Cusco to Lima

We had to leave the hostel early in the morning to catch our flight to Cusco.  We woke up at 5:15am and finished cramming our belongings into our overfilled bags.  The front desk guy called a taxi for us and we headed to the airport.  The Cusco airpot is small with only a few gates.  We decided a 1.5 hour flight was a better idea than the 24 hour bus ride across the mountains.  At this point in the trip, that sounds like a bad idea.   

That's our ride to Lima!

Katherine ready to go.

We arrived in Lima and got a taxi from the Taxi Green airport taxi service.  Lima has some shady taxi drivers and some cons you have to watch out for.  Our hostel owner sent a long e-mail warning us about several of the cons that taxi drivers may pull.  Luckily our taxi took us directly to our hostel and did not try to convince us that it had burned down!  The ride took us out to Miraflores along the beach, with nice views of the Pacific Ocean.  Even with the fog, Lima was looking really nice it is definitely much easier to breathe. 

Once we got to our hostel, we were greeted with a smile by Francis.  Francis is the hostel owner that we had heard so many good things about on Trip Advisor and Hostelworld.  He gave us a super detailed map and wrote about everything you can possibly imagine in 4 different highlighters.  We headed out for food and a little walking which turned out to be another adventure of it's own.

Francis showed us his 1981 BMW with a lot of custom work.

He fired it up and showed us his conversion from fuel injection to a Toyota carburetor.   I thought he converted it to make it more awesome, but he said that injectors cost so much, it was just cheaper to switch it over.  

Katherine at our lunch location called Cafe Cafe.  We sat on swing chair in front of a giant fake tree. 

Ceviche is what you get when you are in Lima.  Once again, nom nom nom!

Then my quest for the charango began again.  We were told from a guy in the laundry place in Cusco to look for the street called "2 de Mayo."  This is where he said good charangos could be found.  Our walk today just happened to cross this street and we found a little music store.  There were about 8 charangos on the wall and a very special one up and away from the others.  It cost four times as much, but was good quality and was very straight.  

The charango is a Bolivian / Peruvian 10 stringed instrument that was originally made from an armadillo shell.  They are now made from wood and played in the local folk music.  The one I chose has a green back and a really interesting fretboard.  The ladies in the store were ecstatic that I bought it as it probably was some good income for them.  We mentioned that we were music teachers and I will send pictures of me playing with the students at school.  We also got some Peruvian flutes and other instruments as well.  It is difficult to control yourself as a music teacher traveling abroad. 

Here we are at the churro cafe of all churro cafes, called Manolo.

Our hostel is right behind Thomas' head.

We have a 3 bed room all to ourselves.  

For dinner we ate more roasted chicken while we watched Peru play Chile in the Copa Cup semi-finals.  The entire restaurant, including the employees, were watching closely.  When Peru scored we all cheered loudly.  Unfortunately, Peru lost the match in the end, but it was still a fun time.

Tomorrow, we plan to walk around Miraflores some more and maybe get down to the beach for seafood and check out the paragliders.  The ocean is close and providing some much needed humidity.  This area is quite nice!