Huacachina, Wine Tour, and Back to Lima: Day 7

Merry Christmas to all!

Though today did not feel like Christmas at all, but I knew it wouldn't. Being in a strange place where it is summer (south of the equator) in the middle of a desert is very different than any other Christmas I've had before.

Our winery tour was delayed which threw a kink in the day's plans a bit. It was originally set to leave in the morning but was changed to leave at noon, which meant there wouldn't be much time to do anything once we got back. It also meant timing would be weird for lunch, so Jessie, Steph and I went to go try to find an open grocery store to get some food to bring with us. We didn't have much luck, and ended up pretty much getting snacks and juice at a convenience store. Then, in a moment of brilliance, Jessie thought to ask the hotel if they could make some sandwiches to go. Ta da. Lunch!


We were loaded into another van for our winery tour, with the company of a couple from Normandy, France. We went to four wineries, though three of them were all right next to each other. It was interesting to see where they make the wine and pisco (the local drink). It doesn't really look like the wineries you're envisioning, I'm sure. It's still small-village Peru, which means they're not fancy facilities by any means and it still looks like developing country. Jim and the others reported that the "wines" were more like liquors, and the pisco is sort of like tequilla.

We returned to the hotel about three hours after we left, which meant Jim and I had one precious hour before we had to leave for our bus. We decided to stay close just in case of a problem, so we walked around the oasis area (since we hadn't seen it in daylight really). It seemed like it was no time at all and it was already time to say goodbye to Erik, Steph, and Jessie and go to the bus station all by ourselves.

Jim and I usually travel with just the two of us, yet for this trip since we've been with the others until now, it feels a little strange. We'll get the hang of it again, but we do miss our friends.

The bus ride back to Lima was pretty much just like the bus ride to Ica. Jim and I were in the same seats with the same attendant. The second movie (same one) was even cut off in the same place. That was mildly amusing. Jim and I thankfully were able to catch a taxi and get back into Jessie's apartment with her key and code with no problems, thank goodness. I was a little apprehensive of that for no good reason. I had checked my bag to be sure I still had the keys about 20,000,000 times on the way. :) (Erik-- I blame you since you asked me if I had them as the cab was leaving the hotel, haha.)

So here we are. Jim and I will catch our plane to Cuzco in the morning. We'll spend the day/night in Cuzco and catch the train to Aguas Calientes the next morning. We'll spend the day/night in Aguas Calientes (which means 'hot water', it's a small hot spring town, the nearest town to Machu Picchu), then catch a bus early in the morning to Machu Picchu. We plan to spend a whole day at the ruins... unless we get bored, which I doubt but you never know. Then we'll spend the night in Aguas Calientes again, catch the train to Ollanta early the next morning, explore Ollanta for a while, then get a bus to Cuzco from there. We'll spend Thursday night in Cuzco, catch the plane back to Lima Friday morning, spend Friday night at Jessie's again to collect our lugguge... then back to the states on New Year's Eve. We'll literally be taking off as the clock strikes midnight here. I'm not sure how much internet connection we'll have between now and then, but I'll update as we are able. Love to all.

Travel to Huacachina, Ica (Desert Oasis): Day 6

After grabbing breakfast and finishing up with some packing, we headed out for the Cruz Del Sur terminal to catch our 11:00 bus to Ica (That really left around 11:20). Ica is pronounced like eek-uh.

The Cruz Del Sur buses are really very nice… the seats are big and plush, they have nice footrests, there is a restroom on board (though they stress you can only use it for no. 1, lol), they provided a snack, and movies played onboard. The movies cracked me up because they were English language movies, played with audio dubbing in Spanish, with English subtitles. The four hour ride south on the Pan-American highway along the coast was much more pleasant than our jaunt up north in the van a few days prior. Maybe I'm getting old, but I'll admit… it was nice.

