Vamos a la playa

Buenos dias darllllings,

have just returned from a day at a private beach an hour out of Lima. Yep, thats right an entire beach just to us. Stopped by the beach house for a tour, pity we didn´t have time for a bbq on the roof. Went for lunch earlier at a little roadside cafe-shack-like-food-eatery establishment where we enjoyed a typical peruvian dish of sweet potato, pork, red onion and inca cola...mmmmm....Inca cola by the way, is basically creaming soda mixed with mountain dew. National drink my ass!! Followed lunch with some sunbaking and an afternoon dip in the pacific. After a long walk along the beach at sunset was feeling a little peckish so we stopped in for charcoal chicken and chips at a local outdoor kitchen by the beach. If only we´d had pina colados. And tom cruise mixing them. Without his shirt on....mmmmm. Anyway, big day tomorrow, we´re flying into Cusco to begin our Machu Picchu trek, so will let Cat fill you in re our city experiences yesterday.

ciao,
bo

I am shocked, angry and completely disillusioned with the soft drink makers of Peru. On an outing for Chifa (the word for ´Peruvian Chiense food) in China town in Central Lima yesterday, we had our first taste of Inca Kola. Peru and India are the only 2 countries in the world where the national cola drink, i.e Inca Kola, outsells Coca-Cola. We were presented with what can only be described as Creaming Soda with Caffiene. We tried to explain this to Ivan, but somehow in his whole 2 and a half years in Australia, he has never had creaming soda. Shocking, I know.
So last time we wrote we had gone a bit silly in the Santiago airport. The flight to Lima involved sleep, some chatting to our old mate Baz and lots of sleep. Bo was right about the Charlie Sheen tv show on the plane. After collecting our baggage at Lima, we were greeted by a airport offical wanting our ´luggage tags´. He showed us what he meant, but we had nothing like it and the language barrier made it very hard. I don´t actually know what happened, but eventually he let us go out of customs, where we were greeted by a hoard of people trying to offer us taxis. We couldnt see Ivan, but we could hear that oh so famous whistle he does, and eventually found him and his sister Michelle. We got taken back to the abode of Ivan Senior, where a family gathering was in place. This involved good cheese, meat, alcohol and chocolate mousse cake. (Packet chocolate mousse cake had NOTHING on this!). Eventually, we ended up on a short night time tour of Lima, which involved Bo drinking 2 (count them, 2) whole beers. I am so proud of her.
Yesterday we were awoken by Ivan standing in our doorway at about 1pm. We headed into the centre of Lima, on our way finding Alonso (anyone remember him from 2003?) we came along as well. After a brief visit to China town, we headed for an old Franciscean Monestry, right in the centre of the city. The monastry had it all - a church, a library with books weighing up to 25kg and catacombs. I think one of the highlights was a painting of the Last Supper, complete with Guinea Pig as the main course. Personally, I dont think a Guinea Pig would feed all of the disciples, but I guess Jesus might have made some other meat magically appear. The Catacombs were a bit freaky, they were public and an estimated 25,000 people were buried there. We saw a few wells, mainly consisting of arm, leg and skull bones, that were apparently 10 metres deep. Freaky freaky stuff. They still use the Catacombs to this day if someone wishes to be buried there (but these areas aren´t open to public, thank god).
Next we went into the actual centre of the city, where the President´s house is. Michelle took some photos for us, cos Ivan forgot our cameras, hopefully we will have them to share sometime.
So the Lima experience so far - Ivan, Michelle and their family have been great tour guides, looking after us well. Initially when six of us went to get into a taxi with 4 seats I was aprehensive, but then I remembered that road rules don´t exist in Lima. It´s also becoming second nature to lock all the car doors as soon as we get in the car. Oh and traffic lights, like road rules, barely exist. They even stop working at midnight-ish.
It´s kind of strange, because we keep being told how dangerous the areas we are going to are. The poverty is obvious, you can´t stop at a set of lights without someone trying to sell you something - anything from food to recorders. A lot of children juggle in front of the cars to get money. However, Ivan has been carrying all our belongings, money etc and so I´m feeling pretty safe at all times. This is possibly bad.
Okay, I should go to bed and watch one of the 70 ish channels on my cable tv. Winnie the Pooh is amusing in Spanish - Buenos Dias Christopher Robin, I´ve seen bits of Robin hood men in Tights twice now, plus some kids game show where a tiger was sitting while they did maths or something. Weird.
That´s about it for now. I´m sure I´m missing out some stuff... it feels like weve been here a lot more than 2 days! But check out the pictures for further goodness.
Love, hugs and kisses (the good kind) (oh - I made a family guy joke. Bo might kill me. To bad she is in bed listening to John Farhnam)
Gatita

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