The 13th was my birthday. I was feeling pretty spoiled. We went to a nearby restaurant "Sheridan" or some place like this, had our Pisco Sour at happy hour prices, had a great grill of chicken and a lot of veggies. I was feeling happy to have such a birthday and Piril was spoiling me too. I had received lovely birthday messages from my friends... When we were coming back, Piril went up to the room and I wanted to take a walk around. At a neighboring shop, I met local people, all young and lovely and we had a chat...We had couple pictures, they even lit a candle and sang me birthday a song with some cookies!!! It was a great moment really...
On our second day in Lima, we decided to explore the city a little bit by following the recommendations of the people and our bible(lonely planet)...We first took a taxi from Ovalo Square to San Fransisco Square, then Plaza Grande, Plaza San Martin etc...The old town and the new town are almost next to each other.
Walking is enjoyable and fun in Lima. There were some demonstrations on the street, later we fouund out that government workers are protesting their low salaries...Another demonstration was about Alberto Fujimori, the former president of Peru...They like to demonstrate here!!! Anyway, we walked a lot, we needed to visit the WC (Winston)and eat something. The area that we walked in the center was very dirty and dusty, right by the park but it was fun. Finally we found a cozy restaurant which had the daily menu for 6 soles (2 USD). I had a wonderful sea food meal...It was surprisingly good and very economic...
We were shocked...After relieving from the shock, we decided to go to Ormeño to try to change our bus ticket from Lima to La Paz, the one that we had to buy to show the Peruvian Consulate...The taxi driver found the address but it did not seem a headquarter of any company, there was no name, no sign, nothing...Then someone opened the door, we explained the situation (look we read the back of the ticket which says you need to come to the headquarter of the company to change or cancel the ticket etc...), they seemed a little surprised as we were really determined to find the right address and cancel the ticket. We had paid 65 USD each, they returned us 50 of it back!!! We got our 100 USD and hi fived with joy!!! We decided to make them soles to spend around...Lucky we hehehe!!! Then we went to the Museo de La Nacion, National Museum, 
had a young guide who explained us about the different civilizations who existed in Peru, like Wari, Istwa, Inca, their burial rutials, their pottery, tapesty and idols. The museum was pretty rich. I told the girl at the museum about the Hittites and she was shocked about the time frame. I bet she decided to make it to Turkey at least once in her life span. We gave her a nazar boncugu (evil eye) as well...Later we went to a huge supermarket, got quite a lot of coca tea(practically all of the existing ones), checked the internet and came back to our Flying Dog Hostel. In the evening, Claudia met us at the hostel and took us to a little bohemian area of Barrocco. It reminded me a little bit of Ortakoy and a little bit of Rome. Claudia is a Limeña, which means from Lima, she is 28,
finishing her business degree and working at two companies at the same time. She lives with her mom and dad. She had lived 5 years in the US and was married to a friend of me. She is a very intelligent and sweet young woman, both Piril and I liked her company very much. She took us a a place called "Tio Mario" which was damned packed with the locals. She told us that the restaurant was opened with just a couple tables and now they own a 3 storey business. Their specialty is "antichurros" which is the grilled heart of cow. They also eat Guinea Pig which they call "cuy"...
I prefered to stick with grilled beef and Piril had grilled chicken. Here everything is served with large sweet corn and huge potatoes. I swept away my whole plate...The red wine (rreeed reed wiineee UB 40!!) we had was a Peruvian one, Tamaca and it was yummy...Hmm, after the great dinner, Claudia left us to the hostel and we said goodbye to each other. She has a reservation of paragliding at Costa Verde, I will probably do it too, if there is still space available...I hope we´ll meet again there. Today, we went to the famous sanctuary, Pachacamac, of four different civilizations: Lima, Wari, Ishtwa and Inca...We haggled with a nice taxi driver for 75 soles to go to the site (some 30 kms to the south),visit the site and come back. He was a nice man, drove us through the Costa Verde, explained us around like a guide and was very sweet. We hired a guide for 20 soles, a lady who explained us about the site and the rituals very well.
The girls were hidden in a convent and they were all living there as virgins who would volunteer to be sacrificed for the God of Pachacamac. The Incas added their temple of sun at the top part of the sanctuary. The back part of the sanctuary was for the girls´parade and for the mummied bodies of the dead who were brought there to watch the sacrified animals or humans, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. 
The Spaniards came there with the hope to raid all the treasury but the people there who heard them coming loaded the treasury onto over 300 lamas and placed them somewhere which was not located yet. The Spanish were a little pissed off but they grabbed whatever they could find, like 30 lamas could carry. By the way, the tour was in Spanish and Piril understood it all, even better than the National Museum´s English speaking young girl...After the museum, we gave another evil eye to our great guide (I informed her about the Hittites as well!!!)
On the way back, our poor taxi driver was stopped by the Police and he was given a ticket of 155 soles...The police looked at us and told us to wear the seatbelts which made us smile!!! woooo, thanks for being that loyal to the rules...:-P...He was going from the side road rather than the main highway, it had made me a little bad due to my dust allergy problem, I was pissed off and he got the ticket...He he, don´t mess with me...
Actually, we were both sorry for him:((( He drove us to Huaca Pucclana which was like a pyramid in the middle of the city, we quickly took the pictures and he dropped us at Larcomar, the shopping mall. We had a quick lunch there and I suddenly realized that my passport was not in my freebag. We just rushed to the hotel and I found it at the room...I know, I give a hard time to Piril, but I do some things automatically without remembering!!! Sure I should remember them now!!!Finally I was able to upload the pics...I´m longing for another good ice cream and some wine. We´ll see..
Let´s drink Inca Cola...
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