On the drive down we had a nice view of the ocean on our right and sand dunes to our left. There are many broken down buildings and small towns along the way. It looks a lot like places we've seen in India and South African townships, only less dense, but very impoverished. This is the most impoverished area that Jim's ever seen and I don't think he was expecting it. I can't say I was expecting to find it in such a state here, but I'm sorry to say that I've seen worse. There are even small rickshaw-like vehicles in the smaller towns (we didn't see them in Lima/Miraflores but we did see them on the way to Caral the other day)… I'm not sure what they're called here. (edit: Jessie says they're just called 'mototaxis'.)

When we arrived at our bus terminal we caught a small taxi-like thing that was again like something you'd see in India, and it was a short 7 minute drive to our hotel from there.

Ica is a city in the desert. We are staying specifically at an oasis (literally) in the middle of the desert next to the city called Huacachina. It's a cute little area with the oasis (lake?) in the center with hotels, restaurants, palm trees, and buildings surrounding that… all encompassed by massively large sand dunes. At least, they look massive to me, the biggest I've seen… but seeing as the only sand dunes I've been to before are the great sand dunes in southern Colorado, these may very well be shrimpy, who knows. :) All I know is that an oasis is something that I read about in story books as a kid… but in some ways didn't really believed they existed until I got here. It just hit me that, wow… this is a real oasis. That probably seems silly but it's true. The others felt the same way. I'm glad we came.

The hotel is very nice for the area (makes you feel a little guilty), yet only costs about $60US per night. The rooms are clean but simple, with a single pillow for each person, a single night stand with a lamp, a small lock box, one towel per person, and some small soaps by the sink. There are two small framed pictures on the wall, smaller than 8x10s. Since we are in the desert the weather allows for outdoor walking areas motel-style that surround a pool area complete with its own little restaurant and bar.

After leaving our things in our rooms we went down to chat by the pool and eat dinner for a while. (It is Christmas Eve so the menu was rather limited… I had a Peruvian take on a hamburger that included bananas, it was interesting.) (Jim addition: I had a shredded chicken club sandwich that was quite tasty - though, they seem to like to strip bread of its crust in this region -- this saddens me, as I rather enjoy crust.) Erik, Steph, and Jessie went to go chill in their room after that while Jim and I went to climb the giant dune behind the hotel at sunset/dusk. The sand felt so good on my bare feet. Dusk was a great time to go because the sand still had some warmth to it, but the air was a pleasant temperature and there was a breeze so we weren't too hot. I'm sure my legs will just be even more sore tomorrow (they hadn't really recovered yet and felt like jello when we got to the top) but the view was totally worth it. It was spectacular. Hopefully Jim will post some pictures because words cannot do it justice. You could see all of Huacachina (the oasis area) below, and to the other side of the dune you could see the Ica city lights.

Maybe some day we will come back here. You can ride these monstrous dune buggies (they seat something like 10 people) around the dunes… but Jim won't let me do it because he's worried about me being pregnant and he doesn't want to push his back since he has bad discs. He's probably right. It looks like tons of fun though. You can also go sledding/skiing/sandboarding down the dunes. For now, walking on the dunes will have to be enough. It was still really cool.

When we got back Steph, Jessie, Jim and I went walking around the little town. (Erik was starting to feel not-so-hot again so he went to bed early just in case.) We found a shop that sold little gas station style ice cream (but Peruvian brands, different than home) out of a cooler… they were delicious. We ate them while sitting in the dark on a wall surrounding the oasis water and just chatted about how Peru is much more of a developing nation (not as developed) as we were expecting. Just goes to show you to never have preconceived notions. I can handle it and it's fine, it's just not what I thought it was going to be. But that's why you travel, you know… the more you know, the more you know you don't know. That's one of the most important things that I learned on Semester at Sea and it's something that I've learned over and again.

