pigging out lima style

we made it to lima in one piece! we were quite leary after boarding our TACA flight out of SFO...has anyone flown TACA before? by far the smallest plane we have ever flown an international flight on and the plane was only partially full which made it even creepier. but i guess you get what you pay for (cheapest flight we could find). being that the flight was a 1:15 a.m. departure, we were pretty tired and overlooked the shortcomings of the airline. besides the awful turbulence that seems to occur on every flight i take, we were able to sneak to the back two empty rows of the plane after take-off and stretch out across the 3 seats and catch some sleep. so i guess it wasn't too bad after all.

so lima...we can't decide if we love or hate this place!? aesthetically an ugly, massive mess of towering skyscrapers, old colonial buildings and hellish traffic situated on a coastal desert. from what we hear, there is a thick grey marine layer enveloping the entire city nearly year round. it is cold and my hair is a frizzy rats nest the second i step outside so i am thinking this might not be the place for me. back to the traffic...i don't think we have been in any other city in the world where people use their car horns the way they do here! it is all you hear walking around, laying in your hotel, day or night! and dont even think about crossing the street without getting a dozen horns blared at you or your thighs nearly colliding into car bumpers of aggressive drivers. so if this description doesn't sound like lima is worth your time, there is one redeeming quality...the FOOD!

OMG. this place is a total foodie paradise and being the heifer that i am, this is my type of city, food-wise if nothing else. we have spent the last 48 hours eating and drinking our way through town. on a quest for all food peruvian we hit up street food, top restaurants, hole in the walls, you name it, we ate there. a few favorites were: anticuchos (beef heart skewers), picarones (hot pumpkin donuts covered in cinnamon syrup), bitifurras (hot sandwich filled with meats-veggies-saucy stuff) and chicha (purple corn drink with cloves and cinnamon)...and then there is the pisco...you filthy little S.O.B.!

i think the pure excitement of being in another country got the best of jimmy and i and we majorly failed to grasp the power of the pisco. pisco is a grape brandy and the peruvian national drink is the pisco sour (pisco, lime juice, egg whites and a signature dash of bitters). the first night in town we had what will probably be the best meal we will have in peru and with that meal, our first pisco sour. the second that frothy little concoction touched our lips we were in love. and like all forbidden loves we become obsessed and sought out sours in watering holes all over town. and with all obsessions comes a bitter break-up. unfortunately for us, we didn't break up til the following morning when our brains were...blech. needless to say we were lucky we did not wake up amongst all the feral cats in the park the next morning. sorry mom!

for those not interested in trying out the peruvian specialties, there is always "pizza row". an alley of about 20 pizzarias compete for business by offering you various drink specials. we made the mistake of taking a shortcut through here and were instantly bombarded and harassed by pushy hosts bribing you to come to their establishment. we were honestly in hysterics over the scene going on over PIZZA in peru. one dude lunged so hard to get to jimmy he elbowed his waitress in the boobs and she yelled at him. nice move. even his offer of 3 for 1 couldn't persuade us.

our opinion of lima did change a bit after we left the more touristy area of miraflores/barranco and caught a taxi to the city center or the 'plaza de armas'. the area had more of that 'colonial' vibe that we had envisioned lima to be like. the plaza consists of the gigantic presedential palace guarded by machine gun weilding policia and numerous churches filled with morbid religious paintings and ornate alters. the highlight was the catacombs located underneath the main church in the plaza. the catacombs are a series of dark-lit brick & mortar tunnels and rooms where the saints and high up church officials were buried. well, someone decided to dig them up and lay out all of their remains and bones in an artsy fashion for tourists like me to gawk at. while a bit on the eerie side, it was definately super cool. no photos were allowed but i managed to sneak off from the group and take a few. i really wanted to sneak a pic of me holding a femur bone but jimmy claimed i would be cursed so that was that. not sure exact numbers of people or bones under there but one pit alone was 22 ft. deep in remains!

so with our bellies full we are heading out at 4 a.m. (don't ask) to catch a flight to the 'white city' of arequipa. as for lima, we will return to give you another shot in a few weeks!