Day 2 Lima

What can I say, i woke up super early... well if you want to call 7 early, mind you did only get a light sleep and got to the hostel really late the night before. Woke up brought my computer down the the common room to write where I met a couple girls from Finland.

The girls were leaving that day, so i started writing on my blog while having a complimentary breakfast from the hostel, a fresh bun with jam and an orange juice and coffee. which were all very good.

After i was done, i promptly got up walked over to a guy that was on his laptop and asked him what his name was and what he was up to.  Quentin from Belgium a quiet man of 25 with a strong personality and eyes that know more than they should, was spending the day looking for a cheap mp3 player to replace the one he lost. so what the hell i joined him to go into the city.
What i realized is that american money is common here but not used all the time. Peruvian Soles are used, but there are many vendors on the street that exchange money... you cant miss them... its a dude in a blue or yellow vest holding a wad of money of the street corner. The vest always brings me to a realization that they are a money exchange not a drug dealer. :)

A taxi into the city was 15 Soles, about 5 dollars, crazy hectic driving, but hey I'm starting to get used to it. about a 20 minute cab ride, Lima is a huge city that stretches over a long distance with over 9 million people.

We arrived in the city centre and decided to walk around to see what we could see, neither of us knew what was around, where we were going and why... just the way i like it.

the main square was quite impressive with many buildings with exquisite architecture, very spanish in nature. Always going where the flow of people were seems to bring you to new places that are common and quite good. I explained that i wanted to take more pictures because its something that i havent done too much in the past my excuse "I guess i didn't want to look like a retarded tourist..."
his  rebuttal "well, its ok cause you are a retarded tourist" ... i had nothing to say to that he was right. hahaha, we had a good laugh.

on our walk we encountered another tourist asking for our help. A German man of about 35 with blondish hair and a nose that looked as if someone had hit it with a blunt instrument told us that he had arrived in Lima the night before only to be mugged with all his belongings and money taken away. The Embassy said they wouldn't give him anything to continue his trip, but would give him a way to get back home. Which i thought would be ok. However, instead of taking the trip home, he was asking for money to go to Cusco so he could see Machu Picchu, not going to lie that is not a cheap trip from a travellers point of view, few hundred dollars at least there and back, which doesnt cover the cost of food and accommodations. We wished him the best and suggested that maybe his family or friends could send him some money western union.

Quentin and I found a place to have some lunch, I suppose you could call what we ordered a steak haha, with rice and ... im not sure what it was called but it came with cold cooked slices of potatoes that was in a sauce that visually resembled pesto. quite good actually, the "steak" was a bit rubbery but tasted good. Can't wash that down with anything but a beer. Cusquena, first beer to try in Peru, have to admit I like it its quite good, amber ale, light, tastes good and goes down smooth.

After lunch we decided to keep exploring, we found a shop that had ... well everything it was like a little market... or wal-mart for lack of a better explanation. Shoes, shorts, t shirts, led TVs, stereo systems, phones, bicycles, stoves... you name it.
found a cheap mp3 player for 99 soles about 33 dollars give or take. but it was the last one and it was the display model, I have to admit I was very impressed with Quentins' Spanish, if he told me he was fluent i wouldn't have known the difference.

well damn he got a discount of 5 percent on the display model, he said "YEAAAH GOT EM!!!" hahaha yeah we knew the exchange rate and it turned out to be about 3 bucks off, but hey a deal is a deal! and no he has some music to listen to as he travels on the bus.

On our walk we saw many police officers, a few with riot shields, I caught a good picture of them.

Walking through the crowded local streets reminded me of the bazar in Kathmandu, people shouting to buy their things from head massagers, plastic kids toys, hard to identify foods in vendors, and insert random item here, shoulder to shoulder, people pushing and trying to get through, smell of perfume, body odour, and cooking meats rose in the air. At this point I am pretty sure someone called me "gringo" ...At the end of one of the blocks there was a couple small carts selling various cooked foods. Quentin decided to get something
"hmm that smells good, but i have no idea what it is!"
I was pretty sure it was pork, but something else caught my eye, another cart with a sweet milky smell aroma drifted into the air from it. fried coconut pieces.
... or chicken... haha no seriously it was coconut... I think.
1 Sol gave me a small paper with "coconut" pieces inside. so good!

wondering around a bit, being honked at by random cars and taxis while we made our way down narrow streets of the market and crossing major roads with hundreds of cars zooming down. I wouldn't say that pedestrians have the right of way here... and I also wouldn't say that the cars do, some will stop others will not... in that respect though I wouldn't expect to win that one if you're a pedestrian.

After wandering around taking random photos and exploring we decided that we need to find a local drink. Pisco sour is a famous cocktail made from a grape type brandy, lemons, egg whites, sirup and bitters from angostura. We caught a cab back to Barranco district close to where the hostel is and found a pub that served Pisco sour and shisha. The atmosphere in Barranco is a lot more calm and relaxed than the inner city. lots of places to sit with shade in parks with fountains and many green trees and shrubs.

Neither of us had tried coffee flavoured shisha before, so we ordered a hooka with coffee shisha and 2 pisco sours. the tastes and aroma filled the air and our taste buds. We spent a couple hours chatting as a cool breeze passed in through the curtains of the open windows.

Some interesting conversation of meditation, the world being made up of energy, everything being connected and how to use what we know about it all.

basically we boiled it down to the fact of the coincidences that we see of how people act and believe brings in life show us that things are connected. There is something else out there that hasn't been completely explained by science yet. But, we also agreed that to understand things on a deeper level, knowledge won't suffice alone we must experience things for ourselves. to go out and experience and give meditation and other similar things a chance, we may actually find something.

Quentin left a couple hours later to go on his way to Huaraz another place that is on my list to go to. Left to my own devices I tried to struck up a conversation with a couple more people from the hostel and what I have found out is that English is not dominate here. I struggled through a couple conversations with broken spanish. a group of young Germans asked me to play some mario cart on the wii that was positioned on a TV above the bar. So i had a few drinks with them before deciding to call it a night.

Today I go to learn Spanish.