Peru - Sightseeing and Tourists

After the conference in Lima, we had 3 days left to relax and sight-see; A lovely opportunity to be real tourists! lol It was a very interesting feeling being the foreigner. Living in the United States, I am so accustomed to others being the foreigners. Now that I have an inside perspective on being a foreigner, I can see why people from other countries may do or say things that seem funny. Haha...I'll leave it at that!

 

Our first day of sightseeing we headed to the Inka and Indian markets to pick up souvenirs. These are outdoor markets that sell a wide assortment of hand made items. I think their hand made? lol Anyhow, on our way there we stopped at a beach. Bro. Keith Nix informed us that this beach was one of the top surfing beaches in the world because of the good waves. Pretty cool! There was no sand at this beach, just tons of rocks. One of the boys found a super pretty black and white rock and gave it to our youth leader's wife to keep. I wish I would have taken a pic of the rock! Anyhow... these pics got mixed up too, sorry. We scavenged the beach and found some pretty random things, like: A pepper wrapped in black duct tape, some crab shells, crab legs detached from the bodies, dead birds, cool rocks, and other unidentified objects that looked like hard orange sponges. lol After wandering the beach a little, we hopped back in the car and continued on our quest for souvenirs!

 I only wore cross-body purses the whole time we were there. Pick pocketing and thievery is big in Peru, so Bro. Nix advised us to keep our bags in front of our bodies inside of on the side. Eeeks! We did! Which leads me to remember, when we got to Peru we gave our passports to Elder Nix to put in a safe, because American passports are the #1 stolen item in Peru! Can you imagine if someone stole my passport?! I would be stuck there. I actually did get stuck in Peru an extra day or so, but we'll get to that later...

 Inside one of the areas at the Inka market. There were tons of little inlets like this with different people selling their stuff. What's funny in Peru is that hand made things there are sold for cheap prices. In America, they charge you an arm and a leg for handmade items! So we got some really nice stuff for good prices, which was fun.

Elder Nix also informed us that the people get offended if you accept the first price they name. "They want you to bargain with them; If you don't, they will get offended." So that's exactly what I did, with the little Spanish I know. I learned more while I was there, and I honestly had a ton of fun haggling with these people! They would name a price in their currency, which is called the SOL. Plural, it's Soles. (so-lays) I would then ask them how much in dollars, because they do accept our money there! But, they are SO picky about the appearance of U.S. dollars. If the bill is wrinkled or even has the beginning of a small rip, they won't accept it from you.

 One guy was selling some really neat musical instruments. All kinds of wood flutes, and one cool bowl shaped instrument which I forget the name of, sounded really cool! I recognized the sound of the instrument, but I had never seen it before. It sounded like something that would come from music in the jungle.

 And here he is, playing the flutes he was trying to sell. Yuck! Matthew bought 2 or 3 of them, but when we got to the house he went crazy spraying Lysol all over them. Haha! He then proceeded to serenade us the remainder of our stay in Peru. Would you buy something from this dude after he put his mouth all over the thing? Matt is brave.

 Machu Picchu! Sadly, we didn't get to go; Not enough dinero to go around! So, we took a picture in front of this big picture they had inside the Inka market. It kinda looks like we're there, right? *Sighs - wishful thinking*

 Love the red and white!

 This was inside the Indian market, which was right across the street from the Inka Market.

 Oh, by the way, they had creepy manikins everywhere! They all kind of had the same look to them - they all looked like they were high or something. So weird!

 We had some ice cream at home from Wong. The Maracuya Y Mango was awesome! Maracuya is a yummy fruit we don't have here. :( Why do they have all the cool fruits in other countries? I mean in California we have a lot of fruits, but they're people. lol Which leads me to another tangent.... I loved that we were in such a big city and didn't see a bunch of guys hold hands! But I'll stop there...

 Playing Sorry at home! Elder Nix had tons of board games!

Things got a little crazy at night. You must understand that from the time we got to Peru we had quite the packed schedule! Thus, the tiredness led to silliness, in which one night I fell, thinking my brother was catching me, but apparently he was oblivious... annnnd I fell and kinda bruised my tail bone! Like *BOOM*, and suddenly I'm looking up with everyone staring at me with question marks in their eyes, as if to ask, 'did you just throw yourself on the floor?' My tailbone...It's still not being nice. Aye aye aye.

 The pics of the beach that were supposed to be up top!

 And more from the markets that got out of order. Grr. Anali, they even had ethnic shoes and boots! Haha You would have loovvvveeddd this place.

 Creepy manikin alert! Click to enlarge! ha! He looks like he belongs in Berkeley.

 Love this pic of my mom and Trin!

More late night silliness.

The scene changes:
We are at home later that night looking at our new stuff. Bell pulls out her new wallet from the market, and out comes a nasty light brown beetle looking thing! I heroically sent it to beetle heaven.
And once again, I have more exciting pics coming later. :)