Mi Aventura Peruana: Spring Break... Kind Of

Well the reason I said “kind of” is because I still had to go to class last week, except for on Thursday because my grammar teacher was super nice and let me miss to go to Arequipa! But more on that later. This week was definitely my favorite week in Peru mostly because I was able to share almost all the things I have fallen in love with in this beautiful country with Luke, although we still need to go to Machu Picchu one day :).

I'll just stick to pictures mostly but the first day I took him to the beach so he could finally meet some of the wonderful people that have been stuck with me here this semester and have become some of the best friends I have ever had.

My dream of becoming a mermaid finally came true!

We also went out that night to celebrate Karla's birthday and after met Lima's coolest bartender Omar

The next couple days were filled with exploring Miraflores and Surco the two districts I have spent the most time in and Miraflores was where Luke stayed which was good because while I was in class he got to walk around by the ocean, something Nebraska boys don't get the opportunity to do all that often ;)

Parque del Amor

A little ocean view

Parque de los Aguas

However, probably the coolest thing we got to do in Lima was a food tour where we went to 4 different (super fancy) restaurants and had little dishes at every place so we were able to try a lot of the main Peruvian dishes and of course the famous Pisco Sour (a type of brandy made from grapes is used to make a kind of whiskey sour spin-off). It was really cool and the guide was super interesting and told us all kinds of facts and history about the city. Added bonus was we were in a group of really fun people: one couple from Florida, one from Wisconsin, one lady from Canada, and one man from Chile.

Huaca Pucllana Restaurant - built right next to the Pucllana Temple that is thought to have been built around 500 A.D. that was only really discovered 20 years ago. Apparently they just found two mummys a couple weeks ago and they have only excavated 25% of it so far. Pretty crazy.

We also held hands and held our breath as we walked across this bridge in the district of Barranco and apparently that means we are going to be a happy couple for the next 100 years :)

A sample of all the main Peruvian dishes

The famous lighted cross made during the times of terrorism here in Lima during the 1980s and 1990s

Finally we spent the weekend in the city of Arequipa where we toured a Catholic Monastery that was built in the 1500s and is still in use today. Then we spent 2 days in the Colca Valley where we did lots of hiking, saw ancient Pre-Incan ruines, hung out at some hot springs, saw tons of llamas, alpacas, sheep, donkeys, the amazing Condors and the Colca Canyon which is the deepest canyon in the world! Not to mention we held some hawks and ate some amazing food.

Colca Canyon