(Part of a series of articles by Fi trawling the archives for photos taken on the tiny compact camera way back when).

Our ‘VIP’ overnight bus to Lima was anything but comfortable. The company ‘Cruz del Sur’ had quite an unnerving check-in procedure of weighing your baggage and then then videoing each passenger on the bus – as the camera man came nearer he pointed the lens in my face and read out ‘once’ (11) to confirm my seat number. You start to wonder about the risk of hijacking!

I woke around 8:30 to the sight of a giant sand dune on the edge of a town. We later passed through Pisco and Santa Rosa then back into the desert again. Many of the buildings in the towns we pass are half built and covered with grass matting. There are vast expanses of nothing and then rows and rows of crops followed by random roosters kicking about in the sand. We reached the Peruvian capital of Lima around midday and checked into Albuerges Miraflores House.

The hostel was a friendly quirky place with lots of interesting bits and pieces to look at and some lovely welcoming guests who we whiled away the following days with exploring the Illuminated waterpark and Huaca Pucillana, the remains of an adobe and clay pyramid bizarrely nestled within a housing estate in Miraflores. We met a British guy Paul while walking along the coast one afternoon who had a pet Vulture as you do. He recommended we try the Lacuma icecream from a local place so we grabbed a cone to walk with on our way to the Barranco district where we topped up our bellies with Cerviche served with a black olive sauce and lime. Yum! The Peruvian food we had in Lima was exceptional – clean and healthy and I fell in love with their salad of finely chopped tomatoes, onions, chilli, corriander and lime juice that accompanied many meats.

Click on the image below to see the gallery of compact camera pictures from Lima, oh yes and also the padded bum bra that made me chuckle!