RAPPELLING AND BUNGEE JUMPING...DAY 5

We had two more days left in Huaraz and with nothing to do. We had done the three most popular Huaraz tours. We decided to see about doing any other activity we could find, so we went to the main strip, Av. Luzuriaga. It was around eight in the morning and we went into quite a few offices. We finally found this one place that offered bungee jumping and rappelling for S/80 each I think. It was quite expensive because it was just the two of us. If we had had more people, it would have been much cheaper per person. We continued looking around to see if we could find it any cheaper, keeping in mind that we had to call that S/80 place by 10 o'clock if we still wanted to go. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any other place that offered both activities so we returned to our room. We decided we were just going to go on the S/80 tour and began packing our change of clothes because the man had told us we were going to get really wet. I called the agency to reserve the activities and the man asked us to be back in the office by 11 o'clock because he needed to call the guide and have him get the equipment ready.

At 10:45, we headed back to the office and the man in charge, began explaining what we were going to do. He asked us if we had open toed sandals for the rappelling activity because we were going to get our sneakers wet. Once again, we didn't have the right stuff for the activity, so he asked us to try to find some sandals or bring another pair of shoes. My guide told me he possibly had some sandals I could borrow but not for Daniel since his feet were ginormous. He told us where we could go to try to find sandals for him. We must have looked in all the shoe stores in Huaraz for his stupid sandals! None of them had his size.... stupid tall people with big feet! We're a country full of short people (a great deal of the population is so please don't be offended fellow Peruvians) so it's hard to find anything bigger than a size 10 here. We headed back to the office. Daniel was just going to have to get his feet nice and wet. From there they informed us that our guide had to go do another tour and they gave us a new guide. We followed him to a bus stop and he paid for our bus ride to this one place on the side of the road. When we got off, he had us follow him uphill on this path that isn't very noticeable from the street. We were going to rappel first. Since neither of us had experience in this sort of thing, he told us we were going to do three descents. The first one would be as a practice run with no water involved and the other two were going to be down a waterfall. Our guide went down first to show us how to do it and less than a minute later, he was back up to where he had left us. We were amazed he had made it up there so quickly. Neither of us had too much trouble going down. I was actually a little afraid of doing this activity because I have small, weak arms but I did just fine.

PASTORURI GLACIER TOUR...DAY 4

As the previous few days, we had to get up early for our tour. Since we had time to walk around that morning before the tour, I decided to find another little breakfast cart to eat at. I found this one man who had a cart that looked cleaner than the elderly woman we had been going to. What made it even better is that his drinks were only S/.50 and his quaker tasted much better to me. We had breakfast and then went over to the tour agency office to wait for our bus. The bus that arrived was the smallest bus we had been in yet. It was still bigger than a combi so it was ok. Our main attraction was going to be el Nevado Pastoruri (el neh-VAH-doo pahs-toh-RU-ree) but we were going to see other things along the way. I'm not sure if this is the correct translation but I think nevado means snow peak. The Andean Mountain Range is famous because it's a tropical mountain range. Pastoruri used to be an enormous glacier but due to global warming, it's rapidly losing its body mass. It's estimated it will disappear within 10-15 years :((

Chozas

Along the way, we saw some interesting chozas (CHO-sahs: huts). Our first stop was Pumapampa (puma-PAHN-pah). It's a spring full of oxidized water. Everything was nice and orange and we could see some snow covered mountain peaks in the distance. I'm not sure how far away it is from Huaraz but I think it took us about half an hour to reach it. When you walk close to the water, there's this sort of well where you can see the water bubbling. As always, we spent about 15 minutes there, maybe even less. Our guide went on to tell us that the area had once been underwater because marine fossils had been found there.

