Fancy Restuarants and Cab Rides.

Today began so nicely. And I am so worn out. I got up a little earlier than normal, around 7:55, and went downstairs for breakfast. Thank god we finally had eggs. The breakfasts here tend to be a little sparse, so it was a welcome change before I headed out for my early-morning four mile run. I took the same route that I've been taking---it stretches across six or seven parks that span the Pacific Coast here in Lima, as well as a little tour of the financial district, which I had not gotten very far into before. The amount of brand new BMW's there is astonishing.

After my run a huge group of my travel buddies and I went to restaurant called Cesar's. It came on high recommendation from the Lonely Planet travel guide, and it totally lived up to expectations. I enjoyed the following dish:

Tacu tacu con lomo saltado, which is basically
seasoned rice (tacu tacu) with filet mignon (lomo)
and lots of vegetables (saltado).

As well as a beer that is apparently straight out of Lima:

After that lunch (which was the first filling meal I've had here in Peru---their portions are tiny compared to us Supersize-Me-Please-Oh-God-Moar-Sauce-and-an-Extra-Helping-of-Taters Americans), we rushed back to the Casa de Baraybar just in time to meet up with the group at the buses and get on our way to the Musem of Archaeology, Anthropology and History of Peru. Linkage to their website, in Spanish only, is here: http://museonacional.perucultural.org.pe/.

The museum is housed in the former home of Simon Bolivar, this sexy dude pictured below:

Just look at that shoulder fringe.

And it covers many periods of Peruvian history from Moche to Wari to Inca to colonial Spanish. It was basically my nerdy delight. Pictures included below of some of the things I saw:

Pottery! Yaaaaay pots! Note the top middle pot. It's a man with
his feet on his shoulders. This has an interesting story: This same
man is depicted in many different pieces of pottery across
a decent area all around the same span of time. The thought is
that this is the representation of an actual guy with a disease
that gave him flexible bones, and he was considered a neat
rarity by the natives, perhaps even some sort of divine. 

A few skulls. The top left has been bound and reshaped.
The others have been through a surgery known as "trepination,"
which is the procedure done to relieve pressure on the brain.
Yes, they put a hole in your skull. Yes, people survived it, up to
18 years.

A closeup of the bound skull. An interesting point was made
that perhaps this binding of the skull resulted in the need for
all those trepination surgeries---the new shape of the head
resulted in an eventual problem of too much pressure, swelling,
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

A trepinated skull close up.

An interesting piece of pottery in that it was made
from a mold, not sculpted by hand.

Those shells in the back, the spiky ones---they're called
spondylus shells. They were associated with water by
the natives, and very, very rare. The spondylus only
lives in the warm waters of Ecuador, and can only be
found on the North Coast in Peru during El Nino---thus,
the natives took them to be a sign of the weather to come
and prized them.

A very pretty and very, very small bit of textile. The
density of the threads is insane.

Another quipu. Have I mentioned that I love quipu? I have
written many papers about them, so you will likely see
many more pictures to come.

Another bit of textile that I found interesting.

It wasn't nearly as flashy as the Larco museum from yesterday (in fact, Larco donated most of the pieces that this museum has, so it's no surprise that he kept all the ballin' pieces for himself. Can you blame him?) But all-in-all, it was a good and very informative trip, thanks to our tour guide.

After we returned, myself and three other girls headed down to the Parque Kennedy. Here is picture, though I admit it is not of my own taking:

The Kennedy is basically a big shopping mall. It's unfortunate that we only had about 45 minutes to spend there before we had to return for dinner, but from what I saw, I definitely want to go back. We visited a few touristy-souvenir shops, from which I purchased the following:

Hopefully when I return tomorrow I can go through all the modern-style shops, too. The place is jam packed with shoe stores and clothing retailers and food places and lots of PEOPLE. EVERYWHERE.

When it was time to get back to the Casa de Baraybar for dinner, we chose to take a cab so that we wouldn't be too late. Well, it was a good idea, but let me tell you... cabs in Lima are an intense experience. For six soles (about two dollars, US), four of us took a cab from one side of Miraflores and clear across to the other in what must have been a landspeed record breaking journey, but with OBSTACLES... other cars. We arrived safely and with all limbs intact, fortunately, just in time to enjoy some cheese lasagna and salad.

That was just a few hours ago. I am not sitting here in the blissful silence of my room, sans roommates. They all went out on the town for the evening and I chose to stay behind, much to my glee. I don't understand how they can stay up until 1:30 and still get up at 8, then do all the activities we do in a day! It's insane! I need sleep!

And speaking of, I'm going to go to bed now. I'll have another entry for you tomorrow detailing my trip to the gold museum (the Museo de Oro del Peru) and a private textile collection that we will have the privilege of visiting in the late afternoon.

Until then, au revoir! <3