Lima - Day 2

Today we went on a 3 hour bus ride of Lima so we got to see all of the districts of the city. At the end of the tour we went to La Iglesia de San Francisco where there was a library with books from before the invention of the printing press. There were also catacombs there, which were terrifying. I just looked away from the bones the whole time, which had been organized by archaeologists. This afternoon we went to Museo de Osma, a muesum that houses colonial religious art which was used to explain Christianity to the natives (and it was all from one man's private collection).

This picture of Jessica and me was taken in front of the Rimác River at the edge of the city. On the mountain in the background there is a giant Peruvian flag and a cross on top. Today was Jessica's birthday so we celebrated by going to a Mid-Eastern restaurant for dinner - once again, great food for less than $5 US.

They love Inca Kola here - a sweet soft drink that tastes like bubble gum. Here's a traffic guard in an Inca Cola stand...

Some things to know about Lima:

- There are NO traffic laws, it's every man for himself... complete madness

- Drivers constantly honk their horns for unknown reasons. Honking is such a problem it's prohibited on certain corners, but that doesn't stop anyone.

- Parque Kennedy is filled with stray cats, even though there's signs all around that say cats are "prohibido" (but I guess the cats can't read Spanish)

- Dogs wear sweaters here, just about all of them!

- Instead of flushing toilet paper, you're supposed to throw it away in the trash can next to the toilet

- The weather stays pretty much the same all of the time - constantly overcast and cold, but it never ever rains in the winter. Today we saw a little bit of blue sky and got excited, but it only lasted about 5 mins. I honestly don't even know why they say the weather on the news because it never really changes.

- There are concrete soccer fields along the beach and the kids play there all morning.

- Shrek is extremely popular and over-advertised for.

- Counterfeit money is a problem here - even counterfeit coins! Every time we pay for something the cashier checks to make sure it isn't counterfeit.

That's all for tonight - we're heading to Cuzco at 3:30am, so we will not only be dealing with altitude sickness, but we'll be doing it on just a few hours of sleep. I'll let you all know how that goes...