Yet another early start to catch the plane from Cusco to Lima.

Once we got to the airport, it was time to say goodbye to Oscar. He has been brilliant  and deserved all the tips he was getting.

The check-in queue moved quickly. Arthur threw me a curved ball when he asked me to put some walking poles he had in my suitcase, as he had no room on his backpack. This was about a minute before checking the bag in. It was the least I could do after all he’d done for us, but it was a few panic-stricken moments to stuff them in in time. Made it, though.

The usual waiting around, but they boarded the plane early. This time, I was stuck in a middle seat of three, nicely wedged in. Fortunately, it’s only an hour’s flight.

The plane actually took off early and the flight was uneventful.

After our earlier experience, we were more anxious than usual about our bags appearing on the carousel. Never in doubt…..

Boarded a bus which was to take us to the Larco museum, displaying the 50,000 or so pieces collected by Rafael Larco, a true Italian-born obsessive. Some of the pieces are from civilisations that existed three or four millennia ago. Our guide was Julia, who provided a commentary about the various districts of Lima that we were passing through.

The first gallery displayed some truly graphic pictures of the sexual habits of many of these civilisations, all captured in pottery. Nothing was spared. Bestiality, buggery, necrophilia, even paedophilia were depicted. I didn’t take any pictures. Julia was very matter-of-fact about it all.

I wasn’t enjoying this much – I just wanted to get on the ship. However, here are a few pictures.

Quite glad to get out of there, to be honest.

Lunch was provided at the museum, and we spent the time with a mother and her two children, plus the lady’s brother-in-law. Her husband was due to join her on the cruise. The two kids were very entertaining, particularly the 8 year old boy, who loved making us all laugh. Quite the clown.

Finally, the time came to board the bus to take us to our ship, the Silversea Silver Nova. This is a brand new ship.

Somewhat surreal experience at the entrance gate. The officials there are supposed to check your passports, but all we had to do was wave them in the air! That sufficed, and we were soon alongside the ship.

It was now time to say goodbye to Arthur. I offered him his walking poles back, but he said I should keep them. I didn’t really want them – just additional stuff to carry – but it was too hard to extricate them from my suitcase at the time. He deserved all the tips he got – knowledgeable, approachable, unflustered and a fixer. Top man.

Silversea have been talked up as a top quality operation. Not on first appearances. The check-in process was chaotic, disorganised and indifferent. Apart from that, it was great…..

More bureaucracy once we got on board. Just not well done at all.

Finally got to our room, which looks really nice. Suite 6059, since you ask.

There seemed to be no induction or guidance at all for Silversea newbies. We had to try and make sense of it via the TV in the room, but too many options. Where to start? Also, the ship’s WiFi was extremely flaky. Not a great introduction.

We divined that there was a safety drill at 5 p.m., 45 minutes after we’d got to our room. We turned up at the appointed spot, to find people just milling around. No sign of any crew members.

It transpired that someone had cocked up. The drill was at 6 p.m., not 5. I was pretty fed up by this time, and worse was to come.

We dutifully appeared once again, and our boarding cards were scanned. At least there were some crew members about this time, but nobody seemed to have a clue what to do. Some crew members marched in, some marched out and came back in again. My card was scanned a second time, God knows why.

People were getting very restive now, including me. About 15 minutes later, there came an announcement over the ship’s audio, but it made little sense. We gathered some idea of how to put the life jacket on, and apparently these are handed out by crew members at crisis time, although the initial instruction was to bring the life jacket from your cabin. Total confusion. Viking do this sort of thing so much better, I have to say, although in fairness it is a new ship and other passengers said that normally Silversea were better organised than this.

Total waste of time.

Fortunately, I had pre-booked La Terrazza, an Italian restaurant, for our first dinner. We found it reasonably easily and enjoyed a very pleasant meal with plenty of wine.

I had a slight sore throat, the precursor to a cold, so Paracetamol was indicated.

As we had an excursion the next morning, we decided to pre-order our breakfast and have it in our room to save time. Our butler, Dennis, is very friendly and agreeable, but doesn’t always seem to understand what we are asking of him. Hopefully this will work out over time.

So glad, finally, to get on board. Time for some R&R, which I am really looking forward to. However, we have a Lima Highlights tour tomorrow, which necessitates a relatively early night.

I’ll keep you posted. At least I should now have time to catch up.