Pumapampa

We continued on our journey until we got to the Puya Raimondi (POOH-yah rai-MON-dee)  field. We had about 15 minutes to walk around and take pictures. Puya Raimondi is a plant that only grows at altitudes of 3,800 to 4,800 meters above sea level (12,450- 15,748 feet) in the Peruvian Andes. Its lifespan is between 40 to 100 years. It can grow to be anywhere from 6 to 15 meters tall (19-50 feet) when fully erect, no pun intended :P and the round porcupine thing can be a couple of meters tall as well. It was discovered by an Italian scientist in the 1820s and named after him a little over a century later. The plant releases between 8 to 12 million seeds when it blooms, which is after about three decades. The Puya is now an endangered species. This is due to many factors: climate change, herders starting fires for farming land, a lot of Puya communities are isolated from each other causing inbreeding to occur therefore making them susceptible to diseases, insects, etc. Peruvian officials say they're taking the necessary measures to protect the endangered plant but all of us in Peru know the poor plant is going to die out because if they're doing anything at all, it isn't much.

CHAVIN DE HUANTAR TOUR... DAY 3

We realized the night before that I didn't have much memory left on my memory card and we didn't even have a flash drive to transfer all the pictures on it. I swear, if it's not one thing it's another. So we got up extra early to try to find a place that had 8G SD cards because I knew I was going to use up most of the memory on the card by the end of the trip :P We went to various stores and finally found one that was 15 soles cheaper than all the other places.

We headed back to our room to get our bags full of snacks for the day and also stopped by the breakfast cart again. This time, we were a few minutes early to the tour agency office. Within 20 minutes a bus came by to pick us up. It was smaller than the yellow bus from the day before. A woman got on to hand us some kind of brochure/map type of thing that was about this city called Huari. It was a very pretty map but it didn't have much to do with our tour. About 5 minutes later, we were off.

From the very beginning, our guide began talking almost non-stop. Once again, the tour would be in Spanish. We weren't too happy about it but it wasn't bad at all. He seemed like he really knew what he was talking about and made lots of jokes. We laughed quite a lot. During the trip, he told us a legend as to how the Llanganuco lagoons and mountains Huascaran (whas-kah-RAHN) and Huandoy (whan-DOY) were formed. He was surprised to hear that our guide from the day before hadn't told us the legend. There are many versions of this legend but this is what he told us:

A long time ago there was a princess named Huándi (WHAN-dee). She was in love with one of her father's warriors named Huáscar (WHAS-kar). One day, one of her father's guards saw them and told the king. The king then banned his daughter from seeing her lover again but she didn't listen. She snuck out one night to see him but was caught by a guard and taken to her father. He decided to punish her by locking her in a room which had no windows so she wouldn't be able to tell whether it was day or night. When Huascar found out, he got a group of his men to help him rescue her and after they did, they all fled towards the Cordillera Blanca. The king's men were right behind them and since they outnumbered Huascar's group, they quickly captured them. The king then ordered his men to take them up to the top of each mountain, tie them up and leave them to their fates. When the two lovers realized that they were never going to be together again, not even in their last moments alive, they began crying. Their tears formed two lagoons. The "female" lagoon is called Chinancocha (chee-nahn-KOH-cha) and it's the 1.450 meter wide lagoon you get to see when you go on the Llanganuco tour. The "male" lagoon, which is behind Chinancocha, is called Orconcocha (ohr-kohn-KOH-cha) and it's only 368 meters wide. A god saw the two lovers suffering and took pity on them. He decided to spare them by transforming them into two glaciers on the mountain peaks. Mount Huandoy (whan-DOY) was named after Huandi and Mount Huascaran (whas-kah-RAHN) after Huascar.

The guide definitely told the story better than I did but that was my brief summary of it.

We were headed south and our main attraction was going to be the Chavin de Huantar ruins (chah-VEEN deh WHAN-tar) but we were going to see a bunch of other things along the way.

Going to Chavin was completely different from the tour the day before. On this tour we got to see a lot of scenery. There were large, open fields, animals everywhere, mainly sheep and cows, and you could a few snow covered mountain peaks in the distance. It was definitely a pleasant change because everything looked so clean compared to Lima. There were a few small houses along the way. It only took us about 30 minutes to reach our first stop for the day.

Our first stop was Laguna Querococha (lah-GOO-nah keh-roh-KOH-cha).

