A New Continent!

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We flew to Lima Peru first thing on Thursday morning. The flight went smoothly and as we flew over the Lima area I was blown away by what the terrain looked like. From the sky it looked like I had always pictured parts of the Middle East. Desert, pure desert with sand dunes and row upon row of crappy housing several stories high, really just shacks stacked on top of each other. I hadn't done any research on this area or seen pictures so I guess that explained my shock.

We paid too much for a cab to Hitchhikers Backpackers Hostel. The drive there was scary, the driver was dodging in and out of traffic which was incredibly thick. Once again I had to force myself to look out the side of the car rather than the front. When we went to pay the driver wouldn't except a dollar that had a tiny tare on it. We were blown away, it was less than a quarter of an inch. He said it was a BIG deal in Peru.

We checked into our private room and I was disappointed by the mattress which was very uncomfortable. The room was clean though which is always important. Upon leaving and coming back there were little white granules of something on our bed. This continued to happen over the course of our stay and was a bit unnerving. We never did figure out what it was but apparently the wind was blowing it in.

We found a nice looking salon and got haircuts. I was pretty nervous as this was my first haircut out of the country and it's possible for a person to screw up your hair pretty badly. The woman who cut my hair however did a great job despite the language barrier. We went to the supermarket which was impressive and definitely the nicest one we had been at since we left the states. We enjoyed looking around and bought some stuff for a couple meals.

We walked to the water and the park was full of people. It was Valentines day and women were walking around with flowers, stuffed animals and such. We enjoyed the view from the cliff and watched the sun set. I was pleasantly surprised by how warm it was. I knew it was summer here but didn't know exactly what that meant temperature-wise.

After we walked back to the hostel we fell asleep and slept all night, we had meant to have a nice dinner but apparently were exhausted.

The free breakfast was very disappointing so we set out to find something else for me to eat which proved to be difficult. We came across a McDonald's which got me very excited but this location didn't server breakfast. Can you imagine! Finally we settled on a restaurant on the edge of Kennedy park.

We admired a church and walked through the park. There were tons of cats running around on the ground and in trees. We had fun watching them. There were cute little shops and we walked to the Inca Market which was a lot of fun to walk around. Tons of vendors, mostly selling the same things which was good for us for negotiating purposes. We bought some gifts for people and I bought myself a nice purple sweater which I figured would come in handy in colder climates and even Cuzco.

We had delicious falafels and lamb for lunch at a restaurant on the edge of the park. The whole meal was fantastic. Dan ordered an Inca Kola which I found to be disgusting. It tastes like bubblegum fluoride at the dentist's office.

We also went to a chocolate museum and learned a lot about chocolate in Peru. There was a French guy running the place and he was very helpful. He gave us some delicious tea made from the cacao shells. We sampled chocolate and bought a little for ourselves =)

Saturday we took a bus to Ica, much to our delight this was a charter bus so there was no squishing although it was sad because there were a lot of people that needed to catch our bus. On the way we stopped and picked up a few people for the empty seats that we had and there was a huge mob of people trying to get on. I wondered to myself how long they would have to wait before all of them got where they needed to go.

A Taxi driver approached us when we got off the bus, when he said "taxi" I said no and he said where are you going and I said "el bano!" He laughed and showed us where it was. We ended up using him to take us to the hostel we wanted to look at. He gave us a very cheap price. The number of taxis, many of which were tuk-tuks were about 20,000.

As we drove, the driver told us that where we were going was the last oasis in the desert and the name was Huacachina. Just then we saw an older naked woman walking on the side of the road. Dan and I did a double take, she had crazy grey hair and a button up shirt on that was totally open so you could see everything and no bottoms what so ever. It was very strange and sad too because she looked like she wasn't all there.

Our room was quite nice and the I really liked the whole hostel. There was a good lounge area and pool and it was very centrally located. We arranged a Pisco tour through the hostel. The same driver who took us to the hostel took us to a couple pisco wineries. At the first one we had an employee there give us a tour which was really interesting seeing the machinery and learning about the process. He spoke a little English and said our Spanish was good.

