There´s a First Time for Everything...

Our nice little room

¡¡Hola Amigos!! ¿Donde esta la cervaza? Anna and Mark here from Sudamérica where the air is as thick as pea soup. We both got a reality check after our first night here with the amount of farewell partying we did back in California. Anna slept like a log and really wouldn´t get up the next day, even if our Hostel was melting into the Earth. Mark on the other hand barely slept do to a few reasons. First, the warm sticky air here made the sheets of his bed turn into Biore Pore Strips, ew? Then the heat... Mark likes fresh cool air to keep his nightmares from becoming hot and malevolent, which is not a possibility in Lima. Next, the only window in our room was on a corner of a small backstreet with a huge wall across from us that created a reverby echo back into our room, making every car sound as if it was flooring it in neutral at the foot of our bed. At last was the little boy from the street side who did the splits-handstand... with every rickety muffler that slammed Mark out of his hot and sticky malevolent pore strip-covered nightmare, he would imagine that cute little Peruvian child sifting through the room looking for our wad of soles ($)...never happened. The room was actually quite nice, with a private bathroom, lively painted walls and view of the ocean from the window.

This squirrel showed up everyday, just chillin' 

The ocean is down there in all that fog

Staircase down to the main floor of the hostel

After getting Anna up around noon, we decided to venture into this new world in which we´d immersed ourselves. We covered each other in anti-bacterial spray, latex bodysuits, gloves and socks, then protective goggles and surgical face masks. Now we could experience the culture first hand... just kidding. We went downstairs and got to see our hostel during the daytime. It had a staircase that wrapped around a small living room area connecting to a big dining room full of small tables with bright Peruvian table covers. Through the dining room was a courtyard with a small bar that sold shots and cerveza´s at a descent price. Here we met the owner of the hostel. He was an English man named Chris who welcomed us, With Arms Wide Open (© Creed 1997) and offered us breakfast, which he said we were a little late for, so we nervously declined. He showed us a cork board in the kitchen covered with pages from a Peruvian cookbook. this was the beginning of Anna´s new found Latin lover... or should we say lovers? One of the pages said ceviche (say-vee-chay) which Chris told us the locals eat as a lunch time meal because it´s light and refreshing. They pair it with a drink from another page, Pisco Sour. It is very similar to a margarita but uses Pisco liquior instead of Tequilla and gets topped with frothy egg whites and a smidgen of cinnamon, plus some other ingredients to tweak with the awesomeness.

Incredible murals are found all over Peru

We left the hostel, after Chris offered us help in every way, and stepped into a world of sounds as bright as the colors splashed on every wall, car and person. Taxis are everywhere, in every make and model, with stickers and numbers all over them, still weavering in and out of each other in a dance that was a chaotic as their random horn taps but as smooth as a Pisco Sour on the beach during a sunset. People are constantly moving this way and that, wearing pinks, yellows, greens and blues... well, you get the picture.

Iglesia La Ermita

We walked up to a park, up the street a block or two and instantly had the camera out, snapping pictures of the beautifully landscaped rose bushes that were briefly interrupted by park benches, huge murals and big metal statues of bulls, horses, religious and political icons, and fountains. The district of Barranco has an old time feel, with a westernized vibe. One city corner has a large cathedral style church with a morbidly awesome statue of a cross with a Jesus head at the center, then bones, skulls and Spanish writing. Across the street is a Starbucks. Up the street from this was where we made our first big purchase with soles. It was peanut butter, jelly, bread, pears, apples, etc... The Metro (supermarket) is a lot like any Safeway or Mi Pueblo back in California. We barely paid our bill without looking like we were totally lost and set out to get sandals for Mark. Anna told him to pack some, but he said not to worry, it´s Peru, we can get sandal anywhere. Well, not knowing how to speak Spanish well at all and every sandal we found being for a little Peruvian foot, not canoe paddles with toenails, meant Mark had to sweat it out in his only pair of socks he brought. He didn´t pack socks either, even though Anna suggested, so he wore hers.

Without breakfast or lunch, we decided to get some grub. Anna noticed a place by the park that goes by the name of Rustica. We said ¨no gracias¨ about ten times as we slid past a man selling packs of Chicklets in one arm and coddling an infant in the other. They really train them early down here. Rustica was our first outing for a meal and our first time having to sit at a table and basically say ¨si, no habla español¨over and over until we realized we agreed to a Peruvian all you can eat buffet. What an overload of flavors, spices and different dishes that was. The buffet table looked like an artist spilled paint on every single dish. Anna loaded up on ceviche while Mark kept going back for some green rice chicken dish. Muy Bueno!

First Peruvian sunset

After pushing our tummies to the limits, we walked to the beach next to our hostel. But first, the Metro for a bottle of wine (twist off of course) then watched our first sunset in Peru. Not as epic as we had hoped. The whole day was overcast with a hazy fog that cleared slightly to see the orange outline of our true creator dip into the Pacific for some skinny dipping. Back to the hostel, exhausted from all the confusion, we went ´home´and called it a night.

Passed out