Day 9: The Double-Date

On Sunday morning, we got woken up by Lili and Erika who were downstairs and told the receptionist to call us and wake our lazy butts up because they had a day full of activities planned for us. I was still sluggish from my lack of sleep the day before and Ryan was recovering from his 8 hour flight from LA, so naturally we were a little behind schedule.

Our high-class, $30 per night hotel had a free breakfast buffet downstairs that was...less than appetizing and we just barely made it in time to indulge in some greasy American continental-style sausage, fake eggs, and stale, dry toast. I think the yogurt was the most appetizing thing available, so I had a few of those. I guess I can't complain when the food is free!

Our first stop was the ruins at Puruchuco. The coast of Peru is basically all a hot, extremely dry desert, but interestingly there were dozens of native populations living in the area, thousands of years before the Incas ever emerged. I'm not sure how they survived in that weather or climate, but they did, and they did well. How they were able to survive when there were millions of poor people in the city now was interesting to think about. I'm not sure how that happens, maybe there were different work ethics back in the day or something like that.

The weather was blistering hot outside, which I was loving since it was below zero (c) in NYC at the time, and we took a tour of the small museum before checking out the ruins that were rebuilt near the Universitario soccer stadium. I didn't get to catch a game there, but maybe next time...if I don't mind being savagely beaten by the Ultra fans that routinely over-run the field!

I was feeling a little awkward around Erika that day because I don't usually kiss girls at night and then spend the whole next day with them (yea, I'm that much of a player :o/ ) and I knew that Lili was keeping her eye on me. After we saw the ruins, I invited her to sit next to me in the car and she appreciated that. I could tell that she was a very sensual girl and since I'm a pretty sensual guy, it worked out pretty well!

After the ruins, we took a nice drive through the barren mountains of Lima, destination unknown. I thought San Diego was barren, but there was literally nothing, not even shrubbery, on these mountains. We drove past quite a few shack communities and also some gated communities where the rich lived out in the middle of nowhere. We finally came down into a valley and there was signs of life along a bustling river that was roaring down from the mountains, straight from the Andes, no doubt!

We pulled into the parking lot of a nice outdoor dining location next to the river with a bunch of horses for rent and kids running around by the river. We hiked down to the river and Erika and I enjoyed some relaxing, private time together with our feet in the river, watching people wash their clothes on the other side, people going down the crazy rapids with their clothes on, and little naked kids grappling onto their teenage brother's shoulders while trying to walk across the fast currents. During this day, I thought back to my conversation with the guy living in Lima from Nebraska, when he said that if you connect up with a girl at a club or something, you are pretty much boyfriend and girlfriend the next day, no dating required. It certainly felt like that with Erika.

After we cooled off, we headed over to the outdoor dining area that seemed to be set up exclusively for bus tour groups that were stopping by the area, except that they weren't gringos visiting but other Peruvians or Spanish-speaking folk. They had giant stone tables, live music from the Andes flute players (similar to those I see in the subway everyday, strange enough), occasional regional dances, and great food! They apparently cooked the food in underground holes, which is how the ancient cultures used to cook as well. We each shared a clay cooking pot full of pork, chicken, and beef cutlets along with a variety of vegetables like sweet potatoes (yum!) and corn as well as Peruvian tamales, which are very different than Mexican because they are sweet inside. We of course washed it down with a pitcher of sangria and another grape-based juice that had a cinammon flavor and was delish.

Fat and happy, Erika and I passed out in the back seat on the way home, waking up at the hotel. The four of us kinda chilled out in our room, Ryan bringing gifts for Lili along with things that she had left at his house when she lived in Long Beach for four months last year while I tried to explain "Only Child Syndrome" in English to Erika, who has no brothers or sisters :o/. I'm not sure she got most of the explanation, but the English practice was good for her.

The girls finally left to go home and get ready for the evening while Ry and I napped for a bit and then finally got ready for the evening. When I fell asleep on the bed, I had crazy, psychodelic (sp.) dreams that were quite odd. I told Ryan about this once we both had woken up and he said that he had these kinds of dreams too. Maybe our hotel was haunted, but I think it had something to do with the shape or incline of the beds, or the fact that i had my pillow folded in half and it was cutting off circulation to my brain. I have no idea!

Once we were all ready, the girls came to pick us up again and brought along Lili's friend Alfredo and we headed down to a shopping center to go bowling in Mira Flores. Alfredo was an interesting guy, he started his own business selling illegal DVDs, which sounded like a very competitive industry in the pirate-happy country, but he focused on a niche of mixed-martial art fighting DVDs (Pride and Ultime Fighting Championships), which I hadn't heard of before. He learned Jiu Jitsu when he was younger and knew lots of people that wanted to watch these fights, so he started selling DVDs to them with the latest fights. Like Lili, he is also a recent graduate from medical school. What's interesting is that as a new doctor they make maybe $150 a month but his DVD business was making him about 4x as much money as being a doctor!

The bowling rink that we went to was great, everything was pretty much brand new and this was the nicest, cleanest bowling alley that I've ever been to. We played for an hour and my master curveball technique that I pulled out of the bag after a few gutterballs had mixed results. The first time I threw it I got a strike, so I thought I'd be on fire. But when I didn't knock all the pins down, I couldn't get a spare cuz I couldn't aim anywhere but in the middle. Oh well, maybe I need to work on that a bit more!

After bowling, we walked around the nice shopping center, which was situated on the previously-mentioned cliff that was actively deteriorating down into the ocean. I was thinking about the support structures that were holding this shopping center up since it was such a high-class place. The poles must go hundreds of feet into the ground, crazy. Hope it's still there the next time I go to Lima :o)!

After bowling, we decided to go eat in another part of Lima that was very dark but looked like a pretty fancy area. Apparently the place we were going to eat at specialized in beef hearts, of all thing. I was a little sketched out about eating organs of questionable cows, but Ryan assured me that it was good. After all, the heart is essentially just a muscle and it was very lean because there's no fat in the heart. That sounded logical enough and it was damn tasty stuff along with the bed of potatoes on the plate.

After our leisure dinner, it was getting really late and some people were unlucky because they had to work the next day. Luckily Ry and I weren't included in this group so we could get lots of sleep. We dropped Erika off so she could catch a taxi and we said our goodbyes and I hoped that I would see her the next day before I went home....



Yusteen, we were exhausted by the end of such a long, busy, but exciting day