Day 4: Ceviche but no ice cream

We woke up late, just in time to check out and put our bags in storage. We ate breakfast at the hostel and then walked up Arequipa St and then down a residential street to an archeological site called Huaca Pucllana.

It´s the site of a massive temple. It had been built near the ocean, one of the people´s greatest gods, but the coast had moved over time so now the site is farther inland. The section that we saw is only a tiny portion of an enormous area full of temples (complete with bones of sacrifices) on which the city of Lima was built. The portion that had been somewhat excavated and restored was a hill only thirty or so years ago and had to be bought from a rich family that owned much of the land in the area in order for archeological exploration.

Our guide, Alejandro, was very good and spoke English very well (especially considering he claimed to have learned it through giving tours). The whole site was fascinating and it was great to see it, as it was our first archeological site of our trip.

We wandered back to Parque Kennedy after grabbing some coffee, hanging out until it was late enough for lunch (usually 12:30-1:30pm, as we´ve realized). Alejandro had suggested a good, cheap cevicheria, where we learned about set menus--of increasing price (but only about S/6 to S/ 9)--with different options for sopa, segundos, y postre. The ceviche was wonderful, and the rest of the meal was so good.

From there we walked to another area of Miraflores and sat in a park watching the numerous sanitation workers do upkeep. They all wear masks or fabric to cover their nose and mouth while working. All over Peru.

Running out of places to go, we decided to search for an ice cream place we had passed previously. I swear, it disappeared and we could not find it no matter how many times we wandered through the same area. So we grabbed snacks from the grocery store (pan) and walked back through the park. We noticed some guys pointing and taking pictures of us, so we returned to the hostel to wait for the bus.

We played go fish, finished our bag of goldfish (from airport snacks), and talked to the strange american with the bracelets. We mentioned that we´d had ceviche. He countered with a story about how he´d gone somewhere with four different sizes of ceviche, so he got the second to largest. Very interesting guy.

There was a miscommunication in terms of timing and, thinking we were late, we hurried to grab a taxi to get to the Cruz del Sur office downtown. The driver was chatty, but his accent was difficult to understand. He also asked us if we were married. Odd. It only took about 20 minutes to get there even though it was 4pm, and we were just in time to hang out a bit longer waiting for the bus. There was a show playing in the waiting room with adults in the roles of children. Very odd.