Finally vacation time! Where to go? Where else, South America! First stop Lima; on to Argentina to visit Ian and Urara, then the three of us fly over to Chile for a week o' fun!
LIMA! I was going to Lima by myself for two days (the direct flights to BA, Argentina were all over sold on AC). I reserved a room and a taxi from a hostel near the Plaza de Armas. Unfortunately, my flight was late arriving in Lima (4am ish instead of 1am) I had to scramble to find a taxi driver and get to my hostel. We arrive downtown, about 2 blocks from the plaza (4 blocks away from my reserved hostel) and what do we see? There is a four block radius surrounding the Plaza de Armas that is blocked off, there is NO WAY to get to my hostel, unless i want to walk through the streets of Lima at 4:30 am followed by my two suitcases which equal a big sparkling sign, please come mug me. My cabbie turns around and says: "what you do?" Eventually he informs me he knows a hostel around the corner that can take me, and I really have no choice.
The next day I try and figure out why there is a blockade surrounding the plaza, but to no avail, I can't even go into the center until mid afternoon when they start allowing certain people to enter the Plaza. I saw a protest going on and there were police with full riot gear everywhere, the Plaza had tanks, there were police on horses, it was crazy.....but nothing seemed dangerous to me. For the first day I just walked around, went to a few museums (the Spanish Inquisition) and cathedrals. That night i went for dinner at a French convent in Lima. It was a really good home cooked three course meal (cheap too, and the wine was quite tasty). It was nice to be able to communicate with someone! I was able to speak French and find out what the riot was about! It had to do with train workers and better wages. The second day I went to Miraflores (the coastal area of Lima) because I wanted to go parasailing!! And I did!! It was the best 15mins ever!!!! At night I went to the airport to hop on a flight from LAN peru to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