Apparently there is wine country around here, so tomorrow we are going on a wine tour. Peruvian wine was the no. 1 requested item from my family when I asked them what they wanted… so even though I can't have any, my hope is to have Jim and the others taste out some good stuff for us so I can have it shipped back home. After that we'll see what we can fit in before we have to catch our bus back to Lima at 5pm. I would like to have more time here, but since Jessie couldn't join us until today and we want to be sure to have enough time for Machu Picchu, Jim and I have to get back. Erik, Steph, and Jessie are staying here for three nights then heading back to Lima (I thought they were going to go to a beach house in Asia, Peru [a town] but they're not). Steph and Erik did not want to join us to Machu Picchu so Jim and I are doing that part on our own. So tomorrow, we will part ways.

Laying Low: Day 5

We all needed a day of rest. Today was pretty uneventful... we hung around the apartment, grabbed lunch from Larcomar (the mall across the street), did laundry and dishes, took naps, splurged on massages at the Marriott down the block, and made dinner at the apartment. Luckily Jim and Erik are pretty much feeling back to normal, just still a little low on energy.

Some of Jessie's embassy friends are over now and we are going to go to Karaoke in a while. Jim and I probably won't really participate but we'll still go out.

Tomorrow morning we catch our bus to Ica for a new adventure with Jessie, Erik, and Steph. Jim and I will part ways with them Christmas evening on the 25th, when they go south to a beach house and we head back to Lima to catch a plane to Cuzco... then a train to Aguas Calientes then a bus to Machu Picchu! I'm looking forward to it!

PS- Samuel has been kicking around in my tummy and Jim says I already look bigger since we got here. Growth spurt!

Caral and Other Ancient Ruins: Day 4

Yesterday (Thursday, December 22nd) was a very, very long day.

Unfortunately we discovered when we got up at 5:30am that Erik had spent the night up sick and there was simply no way he was going to be able to go on the trip with us. Jim still wasn't feeling great, but well enough to go. We felt bad leaving Erik, but there really wasn't an alternative since the trip was already booked and prepaid. So Jim, Steph, and I got ready and were out the door by 6:30 to meet the taxi to drop us off in front of the tour office.

We packed into the tour van with the other passengers for the day... a couple from Germany (though the woman was originally from Peru) and an elderly mother and her two daughters from Barcelona, Spain (pronounced Barrthelohna, thank you very much). We filled 8 out of the 9 passenger seats... Erik would have been the ninth. It was a long, grueling 3.5 hour ride to Caral. I get carsick easily, and since the traffic in Lima is stop-and-go in a way I can't even describe, the roads for part of the ride were very bumpy, and we were in the back with little air flow... I felt pretty awful. Jim was in the same boat since he still wasn't feeling well from the day before. We picked up some crackers at the one rest stop in the middle, which helped a little, but we were so very grateful when we finally arrived at Caral after the last 23km of bumpy dirt road off the main highway.

Caral is in the middle of a desert area. It's no wonder that this massive complex of ancient ruins (the oldest known civilization in the Americas by my understanding, about 5,000 years old) went undiscovered until 1994... it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It is next to a river, which is where the ancient people farmed and got their water. There are older ruins in the Americas, but this is the oldest full civilization. Tourism of this area is still pretty new and not very well known, so the buildings there for tickets, restrooms, and lunch tables are pretty new. There were only two other small groups there aside from our group, so it felt like we had the place practically to ourselves.


The tour of the ruins lasted about an hour and a half. The tour guide that works full time at Caral led the tour in Spanish for the other tourists with us, and then our tour guide Enrique (that brought us to the site) translated it into English for the three of us, which was very nice of him. Unfortunately, that meant that our little pack of three was behind the rest of the group the entire time, but oh well. There were several step pyramids, temples, round kiva-like ceremonial sites, and living areas for the priests. Caral was a holy area, so only priests and the upper class lived there (middle/lower class lived in nearby settlements).


The paths around the ruins are all lined with a local desert plant called Achupalla (ah-choo-pay-uh) which I find absolutely fascinating. It's an air plant of sorts, in that it has no root system and gathers its water from the air. You can literally just pick these up and put them back down wherever you want.

