First day in Lima

I got to the MPLS airport at 9am CDT --- way too early. The airport was nearly empty so security was a breeze. I then took a flight from MPLS to Toronto. We arrived in Toronto a little before 2pm EST. After a canadian stamp in the passport, I went to my gate and again waited until 4:30 pm when the Boeing 767 was going to board. Overall, Air Canada was an enjoyable flight, however the flight to Lima did not have TV´s in every seat back, which meant that I got to read a lot more. I actually missed the TV the most because I like to track the plane´s progress on the map. The flight also was delayed because some mechanical error had been found and needed to be fixed before we could taxi and depart. We finally departed almost an hour and a half after we should have. We arrived in Lima at about 1:30am still EST and all my luggage was there. Which I am extremely thankful for. I got to the hostal around 2am and basically got introduced to the place by Christian the hostal keeper and then went to bed. I got up this morning around 9am and tried to get ahold of my parents, but the computer at the hostal has the microphone on mute --- I spent almost an hour trying to get it fixed. (I am alright though and you should not worry. I will try and get ahold of you as soon as I can.) Now, I´m out walking around Miraflores, a `suburb`of Lima. I have spent most of my time along the cliffs that overlook the Pacific Ocean. I keep calling it a Lago which is Lake in Spanish, but I can´t remember the word for Ocean (I just remembered it is Mar, it´s there in my brain it just has to be dug out). I am going to head over to the hostal again and then try and schedule my bus to Cusco for tomorrow night. I tried to schedule one earlier, but that company was booked full. Hopefully everything works out.

Well I do already miss being able to easily communicate to people. I´m really trying to use my spanish --- well I am kinda forced to because a lot of people know only very little English. I think this is what will drive me crazy the most, wanting to say something and not knowing how. I feel like an infant.:-)

This afternoon I visited an archelogical site here in Peru that dates back before Christ. Pretty neat! It was a pyramid that was built for the purposes of sacrafices. The people who built the pyramid were called the Lima people and pre-date the Inca people who built Macchu Pichu. They had three gods, the Ocean (the most important), Mother Earth, and (____). They performed sacrafices to Mother Earth everytime they built on to their pyramid or grounds. (These pyramids however were not sites of burials only sacrafices.) The sacrafices were in the form of breaking beautiful pots that they had made. The would turn them upside down and break them. Thus, every floor between the layers of building are covered in beautiful pot shards.

Peru is on a fault line and thus has many, many earthquakes. The Lima people however delt with this issue in their building techniques. They built everything out of mud bricks and then placed them in sections that formed triangles (the most strong shape) to prevent them from moving in the event of an earthquake. I will add more about this section later when I look through my notes and I will also put pictures up that correspond to these explanations.

After touring the site, I took a Taxi to the bus station to buy my ticket to Cusco, Peru.