Forever my name is princess

We could have come from the depths of the far south in Arequipa to the soaring shores of Lima. But that would have been a 20 hour bus, so instead we decided to break it up a bit and hit a midway point called Nazca. Home of the infamous Nazca Lines. This worked out perfectly as we had taken an overnight bus and and the morning had us in Nazca. The best way to see the lines is by air so we headed to the small city airport where there were at least 10 different companies badgering us for our patronage. The lines are a World mystery. No one knows for sure the purpose of them but there are many different shapes of sacred objects cut into the earth that only make sense when seen from above. Some attribute them to the existence of extraterrestrials who interacted with the natives, and would obviously be able to see them from above.

We hopped on a small singe engine Cessna and were off. The lines were hard to see and the ride was pretty rough and by the time we were done I wasn't enjoying it too much but we got a couple of pictures anyhow. 

Zoom in

Right after the flight we hopped on another bus and headed to Lima where a friend we met on our salt flats tour lives and works for the Spanish Embassy. We had an open invitation to stay in his amazing apartment in Miraflores, the nicest part of town and right on the water. Our buddy Lucas has it made. Check out the view. 

Apartment view

Our buddy and host Lucas

He obviously had to work during the week but is so prepared for guests that he had a ten page itinerary with activities and directions all prepped for our disposal. Awesome guy. Day one had us meet him for the best civiche ever and the beginning of our culinary delights in Lima. We also had causa rellena which includes fish, sweet potato and avocado, another fantastic choice. From here we visited the city center by means of combi which is a madhouse of a minibus. Let me paint you a picture....Everywhere you go in South America people honk alot. There are flashing lights and loud music coming from every corner and there are always people milling around trying to get you into their restaurant, store, tour company, whatever. But in Lima you also have thousand of these mini-buses that fly around the roads with no rules governing traffic whatsoever. Absolute shitshow.

Parque de la Amor (Love Park)

The next morning we decided to head into the water for a surf. My first surf in 5 months. I was very excited. We rented some boards and wetsuits and got in for a sunrise session before Lucas had work. The surf wasn't great but we still all had fun. The real excitement though came after we got out and the guys who rented us the gear pointed us to some official looking people in blue milling around the beach 30 yards away. Me-"Whats going on there?" Dude- "Dead body just washed up." Me- "Haha." Dude-"Serio."

So yeah, we walked over and there was the body o  middle aged man in a suit coat with ripped pants who was bleached white. They said he was probably in the water for about a week based on his appearance. No one seemed to be too bothered by it and they didn't stop us from taking a pretty good long look. 

Cat Park. Seriously. Infested.

Because of the awesome location of the apartment we took every opportunity to run or surf and try to let our bodies know what exercise is again. On one of our runs we happened to catch the excitement  of a seal being captured. They don't want them around the beach area so whenever one pops up they send a crew in to remove it. Very strange and poorly executed over all. 

We were sitting on a bluff overlooking a nice section of the beach on one of our peaceful afternoons when suddenly the ground began to rumble and shake a bit and there was in fact an earthquake of about 4.6.

One really popular food of Peru is anticucho. We hadn't tried it yet but Lucas made it a point to get us out for some. It is thinly sliced pieces of beef heart marinated and grilled to perfection. Might not sound good, but wait.....it is amazing.   

After our delicious dish we headed out for some nightlife and found ourselves at a nice bar with the final game of the NBA finals on so I was stoked. We got to see Lebron finally win and got a small taste of home. After the game was over the place started filling up and a band was setting up. Before they came on a guy with a microphone came to our table and asked if we wanted to be in a promo video for a radio station. So of course we said yes. We were with a crew of 5 friends who are all Spanish expats. They handed me the mike and we made movie magic. 

The group of Spaniards were fun people and we kept on meeting up with others around town. We met 20 of them at a great beach house to watch the Spain v. France Euro cup match and would have had it any other way. These guys were a kick. Huge sports fans and very knowledgeable. 

Later that night we went to a club below a grocery store and caught a great Cumbia/reggae band called Bareto that is according to Lucas the most popular Peruvian band right now. Cool setting and alot of fun. 

On our last night we headed out again, this time for one of the most prevalent dishes in Peru, Chicken Broasters. These places are EVERYWHERE. It is a rotisserie chicken cooked perfectly and delicious. Of course as everything around comes with fries we got a big helping of them too. Ufortunatley there was a pretty good looking salad served too but it is always a bit risky for salad because they wash the veggies and the water is always a bad addition. From chicken broasters we went to a night club for some really bad cover songs, but cheap beers just to hang out. But as Lima never lets us down we were joined by two VERY drunk local guys who wanted to practice thier English. they seemed nice enough and pretty harmelss beacuse they could barely stay upright in chairs so we were at ease. As time went on one of the would talk to Kelly and I and try to say something in English then stop and break into tears. This went on for some time and finally he decided that the only thing he needed to communicate was how beatiful he thought Kelly was. So his plan was to tell her that to him she is always a princess. In Spanish it made sense. But when he tried in English he just kept repeating, "Forever my name is princess...Forever my name is princess."