On our 2nd day, we ventured into central Lima to see the Plaza de Armas and Plaza San Martin. After a fairly hectic cab ride to the Plaza de Armas, I needed to find a bathroom. There was a little shopping centre with a sign for a bathroom right on the square, so we went in. While I looked for the bathroom, T looked at the wedding dresses and cakes that filled the mall. As I was leaving the bathroom, the woman handing out toilet paper asked I'd my bag was heavy, because we'd already checked out of the b&b and I was carrying my big backpack. I told her it was a bit heavy but that I was strong, and then, to make my point, proceeded to make a bodybuilder pose and grunt. She and her daughters thought this was really funny so we all had a good laugh. I'm glad my sense of humour translates!!


While in the Plaza, we saw the changing of the guards, which was basically a brass band playing some fun music. Needless to say, we did a little dancing!


When we were done walking around the Plaza de Armas, we walked along Jiron de la Union to the Plaza San Martin they had some actual moving walk signals, which I video taped because of my geekiness.


We had lunch at a restaurant on the Plaza San Martin surrounded by locals for 8 soles each, which included an appetizer and main. I risked it and ate a fresh salad, and have thankfully suffered no gastronomical ill effects!

We then travelled to the Cruz del Sur bus station, one of the better services in Lima. We checked our bass and I had a brief discussion with the bag check guys about my water filter.
When we got on the double decker bus, we saw what amazing seats they have; much better than any plane I've travelled on (then again I've only ever traveled coach). They were giant sized leather recliners that reclined 160 Degrees!


They served us two meals on the bus, a dinner of chicken, if you remember the clucking from my previous post, and a simple bread and jam breakfast with an apple.

The views from the bus were amazing. We saw shantytowns that grew up on the outside of lima after the last set of major earthquakes as well as places out in the country that were still half rubble from the destruction.
The entire trip T was a bit (a lot) nervous because a girl at our B&B in Lima had told us that she read about buses being hijacked in Peru. Thankfully there were no hijackings. Every bus with Cruz del Sur is equipped with GPS so the operators can tell if there has been an unauthorized stops.

Since T got the window seats on both our flights, she let me have the window seat on the bus ride, mostly because there was a cute guy across the aisle. T broke the ice with a witty jokes about flexibility! C is a German guy who has lived in Brazil for the past seven years.

The bus played several out of date movies, and the operator felt the need to turn them up to full volume, rather than letting us use the headphones they provided.

Despite the comfortable reclining and wide chairs, sleeping proved to be a bit of a challenge because of the winding mountain roads and swichbacks. I'm sure I slept a little bit, but it was fitful at best.