Lunch was provided after the tour. Since Caral is in the middle of nowhere, that is literally the only choice for sustenance. They gave us chicken with some unidentified delicious green sauce, a full potato, a full sweet potato, and Incan corn (which has large kernels and generally not much taste, I prefer good ol' sweet corn). They also gave us chicha morada, the purple corn drink. It was delicious but a lot of starch, so I wasn't able to finish the corn/sweet potato but still felt hungry not long after lunch. Good thing we packed some snacks to eat in the van. We weren't the only ones that would be snacking on the drive.


Unbeknownst to us we were also to visit two more places that day (we thought we'd go to Caral and then come back). We drove about half an hour to a small museum in Vegueta, which was mildly interesting but so small I'm not sure it was worth the extra time to get there, then back north to Bandurria, another set of ruins/temples next to the ocean. They were also neat, but by 4:30 when we finally got in the van to leave we were getting antsy to get back to Erik and still had a 3.5 hour drive back to Miraflores.

The drive back wasn't any better than the drive to Caral... in fact, the traffic once in Lima was even worse, it was late, I was super hungry by the time 7:00 rolled around (and we were still stuck in traffic), and the car sickness had returned. The driving in Lima... well, imagine accelerating as much as possible for five feet, then slamming on the brakes, and repeating every 3 seconds for two hours. Bleh. It felt rather unnecessary. When they finally dropped us back off by the tour office, we happily grabbed a cab. (Jim addition for humor: imagine 3,000 people doing a powdery substance popular in the 80's, hopping in their cars and all trying to get through a 6-way intersection in East Boston - words simply fail to describe just how inconceivably psychotic it is. Also, at one point, we literally "hung" with about 5 police over an 8 block area and derived one simple question: what is it that a) traffic police actually do here, b) what, honestly, could they possibly do?)
Jessie had amazingly ordered some pizza for us (since it was so late and we didn't have the energy to go anywhere) that arrived just as we did. She became my favorite person in the whole wide world in that moment... I was so happy to be still and have food. We also ordered what ended up being a ton of miso soup and rice (to meet the order minimum) for Erik since he was recovering from being sick and hadn't eaten anything that day, which we all also helped eat.

All in all it was worth enduring the car sickness and the drive to see the ruins, but we all agreed that it would be best to lay low the next day. Erik was recovering, Jim was recovering, and we were all simply exhausted and sore.

Eating Well and Ruins in Lima: Day 3

**Note: I wrote about a loud noise that shook the walls a few nights ago. Jessie found out that it was actually a natural gas house explosion down the street. Luckily the house was unoccupied, so there were no fatalities and only one minor injury. It sounds like there was a gas leak that was ultimately ignited by a light.**

Today was a very busy day (we walked miles and miles) and we have to get up super early for our trip to Caral tomorrow, so this will be relatively brief for as much as we packed in for one day. I'm pretty exhausted so please forgive any weird grammar issues, but I'm afraid that if I don't write now it will never happen since tomorrow is just as busy! (And I must say, after all of the stair climbing yesterday and all of the walking today, my calves are quite sore!)

After wandering around by foot in the morning trying to find our way back to Crepes and Waffles, we finally had our breakfast and headed out by cab to Parque Kennedy. We were seeking the "Inca Market" that Jessie had told us about... we didn't find it there (a small, disappointing market was there instead), but we did find a place to print out our official passes to Machu Picchu since Jessie doesn't have a printer and we got some cold drinks before heading out on foot for our next destination, Huaca Pucllana.

On the way there we found a computer megastore... more like a mall filled with nothing but electronics stores... and since Jim, Erik, and Steph are all geeks of course we had to go wander through it. Further down the street we *did* find the "real" Inca Market, in a place we weren't expecting it to be (actually Plaza Inca), so we spent a little time wandering around looking at the trinkets and local handicrafts. Steph was very amused by a shirt with a picture of a llama on a motorcycle that said "llamaha" (you know, like Yamaha, since ll is pronounced like y).

