Lima, Numbah 2

As I said in the last post, we spent a week in Lima. We spent the first few days compiling findings and then presented a preliminary report on Thursday to PRISMA. They were interested in what we had found about their clients.

While we were in Lima, Cam Nelson took a trip to Bolivia to visit the other 8 students there. So It was Carly, Chelsea, and myself that hung out together in Lima for the week. I can't say that Lima is one of my favorite cities...I think it's rather dirty, to be honest. And it's so big that I had a hard time trying to find things. I was able to get my general bearings, but I just don't like cities that are so big that the ends just aren't in sight. They're fun to look at, but I don't think I'd want to live in one.

To entertain ourselves, we went to two movies that week. We saw Indiana Jones: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Narnia: Prince Caspian. The former we saw in English, because they showed it in both languages, depending on the time. The latter we watched in Spanish, because certain of us didn't want to wait for the later time when it would be in English. Agreed, sitting around for more than an hour isn't too fun. Nor is getting lost in a city while the boy of the group thinks he knows how to get back to the hotel (no, I'm not referring to my own experience...). But I still hold that I'd rather watch a movie for the first time in English, cause I'd rather hear the real voices of the people and be able to understand all the nuances. I speak Spanish just fine, and understood the movie just fine, but there's something about watching a movie in your own language that just makes it more...palatable. Or some other more fitting word. Even so, seeing the movies was fun. Also, we bought Papa John's pizza twice that week. Delicious.

On Saturday, we were to board a bus to Arequipa at 7 pm. Having all day, we met up with a woman that we met the first time we were in Lima 3 weeks before, who was an acquaintance of Cam Nelson. Her name is Charo (Rosario), and she is super nice. She walked around the city with us and we took a tour bus to a lookout called the Cerro de San Cristobal. (It wasn't a very clear day and the picture doesn't do any sort of justice to what Lima looks like. Except that there is a lot of smog...very often...).She also took us to her house and fed us lunch, which was really good rotisserie chicken. Granted, she didn't cook it, but she did cook the rice that she brought out, and I'll never understand how South Americans can make their rice so good. Maybe it's the rice. Or the water they use. But I ate a lot of their rice.

So, Lima was great. Saturday night, June 7, we boarded a bus for Arequipa.