One month: Lima

Somehow time is passing by so quickly again and lately I've been incredibly busy.

On the weekend, I went on a three-hour bike tour in Lima. We rode along the coast, through the neighborhoods with the tin shacks, through Miraflores and Barranco. I liked Barranco the best because the houses are all beautifully colorful. However, going to a karaoke bar the night before wasn't the smartest idea, as the 24 km bike tour after only 5 hours of sleep was quite exhausting. Especially when we had to go uphill to the "Cristo del Pacífico".

The area around the "Cristo del Pacífico" resembles a slum and is also quite frightening, as it's hard to imagine people living there.

I saw even more run-down houses or poor houses on the way to Lunahuana on Sunday. Of course, it wasn't really a beautiful sight, but it was incredibly interesting to see something like that.

Our tour to Lunahuana started at 6 in the morning under a bridge on a highway. Sounds strange, and it was. The host parents of a friend brought her to the meeting point. We were pretty happy about that, as we could store our backpacks in the car while we had to wait for the bus, as the area was quite sketchy. I didn't feel unsafe though, as the host father was nearby and took care of everything, like when the bus was 30 minutes late, but the atmosphere under the bridge was quite tense, as the area is considered very criminal.

The destination was Lunahuana, but the journey was also incredible, as we drove through a huge mountain landscape and through small villages. In Lunahuana, a small town that is also quite run-down by European standards, we went on a 1 1/2 hour rafting tour. It was incredibly fun! Afterwards, we ate at a small Peruvian restaurant and took a walk through the streets. In the middle of the "market square", a small orchestra was playing and older people were dancing to it as if they had the most beautiful and easiest life, so they included us and we didn't have a chance to say no.

This week, I changed teachers at school because I moved up a language level. I still have a lot to learn, but it's okay.

On Monday, we went to a market hall in Lima, a 5-minute walk from my apartment. There we tried about 10 different fruits that I had never eaten before. Like fresh figs, red bananas, lucuma, tuna, guanabana, cherimoya, granadilla, guava, guama, guruba..

I think the most extraordinary one was guama, whether it was delicious or not is also questionable😄.

Last week I also visited the Inca Market. There you can buy typical souvenirs, but also beautiful sweaters or blankets made of alpaca wool for about 12€.

I'm still in Lima for two more weeks and then I'm going to Cusco. This weekend, I'm taking an overnight bus to La Merced. I'm quite excited because my friend from school and I will be traveling on our own. We rented an Airbnb and they will pick us up at the bus stop. This morning, I spoke to the landlord on the phone in Spanish because he had a few questions and wanted to give us some tips. I explained to him that my Spanish is certainly not good enough to be able to talk on the phone. He still wanted to talk on the phone😄. Luckily, he spoke very slowly, so it wasn't a problem to understand him and reply. In general, Peruvians always say "vamos practicar espanol", even if they can speak English.