Livin' It Up In Lima

I arrived in Ayacucho, Peru, at 8 AM this morning after an 11 hour bus ride last night from Lima. Somehow I came up with this great plan to party all night on Thursday and not sleep so I could sleep on the bus. Even though I had a blast with a bunch of people I met at the hostel, I'm still trying to recover from the festivities of that night.

Lima was much more than I expected. Lima is made up of 5 or 6 municipalities that are essentially different towns. They vote for their own mayor, have their own police force and fire department, and are in charge of their own utilities. I stayed in the nicest and richest one, Miraflores. It was very modern and clean but yet still had a charm that you only find outside of the USA and Western Europe. My first day I walked around Miraflores and ending up taking a tour of Huaca Pucllano. These ancient ruins existed from 200 A.D. to 700 A.D. There were many sacrifices there as the priests who governed a number of surrounding valleys wanted to show their complete dominance. The once great pyramid was built using 7 levels. The government is slowy unearthing it as well as trying to recreate it.

Thursday two hostel-mates and I went on a open air bus tour of Lima. It was a bit pricey but we got to see almost all of Lima. I expected downtown Lima to be the typical 2nd or 3rd world city, rundown and borderline desolate. But it wasn't. In fact it still has a great number of buildings from the 17 and 1800's. So that alone surprised me. We stopped by the Monastery of San Francisco towards the end of the trip to see the 16th Century church as well as the catacombs beneath it. While we were there we got to see a taping of either a commericial or promos for a show or movie. It had a number of Peruvian women dressed up in 17th Century clothes.

I had a great time in Lima. Like I always say though, you could be in one of the worst places in the world and still have a good time as long as you have a good place to stay and are surrounded by great people. Both of which I was once again so fortunate to have. I was going to post some pictures along with this entry but I have come to find out that my USB thumb drive for my memory card is gone. Im assuming I left it at home. SOOO Im going to try to by one in Cuzco as most of the stores here are closed. Until then, cheers.