It was another windy and chilly day. Once again, I had decided not to bring a jacket or anything so I was a bit cold. Behind Querococha you can see a couple of mountain peaks but I don't remember which two it is you can see. We were there for about 25 minutes and during that time I really had to go pee. I had no choice but to use a sort of outhouse thing that smelled terrible :( and seriously scared me because I thought I was going to catch some crazy disease. Needless to say, I got in and out of there as quickly as I could. I had never been in one of those where you could see all the nasty feces at the bottom. You definitely need to make sure you go to the bathroom in your hotel beforehand.

 We got back on the bus and about 30 minutes later, we went through a cool little tunnel that had been vandalized (-_-) by Ollanta (current president) supporters. Just outside the tunnel was a Christ statue and we stopped for a few minutes to take some pictures. It's definitely a little difficult to get pictures of you and your partner when you're not with anyone else because then you have to ask other people to take your pictures. Luckily, there were a few other couples that took our pictures and of course, we took theirs in return. Our guide told us we were headed to a small town to eat before going to the ruins.

From there, we continued our journey to this small town (I forgot the darn name) for lunch, which was deep in this valley. There were dirty, nasty looking pigs loose in the street. Thank god I never have to see the pigs I eat because they probably look like that. A few minutes before we got to our stop, we saw that part of the road had flooded and was really muddy. I thought we were going get stuck. For a minute, I actually wanted to get stuck because the thought of having all the men getting down and dirty to get the car out of there seemed like a pretty entertaining moment to look back on :P but luckily we were able to go on.

We finally got to this small restaurant that was surrounded by flowers. It took a little over an hour to get to the town but at least we were going to have lunch early as opposed to the extremely late lunch from the day before. About 15 minutes after I had begun eating, this GINORMOUS rooster came into the restaurant. He was pretty cute because he just walked in like he owned the place. The food was ok. It didn't get me sick so that was good enough for me.

After lunch we got back on the bus and headed to Chavin. The bus ride took about 30 minutes and once there, we had to pay S/11 each to get in. We were 3,150 m.a.s.l. (meters above sea level) and our guide first took us to this small replica of the ruins to describe some of it before we started walking around. Chavin de Huantar used to be a really famous religious site around 900-200 b.c. It was considered the oldest evidence of Andean civilization until archaeologists found Caral. It's located in the Callejón de Conchucos (kah-yeh-HONE deh kohn-CHOO-kohs: Conchucos valley). Ancient Andean people from all over Peru and possibly Ecuador and Bolivia, would go to to see the powerful priests/oracles.

He had us follow him to this stone block which was just a few meters away and about two meters tall. It was a replica of the Estela Raimondi. He basically told us that that particular stone block explained how the earth and mankind were created according to the ancient Chavin civilization. I would explain it again for you guys but I didn't think I would have to re-tell it so I didn't store it in my limited memory space :P The Chavin civilization is considered to be one of the most influential civilizations in Peru because their influenced has been documented almost all along the Peruvian coast. These people were astronomers, agricultural engineers, architects, and artists. Back then, being a priest wasn't something that was passed down from generation to generation.

Anyone could be a priest but only the most intelligent/clever people were able to pull it off. The Chavinenses (chah-vee-NEN-ses: Chavin people) that studied the stars, weather patterns, animal behavior, etc were able to "predict" when it would rain, how heavy the rain would be, when they should plant the crops, irrigation systems, etc. The people of Chavin revered these beings who could predict the future and gave them the highest position in their society as priests/oracles. From there, we walked about twelve meters away to this plant that looked like a sort of cactus. It's actually called el cactus de San Pedro (San Pedro cactus). The ancient Chavin priests used to drug themselves with this plant so they could "talk" to their animal gods.

The plants' skin, when crushed into a powder form and ingested, made it so that they could hallucinate and while they hallucinated they transform themselves into the same animals as their gods.What was somewhat interesting to me is that they didn't just grab any plant. It had to be one that was separated into seven sections because seven was a sacred number for them.

