Lima, Peru (October 15-16th)

October 15th
We arrived in Lima at about 8 in the morning after our night bus then took a cab to our hotel. Our hotel is in the Barranco district of Peru which is only a few streets from the beach. Lima is a huge city! There are approximately 9 million people here.

We got changed and sent our laundry in then caught a city bus to the downtown part of Lima. The traffic here is absolutely insane! Lines and lights have no meaning apparently, potholes have more authority! The drivers love honking and if you want to change lanes you just force your way in, no shoulder checks necessary! Madness! One cabby even had a DVD going on his sun visor and disco lights going to the salsa music on amongst all this- fun ride! In downtown Lima there is the presidential palace and city hall where we watched the changing of the guards ceremony accompanied by a large orchestra. It was interesting to compare it to the one we saw in Quito. We took a tour of the San Francisco cathedral which was really cool. Almost everything on the cathedral is original still with lots of elaborate statues, murals and paintings. There is also one of the oldest libraries in Peru in the cathedral which was neat to look at. Some of the books had paper made from animal hide. We also got a chance to tour the catacombs underneath the cathedral. There is an estimated 25 000 people buried beneath it. When it got too full the bones would be collected and placed into large pits. When you look down into the pit you can see rows and rows of skulls and bones. Cool but very eerie! Afterwards we visited china town and had a quick lunch. Then it was off to the MiraFlores district of Lima where we went to a large craft market. Court got a really nice alpaca sweater. They are so soft and warm!

For dinner we ventured back to the MiraFlores district. This was our last time out with the whole group sadly :( We went to a nearby club for drinks afterwards and some of the girls surprised us by holding an award ceremony for our group. We all got matching bottle openers and they said a little blurb about everyone. It was a really fun night and everyone was sad it had to end!

October 16th
Today was spent saying goodbye to everyone in our group except Hannah and Philly who we will be with for the next section, and welcoming the new group. Court and I both did a bit of shopping around Barranco and wandered down to the beach to soak up some sun. Walking along the boardwalk all through Barranco and into MiraFlores in the sun was a nice way to soak up the city. We had a meet and greet with the new group and checked out a local restaurant.

-Lisa

Picture 1 - view of downtown Lima from the Barranco beach
Picture 2 - downtown Lima
Picture 3 - Barranco
Picture 4 - the best group ever!!