End of the Road

As we could’ve predicted, today was a mixed bag of feelings as we both willed time to slow down to delay going home, whilst simultaneously wishing it would speed up so that we weren’t just hanging around waiting for the inevitable.

We did manage to pop back down to the Larcomar complex, buying last minute souvenirs and visiting the arcade again, but our hearts were not really in it. So we decided to take one last look at the Pacific Ocean,

and with very heavy hearts headed back to the hostel.

We’d booked an extra night in the hostel, precisely because our flight from Lima to Madrid wasn’t until the evening. This at least meant that we could kill time in the room, rather than hanging around the streets for a day. But we couldn’t even face just staying in there. We attempted a quick game of table tennis on the rooftop patio, but that just reminded us too much of the fun we’d had in Shanghai doing exactly the same, so quickly abandoned that!

So, we decided enough was enough, checked out of the hostel and waited in the reception area for a taxi

and off we went to Lima Airport, hours earlier than we’d intended but at least it was a change of scenery.

To be honest, Lima Airport isn’t too bad a place to pass time. Most of the restaurants and shops are before you enter the security control area, so you don’t have to lock yourself away in the departure terminal to pass time. And, for the first time in our entire stay in Lima, the sun broke through the cloud cover, clearing the humidity and making our last evening in Peru crisp, clear and not at all humid!

We eventually paid our airport tax and headed through to our gate.

Although by now we wanted to just get on the plane and get it over with, the weight of what was now ending for us was pretty oppressive.

But, the time to board came, and so we said farewell to the last country on our round the world trip.

The flight to Madrid was scheduled to be eleven and a half hours; the longest flight we have done in the entire six months of travelling. So it goes without saying that the plane was probably the worst we have travelled on in the entire journey. Cramped beyond belief, the seats were more like the sort you find on a double decker bus, and there was no back-of-the-seat entertainment system.

So, with the plane setting off over the Andes and heading east over Brazil towards the Atlantic Ocean, we did the only thing available to us to pass the time, and went to sleep.