We had to walk for about 8 minutes until we got to the main square. Some of us were a little out of breath. In front of the main square, you can see the temple and to the left and right of the temple, you have two other buildings.The temple is where the priests lived and underneath the main square is a drainage system that they built. They built this to prevent the area from being flooded during heavy rains and when water used to go through them, it created this loud roaring sound that sounded like that of a large cat. Archaeologists believe they did this to scare away any possible threats or to mimic the sound of a feline god of theirs. Closer to the temple there is this area that has a few holes in the ground that are above one of the canals.  

They used to cover certain holes to make music that would shake the entire temple and be heard throughout the area. From there we walked closer to the temple and the guide pointed out that the temple has a slightly slanted structure and the rocks used to build it had a certain pattern which made the temple virtually earthquake proof. The structures you can see now are part of what they call the new temple. I believe the old temple is built under the new temple. There were a ton of changes made to Chavin. However, to the right of the main temple there is this small circular main square which belonged to the old temple. We walked towards it because there's a small building behind it that we could walk around in.

It seemed like a labyrinth and in one of the entrances, we were able to see el lanzón (lahn-SONE) which looks like an upside down knife and it has this drawing of a god on it. The stature is about five meters tall (about 16 feet). From there, we went back towards the temple so we could go behind it and see the only remaining cabeza clava (kah-BEH-sah KLAH-vah) which literally means nail heads because they look like nails with a head at the top of it but I think the technical name for them is tenon heads. Back when the Spaniards came to Peru, they sacked the place of everything they could and threw the majority of heads in the river. A little over a hundred were recovered and when archaeologists went to Chavin in the early 1900s, there

were two heads remaining but somehow, someone stole one and now only one is left in it's original place. After we saw the cabeza clava, we went to some souvenir stands for a few minutes and then left to go to the Chavin de Huantar Museum. I couldn't hear everything my guide said because Daniel and I were busy taking pictures so we got left behind at times. Archaeologists have found sea shells in Chavin that can only be found in Ecuador. There were at least ten tenon heads for us to see, each with a different face. There was also el obelisco. The obelisk looks like a mini Washington Monument with a lot of carved drawings because it was also considered a god. It's 2.52 meters tall (8ft 3in). After we were done looking at everything in the museum, it was time to head back to Huaraz. The tour finished around five in the afternoon and I believe we were back in Huaraz by 7:30.

Overall the trip was a good experience. I was able to learn more about my culture and after writing this post and actually having to remember everything that I learned, I think I'm much more impressed now by what my people were able to do and accomplish back then.

PERUVIAN FOOD...

I don't want to brag but I just have to. Peruvian food is THE BEST FOOD EVER! That is, when you actually have a good cook making the food :P Ok fine, I'll admit to being biased. It's the only food I've ever really eaten and my mom is a pretty damn good cook and I don't say that just because she's my mom.

WHAT'S PERUVIAN BREAKFAST LIKE?

• EATING AT HOME. As we all know, desayuno (deh-sah-YOO-noh: breakfast) is the most important meal of the day. However, breakfast in Peru isn't like a typical American breakfast you would find at IHOP or Waffle House. We don't have pancakes, waffles, sausages, grits, hash browns, french toast, bagels, muffins, etc. Breakfast at home consists of drinking either milk, tea, coffee and sometimes fruit juices. To eat, you can have some sourdough bread with ham, or a fried egg, or avocado with salt. Yes, I know avocado with salt on bread sounds weird but it's what we eat here. Some other options are toast with butter or jam. We even eat saltine crackers with butter and drink tea with it. My fiance thought it was quite strange but to me it's perfectly normal. He loves it now but I think that's just because it reminds him of me. Avena (ah-VEH-nah) which is often referred to as quaker (KWAH-ker: oatmeal), is another option as well. On weekends when there is time to eat calmly, we have a few options. Tuna with onions, lime juice, and salt on bread or with crackers. Tamales (tah-MAH-lehs) with onions, lime juice, and salt (I'll call it onion salad). And on very special occasions, we eat fried pork pieces known as chicharrón (chee-cha-RONE) with fried sweet potato slices, and onion salad on bread. Definitely not the healthiest meal but it's sooooo good! 

