Lima

Well, we survived Lima, Peru.

When we arrived on Friday night, we checked into our 8 person hostel room and settled in.

It was a relatively good hostel so if you ever go to Lima, Family House Hostel is my recommendation. The water pressure wasn't very good and the breakfast was just bread and jam or butter but it's a good location and the staff was helpful.

We met an English guy, Josh, who came out to dinner with us. We went to the downtown strip where there are tons of restaurants and bars. Restaurant workers stand outside their restaurants and slightly aggressively try to show us their menus.

We finally picked a place and we each got the Peruvian national drink, Pisco Sour. It's so yummy! It's a frozen drink that tastes like a mix between a mojito and a Margarita.

Josh and I shared chicken kabobs and fries. Then we went home and went to bed kinda early cause we were exhausted!

We got up early the next morning to start our free, relatively unplanned day in Lima. We first saw some ancient Inca ruins which was pretty interesting. There are beret ones but they were a 40 minute drive from our hostel and we didn't have the time or the money to do that. But I bought a ring and earrings at the gift shop for super super cheap!

We then took a cab to central Lima with will if the cathedrals and government buildings are. It was so beautiful. There was a huge line of people outside of the cathedral of San Francisco with bouquets of flowers to give. There were also school children that started and kept saying hello to us when we passed... We don't blend in a well here compared to Buenos Aires. There's definitely a huge indigenous population in Peru where in Buenos Aires, they barely exist anymore... similar to the indigenous Americans.

We wanted to look at done ships so we went to the market... Holy shit this is the biggest market I've ever seen! There were three floors full of fruit shops, meat shops, seafood shops, and some clothing.

Then we got hungry and went to China town for yummy street food lunch. I got a big spring roll and this other thing that was yummy beef wrapped in this great tasting bread. The bread was so soft and chewy and sweet.

Then we got ice cream, we got lomita flavor which is a native fruit of Peru.

After that it was time to meet up with the taxi drivers that dropped us off. But obviously something bad had to happen.

We were walking back toward the cathedral (our meeting spot) but I've we got there, we realized it wasn't the right cathedral. But we speed another one a few blocks away so we walked to that one... Wasn't the right one either.

Crap. There are to many couches in this city.

So we could tell we weren't in the best neighborhood and need to find our way back asap.

Sheridan and I stopped at a kiosko and asked for directions. A guy that couldn't have been older than 17 walked up to buy something. He was looking at us but that happens all the time here and we didn't even think about it.

Then when we knew the road we were going down, the guy and a younger boy followed us.

Apparently, they have been following us for blocks and Sheridan and I didn't notice cause we were directing.

So Carla started freaking out which is obviously the last thing you want to do in a dangerous situation. We knew where we were going, we knew our surroundings and we could do nothing but make the best of our situation and be strategic and smart.

I had everyone cross the street (there weren't many cars) and we walked a but faster until we reached a more populated area where we felt safer.

The boys weren't following us anymore but we were 15 minutes late on our meeting time with the taxi drivers. They weren't there so Sheridan called one of their cellphones and they picked us up.

Sheridan, Mindee and my driver was really nice, telling us about Lima and things to do. Unfortunately we didn't have longer to stay in the city.

The divers dropped us off at Parque de Amor which is close to our hostel. It was such a beautiful park in the cliff looking of into the Pacific ocean and it's surfers. A bit down the cliff were parachuters!

They would get wind under their parachutes and walk of the side of the cliff and just glide around.

After hanging out at the park for a bit we walked down probably 1,000 stairs to reach the beach. The beach reminded me of southern Spain's beaches-smooth rocks.

We heard back to the hostel and we went it to dinner with Josh again. What a character he is. He's so in your face and wants the punk rocker look (he got his lip pierced in the US). He just came from the US where he traveled all around for 4 months: Philadelphia, Tennessee, Florida, California, Arizona, Idaho, everywhere! He said he loved it.

We stored at this random restaurant who promoted good happy hour specials and had dinner there.

We all had two drinks... TWO (Josh had three). And we were all so drunk... Idk what they put in their drinks in South America but they get you hammered so fast.

Sheridan, Sam, Josh and I also had great, intense discussions/debates. They were about everything: gun control, universal health care, music, etc.

I love those kind of discussions because I see someone else's unique point of view. Sheridan was the existentialist of the group, every conversation went back to us all being human and really not knowing any answers. I'd so true though.

We were there for about 3 hours before we headed home