Lima: day two

Another day has flown by!

Today we left the apartment fairly early, after a delicious breakfast of eggs mixed with "typical Peruvian sausage" and fruit/yogurt.

On our way to our tour bus, Patrick made a new friend at the bank.


The place we are staying is in a great location,


close to so many restaurants as well as parque kennedy, where the city tour began. We made it to the tour bus just in time.


We had a great time getting to see the miraflores district where we are staying, as well as downtown Lima.

















During the bus tour, we visited the Cathedral de Lima, which is the oldest cathedral in all of south America!





No cathedral is complete without some skulls and baby coffins.






Also in the cathedral square, we met a dog wearing glasses...


... a lady selling galletas (but I wasn't allowed to stop and buy one:( )



And lots and lots of postcards.





Later, we found the "park of love" complete with dozens of lovestruck teens kissing in the corners.





There were tons of hangliders and surfers at the beach. Although it was pretty overcast today, it is always gorgeous at la playa!





Overall, a fabulous day!

The most fabulous part, you ask? The food of course!! And here you thought this post was finally almost over.

Ever had a chicharron sandwich and a naranja, limon, & manzanita jugo? No? Well I HIGHLY recommend it. Incredible!








But say you are still hungry. Maybe a stop at pescados capitals for some world famous ceviche? Okay, okay, fine. (so fresh and flavorful!)


And for dinner? Let's just say we were adventurous.

Beef heart anticuchos and 21-day-old crispy suckling pig, followed by crema volteada (like flan but 100x better)









Happy hubby. Seriously such incredible food.



Oh yes, and a limonada por mi.




So now I'm stuffed, tired and ready for our next adventure. We head to cusco in the morning to begin our journey to macchu pichu! Wish us luck (still not totally sure we have plane tickets) and that we don't get altitude sickness!

Location:Bellavista,Lima District,Peru

Lima: day one

Dear(South American) Diary,

Well, we finally made it to Lima! After delays at every airport, I wasn't too sure if we would actually ever arrive.

While in Lima we are staying with a "host family" that we connected with through Patrick's best friend from High school, Jon. Jon lived in Lima for two(?) years and lived with the Alvarez family when he first arrived. We figured, for the same price as a hostel, why not get an "experiencia autentica"!

We were greeted at the airport by Edwin, which was fabulous because we were accosted by taxi drivers as soon as we walked out of customs so I was grateful that we didn't have to deal with negotiating a fare.

Patrick sat in the front and brushed up on his Spanish while I took some blurry shots of the drive.



























Can't escape the chains. That would be a burger king, IFC, and pizza hut all in a row.


Lots of Casinos too!

Today was election day so there were signs for the two candidates everywhere!








Unfortunately for our host family, keiko did not win.

We spent some time visiting before eating a delicious home cooked dinner of arroz con pollo (chancho for Mr. Allergic to chicken). And then, of course, we headed out to find the best fried dough in town for dessert. Don't act surprised.














According to my research, that would be the picarones in parque kennedy. Sweet potato donuts, smothered in honey. Someone's a fan...


Delicioso!


Pardon the ijustgotofftheairplaneandlooklikecrap smile.

First impressions: it's much cleaner than we expected, the Alvarez fam is fantastic and our room is great, and I'm falling more in love with Patrick every time he opens his mouth and starts to speak Spanish. It's a whole side if him that I've never seen before and it is so fun.

Clearly I'm exhausted, i just got super cheesy. we are off to bed! Tomorrow we are taking a city tour and hopefully meeting up with Meredith Jones Hendricks sister for dinner!

Xoxo

Location:Bellavista,Lima District,Peru