             *NOTE: I'm not encouraging anyone to eat pork while they're here. I got sick from eating pork
                           chops when I first arrived and those were the worst three days of my life! I didn't even get
                           sick like that in Mexico when I was there for a month. My stomach hurt so much! So.... eat
                           pork at your own risk.You may get sick from eating pork and be stuck in bed for a few
                           days which will ruin your plans if you're on a tight schedule. However, I do encourage you
                           to try to make it at home, wherever you come from. Just put some salt on the pork pieces
                           when you fry them. Not everyone likes fried sweet potato so you can omit it if you want.
                           It's good either way :)

• EATING IN THE STREETS. People all over the world these days don't have much time to eat sitting down so they get breakfast on the go. In Peru, a lot of people get their breakfast from any little breakfast cart on the street. Most offer a few types of drinks which are really good for you such as quinua (KEE-nwah), quaker (KWAH-ker) which is a drinkable form of oatmeal, maca (MAH-ka) with or without milk, and emoliente (eh-moh-LIEN-teh). Quinua, quaker, and emoliente are my favorites but it all depends on how the person made it because it's not always good. The drinks are usually S/.80 cents each and almost always come with a refill. These little carts also offer sandwiches of all sorts. You can choose from sandwiches that have slices of fried sweet potato, or a fried egg, or fried egg with chives or broccoli, or avocado on sourdough bread all for S/.80 cents each. You can also get tuna on bread but it's a bit more. A sandwich and a drink will cost you S/1.60 which is the equivalent to 58 cents right now. At times, the drink can even cost you just 50 cents but this is most common in places outside of Lima. Breakfast in the streets is usually served from 6-9 a.m. but it can sometimes go on until 10 a.m.

• BREAKFAST IN RESTAURANTS. If you go into a cheap little restaurant then you can find just about the same thing but it's definitely not as cheap. Prices range from district to district depending on how much you want to eat, what specials they have, etc but it's usually all under 15 soles. A lot of small restaurants in tourist areas also offer "American" breakfast as well. For those of you who skipped all the delicious food I described above to read this part, just take a deep breath. If you're staying in a hotel that provides room service then they'll probably have "normal" breakfast available. McDonalds is also an option lol. Of course, fast food places here are pretty expensive unless they have some sort of special going on.
  

WHAT ABOUT LUNCH?

• ON A TIGHT BUDGET? One of the things you've got to love about Peru is how cheap the food is here. You can get lunch for under 3 bucks! The cheapest lunch you can get around, also referred to as menu (meh-NU), costs 5 soles and consists of a refresco (reh-FRES-koh), something to drink, usually a homemade herbal drink, an entrada (en-TRAH-dah: starter), and a segundo (seh-GOON-doh: main course) which is sometimes referred to as plato fondo (PLAH-toh FONE-doh) and sometimes a small postre (POHS-treh: dessert). Now I'm not saying it's always good or that the "restaurant" is nice and clean, but you can get pretty decent meals and hey, if you're looking to save a lot of money, then this is the way to go. Not every district has 5 sol lunches. The average price is 5-10 soles but it can be a little more. 

• TIGHT BUDGET AND YOU DON'T LIKE PERUVIAN FOOD? Although I find this to be unlikely, a lot of fast food chains are now offering specials, so you can get something to eat  for about 7-10 sols. That doesn't always include a drink and it's not a whole lot either.You definitely need to try BEMBOS (BEHM-bohs) if you're going to eat fast food. 

• HAVE SOME SPENDING MONEY? You can find a lot of decent restaurants which offer menus for 20-30 soles. These slightly more expensive menus usually offer a soda and dessert and are definitely much nicer than the cheap little restaurants. If there is no menu available, your meal is still likely to cost less than 40 soles depending on the prices of the starters and drinks. 

