Lima Livin'

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So after the uneventful flight from North America to Lima, Peru (I guess I shouldn't be complaining) we welcomed the heat. With the airline flights and such, it worked out that Lima was a stop-over on our way to Bolivia.

Lima was somewhat nicer than I expected - minus the insane driving there, that is. Actually, we got into a bit of an accident. A Peruvian family (that my family became friends with when they were down in Canada on vacation) picked us up from the airport. Allison, Alex, and I went in one of the two cars with the younger guy, which happened to be the car that would get into a small accident. So that was a nice little wake-up call (Welcome to Lima - *crash*). It was actually just a bump, and considering the traffic "rules" down here, I would have been hit about 5 times if I were driving. Our Peruvian friend just played off the taxi-driver we hit. Simple as that.

But at first glance, our impression was good. Nice airport with user-friendly signs, nice weather, etc. So basically, the Peruvian family drove all around Lima for the day, as we had a flight to Juliaca in the late afternoon. In between the downtown and beachfront sight-seeing, we stopped at a typical Peruvian restaurant, where they served us ceviche among many other plates, with Cusqueña beer of course, haha...

Parts of downtown were very modern and such, but it was heart-breaking to see a little girl beg for the water bottle in a man's hand, and seeing him yell at her to stop bothering him... If I hadn't been in the car at the time, I swear...

Anyway, shortly after, it was time to return to the airport, and we were off to Juliaca, Peru, the next stop-over on our journey to Bolivia.

I must say the anticipation to see Bolivia couldn't have been greater. Being half-Bolivian, but never having been there in 18 years, you can imagine. Also, apart from my dad, my Chilean mother, and Bolivian-born brother and sister have not been back to Bolivia in about 20-some years.... Long time, eh?

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