I don't really plan to spend time in Lima during my vacation in Peru. But for the return flight, I have a couple of choices:

1. Overnight in Lima, and then 3 more flights to get home; or
2. 6 hours layover at LIM at night, then a non-stop flight home.

Either way I can only see Lima at night. I can get a nice dinner in the city. Other than that, what else can I do? How much time does it take to go between LIM and a nice area in the city (Miraflores/San Isidro or Barranco)?

Thanks.

2fly, best to take the non-stop flight. Changing planes is a pain. Our flight out of Lima was delayed by an hour, and we missed our connection flights in the U.S. and had to go on standby.

With traffic, it takes about 20-30 minutes to get around different parts of Lima. With 6 hours layover, you'll probably just have enough time for dinner.

Thanks JC98. 20-30min one way definitely sounds doable.

I have to say I am quite disappointed with LAN. My reservation had the non-stop flight confirmed with LAN. Then they unconfirmed it! Thank God, I am still able to get on a non-direct flight.

Make sure you check with LAN a few days before any flight.

They also canceled one leg of our domestic flight without any notification. We only found out one day in Cusco when I logged into my AA account and saw the itinerary didn't include the flight. We spent 2 days calling LAN and AA (since we booked it via AA), and we got the run-around. It was a huge waste of time until we got to Puno, and an agent in that LAN Peru office fixed everything and reissued our tickets. We were so impressed that the office in such a small town like Puno were able to handle things so professionally, whereas the useless agents from AA (both in Lima and the U.S.) and LAN Peru via their toll free number couldn't do anything. So the advice is to check your flights to see if they drop you at the last minute.

What are the chances that the "canceled" flight would have seats for "additional" passengers?

Is your CUZ to LIM flight canceled? I booked CUZ to PEM too. So I will have to worry about 2 trips... I've always wanted to see the Amazon. Now I wonder if I should ditch the dream and go for Lake Titicara....

So you took a bus to Puno instead of train. How long did it take? How much? How did you book it?

Don't worry so much about your internal connections on LAN. My guess is that the cancellations are the exception rather than the rule. We just had 2 roundtrips on LAN--LIma/Iquitos and LIma/Cusco. All were on time and very good flights. They even serve food on short 1 hour flights.

Forgot to mention the Lima part. We weren't at all impressed with Lima. We flew in at 13:00 and had a flight out close to midnight. We spent the afternoon sightseeing with a private guide who picked us up at the airpoprt and showed us around. Then we had dinner in the Miraflores/San Isidro area before going back to the airport to check in for our flight home. Don't worry about not seeing Lima. IMO you won't be missing much.

2fly, our flight wasn't canceled. Our tickets were canceled--maybe because of a computer glitch. In general, LAN Peru looks much more professional and the airplanes are really nice -- much better than any US airlines!

Our case was probably the exception. What happened was our flight from Miami to Lima was delayed. We had a 6 a.m. LAN flight from Lima to Cusco, but since our flight got in late, AA or LAN automatically booked everyone on the next flight out. They booked us on the 7:30 a.m. flight, but when we got to Lima, AA said we could try to make the 6 a.m. flight. We rushed to the connection flight and made it. But later on, they claimed we didn't show up for the 7:30 a.m. flight (duh!) and somehow that triggered them to cancel our flight from Juliaca to Lima that was to take place almost 2 weeks later. Don't know why that would trigger a cancellation of another flight.

Anyhow, no agent (AA or LAN) could fix an inane mistake like this, and they kept on accusing us of not showing up for our flight. How did we get into Cusco otherwise?! Finally, a LAN agent in Puno overwrote the note in the computer and reissued our tickets.

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Bus from Cusco to Puno. Just google Inka Express (or get their website from a guidebook), email your reservation and reconfirm it 2 days before departure in Cusco. We paid $40 USD. Make sure you deal directly with the office, and not another agent.