It was about noon by the time we arrived at Huaca Pucllana, the ruins that are right in Miraflores. Admission was about 12 soles per person, or around 5 US dollars. It is an adobe pyramid thought to be used for ceremonial purposes by the Lima people from about AD 200 to 500. We waited around for our tour for around 45 minutes or so (you can't take yourself on a tour) and the tour itself lasted for around 45 minutes. All of the mud bricks in the structure were formed by hand and dried in the sun. They place them vertically in a "bookshelf" style, which is why they can withstand seismic activity since earthquakes are common. They repeated that the traditional ceremonial/feast dish was shark meat about four times, so I suppose we won't be forgetting that any time soon! They also had a section that showed many of the animals and crops that were raised there at that time, petting zoo/garden style (live animals and plants). We had a good time looking at the llamas, alpacas (different from the other llamas), cuy (guinea pigs, so cute!), ducks, corn, quinoa, yuca, and sweet potato.

Right at the entrance of the ruins is a high-end restaurant, Restaurant Huaca Pucllana, which has a beautiful large porch dining area that overlooks the ruins. They had hands down THE best butter I'd ever tasted until that point for the dinner rolls (topped only by the butter we would later have at dinner, coming soon) and superb dishes. Jim and I decided on goat cheese ravioli with a pumpkin sauce (we were a little meated-out at that point) while Erik and Steph had fish dishes. We all agreed it was the best meal so far.

Since it was getting to be pretty late, just after 4:00pm, we decided to just look at it from outside the fence and then catch a cab to our last stop, the Plaza de Armas or city center in central Lima (it was too far away to walk).


We set out on foot once more to a restored pyramid similar to the previous ruins about half a mile away (or maybe more), Huaca Huallamarca. The Plaza de Armas is a very pretty square with the palace and a beautiful cathedral surrounding a large fountain. We wandered around until after five, then we took a cab back to Jessie's apartment in Miraflores.

Jessie took us to dinner at a restaurant she'd been wanting to try by the water's edge. I can't remember the name at the moment, it started with a C and that's all I've got. :) All I know is that dinner topped lunch and the atmosphere was amazing... we were up on a balcony overlooking the waves of the Pacific Ocean as the sun set. The food was awesome and the rolls were served with three... count them, three... flavors of amazing butter: original, olive, and chili/cheese. Most of us had some sort of fish (I had grouper and prawns) with different flavors of risotto which were all very good, and we split a couple of beautifully arranged desserts amongst us.

They say that Lima is an up and coming food capital of the world, and I would agree. Yes, Jim and I tend to focus a lot on the food when we travel. Trying new things (and new interpretations of old things) is half of the fun!

We were all dead tired when we got home. Poor Jim isn't feeling very well (may be a light traveler's stomach bug) so he went straight to bed and is sleeping as I write. We have to get up at around 5:30am to catch our tour to Caral, so I just hope that he gets a good night's rest and is feeling better by the time morning comes. It is a three hour bus ride to our destination, so maybe he'll be able to take a nap.

As of yesterday the baby in the oven has decided it's pretty fun to start kicking around in my tummy at around bed time, so he'll probably keep me up again tonight. :) Happy resting everyone!

-Sarah

Day 2 in Lima

Jim, Erik and I had a fabulous lunch just a few blocks from Jessie's apartment while Steph stayed at the apartment to sleep off her sickness. We each had a different kind of Ceviche. Mine was a more traditional ceviche common to the north, Erik had one with a mix of several types of seafood, and Jim had one with three kinds of chili powder. Believe it or not, Jim won on the ordering... his dish wasn't that spicy and I'd say it was the best of the bunch.

Afterward we took a path down from the top of the cliffs where most of the restaurants and housing are down to the beach, which was quite the little hike. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the beach, watching the surfers, gazing at the crabs, and exploring a little restaurant/shop area down there before hiking back up. The beaches are mostly rock, not sand, so not exactly the type where you want to be laying out and chilling. It seems that surfing is pretty big around this area. They do lessons... I might have considered it if I weren't pregnant, but that's okay, there will be another chance sometime.