            *NOTE: Menus are usually sold from 12-3 p.m. Monday through Saturday only. They can
                          sometimes be sold a bit earlier and last until 4 p.m. It's really until the food runs out. If you
                          miss menu time then you're out of luck.You have to pay separately for everything and
                          sometimes they don't have food ready for a couple of hours.

Larcomar

• MONEY'S NOT A PROBLEM? Then there are plenty of nice restaurants for you to eat at. If you want to eat in a place overlooking the beach in Miraflores, then you can head over to Larcomar which is a shopping center in front of the Marriott hotel but you actually have to walk down to get into it. Depending on where you eat, prices can range from 15 to over 100 soles. There's also a restaurant called La Rosa Naútica which was built on a pier and can be seen from Larcomar. I haven't been there yet so I can't really say anything about the food or service. 

La Rosa Naútica

WHAT TO EAT FOR DINNER?

• At home, Peruvians usually have dinner between 8-10 p.m. which is unusual to some. We usually have leftovers from lunch or something else is made. At night, there are plenty of restaurants both cheap and expensive, opened until at least 11. If you don't want a full course meal, we have a lot of sandwich places around as well. Dinner in a restaurant can be the most expensive meal of the day because you have to pay for everything separately if you're eating in a nice restaurant. Don't worry because it can still only cost between 20-30 sols and in a lot of cases you can find it for less but that's highly unlikely in hot tourist spots.

TRANSPORTATION IN LIMA

As I said in one of my previous posts, you can always take a taxi from the street or call a taxi company. Most tourists usually hire a taxi service because they don't know how to get around and because they've heard Lima's dangerous. I personally think Lima isn't as dangerous as people make it out to be. You just have to be careful is all. Common sense goes a long way here. Miraflores, San Isidro (sahn-ee-SEE-droh), San Borja (sahn BORha), and Surco are generally safe but it's always best to keep an eye open just in case. If you go to any other district, then you definitely want to keep a look out for suspicious activity.

TAKING BUSES....

    WHAT DO THEY LOOK LIKE?

• If you have never taken a bus in Peru then you're in for a real surprise. Buses here come in a variety of colors and sizes. In Peru, people refer to all buses as carros or "cars" in English. We have four different kinds of buses and sometimes they have different names. The really small ones are called combis (KOHM-bees). The medium-sized ones that are round-ish in the front like in the picture to the right are sometimes referred to as cousters (KOO-sters). The really big buses like in the picture are called omnibuses (OHM-nee-boos-siz). The ones that are slightly smaller than the omnibus but still rectangular shaped with no curves are micros (MEE-krows) but they're still much bigger than combis so I don't understand why they gave it that name. Don't worry about remembering the correct name for each type of bus. Just refer to them as carros and everyone will understand. It's pretty difficult having to get into a combi because they are ridiculously tiny! You literally have to hunch over to get into your seat if you're more than five feet tall. A great majority of the buses are old buses and they're usually in really bad condition. I don't think they do the maintenance on them like they should. You will see a lot of buses that  have that black smoke stuff come out of the exhaust, which is probably the main reason why Lima has a wonderful gray cloud looming over it and I can never see beautiful blue skies.

    ARE THEY COMFORTABLE?

• Buses in Lima can be extremely uncomfortable sometimes. Especially in the summer because of all the heat and smelly armpits. I literally have to hold my breath for as long as I can sometimes until the smelly man next to me gets off. No street buses have air conditioning. When a bus gets packed, it gets REALLY packed! To better explain myself, imagine being pressed up against strangers in an elevator that has a maximum capacity of 15 people. That's kind of what it's like here except in our imaginary elevator, the people have their faces pressed against the walls because we have twenty-five people on instead of fifteen. Buses which have those little cash machine things in them don't exist here. A cobrador (koh-brah-DORE), the person who charges you the bus fare and is usually standing at the bus door, will try to get as many people on as possible, because the more people they have on the bus, the more money they make. Don't panic because the buses aren't always packed. This mostly happens during rush hour which is early in the mornings from 7-9:30 or in the afternoons from 5-9.  The cobrador walks around the bus every few minutes to charge you the appropriate fare and give you your bus ticket. 