Next he brought us back to the restaurant area where all of the types of pisco were and we tasted. Most of them were pretty strong but there was one that tasted like caramel and it was amazing! We bought a bottle of one of the more balanced types to take back to the hostel.

Before we started the tour we ordered dinner so that it would be ready when we were finished. I asked him what a traditional Peruvian dish was and ordered the one he pointed to and was not disappointed. The potatoes were delicious and a very unique flavor, there was spaghetti noodles with a sort of pesto sauce and some shredded meat.

Next we went to a winery that looked like a dusty antique shop. There was stuff hanging all over the walls, dead animals, shrunken heads, helmets, weapons and all sorts of Inca stuff. Our driver gave us the "tour" here. There were lots of ceramic containers with pisco in them. he stuck a bamboo stick down in the containers to get pisco out for us to taste. He taught us a few words in Quechua and we did a silly little toast as we tasted the pisco. It was a strange but fun experience.

We decided to stay and have a drink. There was music playing and we were enjoying ourselves. Our driver helped himself to what we bought and soon he grabbed another driver and the two ladies he was "guiding" They were from Canada, one of them was named Saliha and she said the driver had been hitting on them all night and she was so happy to be with some other tourists. It turned out she was staying at the same hostel as us.

We started chatting with people when we got back to the hostel and were having a great time. It was actually Saliha's birthday and she wanted to go find a party. As soon as we left she said she was skeptical that there was actually a party going on and I told her we would start a party if there wasn't one. We walked around "town" and the pond but didn't find any parties going on. We came to a restaurant that had seating mostly outside and down a level on the street next to the water the music was pretty loud so we all started dancing in the street. After one of the dances people clapped for Dan and I because he was showing some real skills as usual. A bit later the bartender came over and poured a shot into our mouth from above, we had a blast and Saliha said it made her birthday great!

The next day Dan, Saliha and I went to the regional museum which was awesome! There were lots of artifacts and mummies and shrunken heads. It was absolutely fascinating to see everything and we learned a lot about the history of the area. Outside they had a replica of the Nazca lines which was cool for us because that was something we skipped in Peru.

I wanted to look for a Hawaiian shirt for my Dad for his birthday to give him when we met up with them in Cuzco so we went to the mall. The A/C felt wonderful and we were so happy to be out of the heat. We walked around a grocery store in the mall and once again I was amazed to be in a decent one after not seeing any in Central America. We found an adorable owl carved out of melon on display near the deli and I snapped a quick photo.

We searched the mall high and low but I didn't find anything suitable for my Dad. I had already bought him something at the Inca market so it wasn't terrible that I didn't find anything but I was disappointed and surprised at the selection at the mall. We bought a little desert in the food court and enjoyed it before we headed back out into the heat.

We went to the restaurant where we had danced the night before for dinner. We were like celebrities, it was comical! They asked us where we were from and if we were going to dance again that night. Good service but the bacon on my bacon burger was not cooked. It would have made me sick if I ate it, I couldn't believe they would serve me such raw pork!

Dan went on a dune buggy adventure. It sounded a little too wild for my taste so I stayed at the hostel and read and talked with other travelers. I met a couple from Belgium who was telling me that on their last trip they traveled around for 6 months and were not robbed even once but within their first week back in Belgium they were robbed. It was a good reminder that getting robbed could happen anywhere and that it isn't something specific to traveling.

Dan got back and showered off the sand and we headed to our night bus which would take us to Arequipa. Saliha was headed to Arequipa as well but had booked with a different company a couple hours later than us. We said our goodbyes and reached the bus pickup location only to find out that the bus was delayed because of a fatal car accident in Lima. The bus arrived two hours past our scheduled departure time. We did at least see a cute little monkey on the roof of the building while we waited =)

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