We went back up to Jessie's place and took short catnaps while we waited for her to get home from work so we could head out for our next adventure. Luckily Steph was starting to feel better so when Jessie got home we all were able to head out together.

We walked about 20 minutes to a tour office to book a tour for Thursday to Caral, supposedly the oldest known civilization in the Americas. After that we headed to a restaurant near Kennady Park, and Jim and I both tried the alpaca, which was quite good. Mine was served on mashed sweet potato and Jim's was served on a cheesy risotto... once again Jim won on the ordering. While mine was delicious, his was exquisite. Alpaca is good, it tastes like something between beef and lamb. We all tried a glass of Inca Kola, the local soda which is supposed to be flavored with limon but tastes more like bubble gum.

We visited a small nearby market before heading to a custom shoe shop, Calzado Moore. I guess it's really popular with all of the diplomats and embassy workers in Lima, and Jessie had promised Stephanie a pair of custom boots for Christmas so we had to knock that off the list. This place makes leather/designer shoes and everything is made in-house. While Steph ordered her boots we might have all (at least, all of the women) bought some sandals that were on sale and I *might* have gotten a pair of comfy flats (sort of mary-jane-esque) that will work well for teaching. ;) I got both the sandals and the flats for 100 soles total, which equates to about $38 US, so I thought for two pairs of super comfy leather shoes that wasn't too bad of a deal! No way I'd find anything that look like these do in the states. We are calling that my Christmas present from Jim.

After the walk home we planned for tomorrow and pretty much called it a night. We'll start off by going to a waffle joint in the morning that Jessie says we *have* to go to, then we'll check out a market, a couple of different ruins right in Lima, visit the Plaza de Armas... then Jessie will meet us in central Lima for dinner and a fountain/light show that is supposedly cool. Better get to bed! (If we can sleep, it sounds like there is a party next door and the music is BLASTING... ha! It's Pitbull, which makes me laugh.)

-Sarah and Jim

Day 1 in Lima

Yesterday (Monday, December 19th) was a day full of errands.

After a lazy morning at Jessie's apartment recouping from travel exhaustion and making plans, etc. we headed out. (Jim and I, in typical fashion, had tried to be as ready as possible to leave ahead of time but still only ended up getting two hours of sleep the night before we got on the plane. Ugh, we do that every time no matter how hard we try. :( )

We met Jessie for lunch at a wonderful buffet restaurant called Polo Marino close to the US embassy (where she works) that had really good ceviche, sushi, and Peruvian dishes. My first taste of Lima's famous ceviche was very good and I'm looking forward to having more before we leave. The boys tried a local purple corn drink called chicha morada. I had some of Jim's and it was really good, just very very sweet, so I was glad I hadn't ordered a full glass for myself. I wouldn't have been able to finish it! I had a frozen limeade-type drink instead.

Following the meal we headed out for our errands. Jim and I were able to make reservations for our flights to Cuzco from Lima and the Machu Picchu tickets online, but you have to pay in person (or at lease we did; our cards wouldn't work on their sites online). Our first stop was to an ATM to withdraw money. Jim accidentally withdrew US dollars not realizing the machine could give us dollars instead of Soles (pronounced so-lace, the local currency)... so then we ended up at nearby Citibank to exchange the US dollars into soles. Luckily the woman at the counter was very nice; we got a good exchange rate with no exchange fee and she even helped us by making a little map to our next destination... Banco de la Nacion... all with our combined broken Spanish.