    HOW MUCH IS THE BUS FARE?

• To most places it's a sol, depending on the bus company, which is usually a 45 minute bus ride or more than 10 blocks. The cobradores will usually ask you "¿dónde?" which means "where?" and you just tell them your bus stop or the block number of the street you're going to. If you didn't give them enough money then they'll either tell you how much more you need to give them or just the total price. 

ARE THEY SAFE?

• No, not really. As I said before, most of them are old and they don't do maintenance on them like they should. What makes matters worse, is that bus drivers here actually compete with each other. They speed and cut each other off all the time just to get as many passengers as possible. They'll also zigzag through traffic, abruptly stop because of speeding, therefore making you go flying forward, bumping into people, stepping on their feet, etc. Not to mention almost crashing into each other or running over pedestrians all the time. A lot of people lose their lives everyday because of bus accidents. If you don't feel safe on a bus because the bus driver is driving like a maniac, then get off and take another one or a taxi. 

     WHAT'S THE "METROPOLITANO?"

•  The Metropolitano is a bus system created by the ex mayor of Lima, Luis Castañeda Lossio. It goes through via Expresa, which is a highway. This bus system was officially inaugurated last June and was free for a month. I believe the route takes you from the district called Chorrillos, which is in the south, to Comas, in the north. They have a regular bus and an express bus. The fare for the regular bus is S/1.50. I'm not sure how much it costs to get on the express bus. The regular bus stops at all bus stops whereas the express stops at about 5 stops or so. You need to have a bus card. The card doesn't cost you anything, but you have to put a minimum of 5 soles on the card if you're getting it for the first time. There are instructions in Spanish on how to get a card and how to put money on it. There's usually an employee there to help you if you're having trouble. 

• Once you have your card, all you have to do is swipe it so you can go through the turnstile and walk to the correct platform (sometimes there are two boarding platforms) and the correct side of the bus platform since you can take buses from either side depending on if you're going north or south. If you're not sure which side you have to take the bus from or which bus you have to take, just ask an employee. If you already have a card but no more money on it then all you have to do is re-charge it by using one of the machines on the side. I believe the buses run from 7a.m.-9 p.m. They can really save you a lot of time! If I take a regular bus from via Expresa in Surquillo (sur-KEE-yoh) to downtown Lima, it takes 45 minutes to over an hour, whereas the Metropolitano takes just under 15 minutes. The best part is that these buses come every five minutes or less. Taking them during rush hour can be a bit of a pain because they also get packed,  more than a hundred people can be on one of these buses at a time, but at least you don't usually have much of a wait.

 TAXIS...

• Street taxis also come in all shapes in sizes. You have to be careful about the taxis you get in. Rule of thumb for Peruvians is, if he has an untrustworthy face then don't get in. Just as buses in Lima, taxi drivers are also dangerous behind the wheel. The first time I rode in a Mexican taxi I felt I was gonna have a heart attack but after a while I got used to it. However, when I came to Peru in 2009, I realized my Beaner friends had nothing on us Peruvians. These people drive like they're in a NASCAR or Formula 1 competition. Ask the driver to slow down if you feel uncomfortable, although I doubt he'll be happy about it and probably argue. For more information about taxi rates, etc please look at my previous post for more information. 

THE ELECTRIC TRAIN...

• Ex president Garcia started this project back in the 1980s during his first term in office. He started it again a litter over a year and a half ago and didn't get to finish it before the end of his second term but he still inaugurated it before he left office lol. Once it's finish, people estimate sometime in October, the fare will be around 1.50. I'm not sure what the route is going to be like but I'll post something as soon as it's up and running.

New Mall in Surquillo

For those of us who may not know where Peru is located, it's in South America and is bordered by Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Chile, and Bolivia.

I know this is kind of boring but I have to break this down so you have an idea of how Peru works. Peru is divided into twenty-four "departamentos." If you're American, then I would think of the "departamentos" as states.

