2 days in

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Hi everyone!

We´ve been here two days and it feels like home already. Before we left for the town yesterday we spent hours hiding money in socks and thinking of complicated defence ploys, but by the time we´d been side-tracked by our very talkative but gem-filled hostel owner, Angelo, we forgot to be nervous and felt totally Peruvian with our first step outdoors. It´s a cool springtime here which works well because the English summer hasn´t prepared us for marching in the sun.

Angelo knows everything about everything and was telling us about the 5000 potato varieties (he reckons potato was genetically invented by the Peruvians) and the Potato Institute which is working to solve world hunger with potatoes. I mentioned that mum is a potato enthusiast herself and he immediately gave me two recipes, which will appear in the next entry.

The road system here is perfect for drivers, who weave in and out of eachother regardless of lanes and without indicating. That way even though the roads are busy, traffic jams are not a problem. The cars watch out carefully for each other and dart suddenly when they see a gap; however they are known to be ´pedestrian blind´ and it´s quite common to see elegant strollers break into a run as a car suddenly surges towards them.

Angelo instructed us where to go and what to eat and drink yesterday, which turned out to be very good. Today however we had to find somewhere ourselves, but were very pleased with ourselves when after picking ramdom things off the hand-scribbled menu, we had a delicious 2-course-with-drink meal for just over 1 pound.

Also today we were too tight to get a guide for the museum, which only had English information for the first 2 sections, so we simply spent the whole day translating it. I think it was about the incas or something.

Yesterday we saw an adobe brick pyramid smack bang in the middle of the city. It had some dogs as pets which looked very rabid but it turns out they´re a special breed which is supposed to be bald other than 3 hairs, and their skin is hot to touch so they were used as heaters in the Andes and to pre-warm the beds at bedtime. The pyramid was from a matriarchal society, and therefore because they were the most important, lots of women were sacrificed there to offer the best to the gods.

Tomorrow we´ll spend the day in Central Lima where there is a big procession from the Church of the Nazarene carrying a copy of a mural painted by an ex-slave. Hopefully they´ll let us carry a corner so that we can really feel involved.

We´ve booked a bus to Cusco for Monday, where we spend a week before the Inca Trail. We´re going a less direct route as it´s safer, but unfortunately they only had luxury buses going so sadly we´ll have to travel in comfort.

Hope everyone is ok, apparently you should be able to add your own messages and updates on a comments section at the bottom.

Lots of love from Christina and Mark
xxx

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Photos

Rabid dog at Huaca Pucllana
Here is our tour guide cuddling one of the rabid ´hot dog´at the adobe pyramid Huaca Pucllana

Us at Huaca Pucllana
Here we are enjoying the adobe Huaca in Miraflores, Lima

Huaca Pucllana
The cloudy skies here make photography in Lima a bit dull, but it´s always good to get some use out of the camera

Comments

[Lozenge]

Hey dudes! Looks wicked - am so jealous! Think you got two of the captions mixed up on your photos tho hee hee! I want a hot-dog too! bring me back one! Enjoy Cusco and the Inca Trail! Loz xxx

[Mazza Mozza]

Wow guys! It sounds absolutely brilliant. (Haha Christina I've heard you call Mark a lot of things but I thought Rabid Dog was a bit extreme!) Keep up with the entries - i'll be wating for more! xxxxx

[Christina and Mark]

Captions
We've had a few messages regarding the caption swapping and I'd like to say we are very disappointed that people more naturally assume we're stupid than funny - which we were trying to be! Well, laugh! (Richard - where's that quote from?)