Between the four of us we can roughly communicate basics in Spanish, haha. Steph took 5 years of Spanish and teaches high school with a large population of Spanish speakers with whom she's been practicing, so hers is the strongest. Jim took Spanish in high school, but hasn't used it in over 10 years so he's forgotten most of it but still knows some basic phrases. I took French and Latin in high school/college (not fluent but I can fend for myself), so I can read most signs using root words and cognates... I picked up a little bit of basic Spanish during the kids' Spanish classes they have in my room on Fridays (greetings, animals, and fruit, hahaha), and I have my trusty Spanish Lonely Planet phrasebook. Erik speaks a few basic phrases from what I can tell. Between all of that we manage to get around.

We walked quite some ways to Banco de la Nacion to pay for our Machu Picchu tickets. After waiting in a line that would win the "Longest Line not in an Amusement Park" category for about half an hour, it took about one minute to present our reservation paper, pay for the tickets, and get our confirmation. Using my broken Spanish I said "Pagar Machu Picchu, por favor" (Pay Machu Picchu, please... I know, primitive!) and that got the point across. Haha. (Jessie thinks that between Christmas coming up, which is of course also celebrated here, and the possibility that today was payday for a lot of people, that could have been the cause for the long lines at the banks.)

Afterward we headed back to Jessie's place in Miraflores by taxi... Jim and I had more to do but I think Erik and Steph were a little tired of waiting on us and wanted naps, so we went back out on our own.

Driving in Lima is a lot like several other big cities I've been to that are not in the US. Trust me people, driving in Boston (which I'm not brave enough to do, btw), is nothing compared to traffic in most cities around the world. It's not quite as crazy here as, say, India or Vietnam, but it's not too far off. Erik describes it as a giant game of Marco Polo, whereby the driver honks "Marco" and the other drivers honk back "Polo" so everyone knows you're there as you weave your way in and out of traffic, stick your nose out to turn in the middle of traffic, and drive in two lanes at once. Fun cab rides, let me tell you. :) I'm used to it though. Still not quite as fun as rickshaws in India.

So Jim and I got into another cab to go to the Star Peru office to pay for our airline tickets to Cuzco. It was pleasantly uneventful. We visited a local grocery store to replace some of the milk and cereal we ate at Jessie's apartment and pick up a few other things, then got another cab back to Miraflores.

Except even with the address handed to him and telling the cab driver that the apartment was across from Larcomar, the cab driver dropped us off a mile or two from Jessie's place and we didn't realize it until we got out. We're still getting familiar with where we are and how things look. We didn't know how far off we were, but knew what direction to head since it was on the walkway by the coast overlooking the ocean, so Jim and I had a nice half hour walk back from there. At least the views were very pretty! The fog had rolled in, which added a peaceful feel to everything.

Back at Jessie's place we regrouped and then headed out to dinner at a great restaurant named Tanta. We had some great Peruvian dishes (I should have written down the names, mine was beef with potatoes and onions Peruvian style) and juices.

Unfortunately on the walk back home Steph started feeling sick. We're still not sure if it was just a bad sugar crash or if it's travel related or what. Either way, we dropped them off and then Jim and I went down to the park and Larcomar area across the street.

Jim took several nighttime shots of the skyline, then we headed down to the three story mall that is built into the cliffside there. We just wanted to check it out since it was so close. It was pretty much a bunch of stuff that you would find in US malls with the same prices, so not too exciting. We headed back as everything started closing down around 10pm.

Jim and Erik stayed up chatting like two teenage girls at a sleepover (they will kill me for saying it but they're such a cute pair of friends) until around midnight while I drifted off on the couch before heading to bed.

We were all woken up in the middle of the night by a big boom that shook the walls. It definitely wasn't thunder. We still don't know what it was... nobody on the streets acted out of the ordinary and there is nothing in the news about a bomb or anything like that, so we'll probably never know. Oh well, we were fine, it was just a big noise.

Since Steph was still feeling sick we ended up having another lazy morning around the apartment (hence me having time to write this, lol) even though we had intended to go out and do stuff hoping she might start feeling better. It's lunch time and she's still feeling ill though, so the three of us are going to head out to get some lunch and maybe stay close to the area today. I hope Steph starts to feel better!!

-Sarah (and Jim)