Amazonas Ancash Apurimac Arequipa Ayacucho Cajamarca Cusco Huancavelica	Huánuco Ica Junín La Libertad Lambayeque Lima Loreto Madre de Dios	Moquegua Pasco Piura Puno San Martín Tacna   Tumbes Ucayali

I got this information from wikipedia:

The province of Lima is divided into forty three districts. In Spanish it's called "districtos" which are administered by the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima. The urban area of Lima is generally considered to be formed by thirty of these districts. The remaining thirteen districts consist of mostly rural and sparsely populated desert and mountainous areas. Of these peripheral districts, many of the coastal ones serve as beach resorts and their population —which is considerably smaller than that of the urban districts— increases during the summer months.

Today I'm going to be talking about Surquillo. It's a pretty small district around the middle of this map. It's bordered by Miraflores, which is an upscale tourist spot, San Isidro, the financial district, and San Borja and Santiago de Surco (Surco for short), which are residential areas. Surquillo is well-known for being a dangerous district although I don't think it's that bad at all because I've seen worse! But it can be pretty shady at night so you have to be careful if you're walking through there. I believe it was in December 2009 when they began building this ENORMOUS mall on the corner of Angamos and Tomas Marsano Ave. I used to call that intersection "acrobat ave" because there used to be a bunch of street kids that would do flips, juggling, etc for money when the street lights were red :P

Open Plaza Angamos was inaugurated about two weeks ago. Over 100 million dollars were invested into this new shopping center which was built in the course of thirteen months over 33 thousand meters squared. It's expected to generate a million visitors a month but at least 15 million visitors it's first year. It's comprised mainly of Chilean chains such as Sodimac a homecenter store, Saga Falabella, retail store, Tottus, a supermarket, Casa & Ideas, etc.  It can be found on the corner of block 18 of Angamos and block 12 of Tomas Marsano.

They have escalators and these conveyor belt type things that you find in some airports. The conveyor belts make it easier to transport children in strollers and to move your shopping cart around from floor to floor.

Chilean chains in Peru are a somewhat controversial topic. Peruvians have considered Chileans rivals since the late 19th century when they were at war in the "war of the Pacific." I don't know all the exact details but a brief summary that I was told was that Chile invaded Peru and for many years both countries fought over the Arica and Tacna departments until they finally came to an agreement that Chile would keep Arica while Peru kept Tacna. Chilean businesses have definitely boosted the country's economy and although rivalry isn't as aggressive as before, I would be cautious about bragging to be Chilean in certain places if you're visiting. "Plaza Vea," a Peruvian supermarket chain, constantly competes with successful Chilean supermarket chain "Metro" all the time. Their advertisements usually say "comprale al Perú" which means "buy from Peru" aka promote Peru's economy not Chile's. 

Anyway.......I have a tendency to get side tracked so back to my topic :P

Open Plaza has three floors. I went in there briefly yesterday only to take pictures and I'm sure there was a fourth floor but I didn't see any stores at the top so I assumed it was just there so people could get to the 4th floor parking lot. The food court and cinema are located on the third floor. Aside from having regular theaters, the cinema also includes a 3D and the first XD theater in Peru which I believe to be similar to an IMAX theater. I'm not sure what the exact price was because the evil lady at the counter wouldn't let me take a picture of the prices but I think that regular admission is 10.5, 3D is 19.5 and XD is 24.5 soles. In dollars that's about 3.75, 6.97, and 8.75.

The food court has fast food chains like Burger King, China Wok, which has good Chinese food, Pizza Hut, KFC. Coney Park, a sort arcade/game place for children, is located in the food court as well.

From the food court you have a view of Surquillo and Miraflores.There's no doubt that within a few years Surquillo will have completely changed. This new mall is supposed to attract people of all classes but since it's surrounded by districts that generally have middle and upper class residents, then changes will definitely have to be made in order for them to feel "safe" on this side of town. I've been here for almost a year and Lima has definitely changed a lot since I got here. Can't wait to see what new changes will be made.