucky we weren't leaving for the airport until 1:45 p.m.

They were very nice at the police station and we all did the best we could with my little Spanish - watched over by a picture above the door of San Judas Tadeo (Patrono de la Policia de Turismo). They didn't even charge me the $US2 for the report - I think the kind policeman I spoke to earlier as I came into the office said to the girls not to - perhaps when I told him it was mi compleanno (my birthday!).

So the saints were indeed watching over me: at the airport at Lima, even though the agency had checked this morning, just as I walked into the Lost & Found office, my camera arrived (My Friend's camera, that is). Wow! I had just explained to Marco - who had met me when I first came into Lima 5 weeks ago and accompanied us on our departure - that the camera had a woven purple & green Peruvian wrist band attached to the strap (and I also had a photo of the camera on my i-phone that I had downloaded off the internet), when the girl behind the counter muttered words in Spanish to Marco (after he gave her this description) that had him raising his eyebrows - and there it was!

Best birthday present! I was feeling very bad that I had 'lost' My Friend's camera ... Anyway I had enjoyed a tasty alfajor and a birthday cup of lovely Peruvian coffee at a local coffee shop after my visit to the police station; I had passed the shop on my way and promised myself a birthday treat if time permitted after the police station.

Onto our LAN flight which left nearly an hour late which means our already squeezy transfer at Santiago (Chile) just got a bit tighter - and then another passenger alerted me to the news that the Chilean government re-instated daylight saving to start in May which made me even more concerned as our departure time from Santiago was now listed an hour EARLIER!

However, we made the connection - without a great deal of time to spare; upside: no time to mess around...

Watched 3 wonderful films Lima to Santiago and then Santiago to Auckland. One, Youth, directed by Paolo Sorrentino with Harvey Keitel and Michael Caine as leads was superb.  The others - 45 Years with Charlotte Rampling and Spotlight about the abuse by the Catholic Church as exposed by The Boston Globe newspaper - were excellent also. What a bonus to watch one good film let alone 3! Some airlines have very ordinary choices.

Longer wait in Auckland - as new Chilean time (see above) had us into New Zealand earlier than planned but there was an upside to this also as for some unfathonamable reason LAN in Lima had only checked my luggage through to Auckland AND I had to be allocated a boarding pass! More anxiety as this meant filling in immigration forms, going through passport control, picking up baggage, queuing for check-in, putting luggage through again, filling in departure papers for NZ and finally going through passport control to exit.
Finally! Onto Qantas flight to Melbourne.

Photos lovely architectural buildings (Spanish Colonial) in Lima: