Don't Drive Here!

The next morning we all woke up and had a

breakfast together, with Tyler getting super excited we had finally arrived! Apparently he didn't remember waking up and saying hi to us for a couple minutes.

We spent some time planning out our route, and how the six of would get around Peru; whether by bus or by renting a van. We decided that because there was so many of us it made sense to rent a van so dad and I spent a couple hours visiting several rental car places to find a van, which we did. It ended up being a 12 passenger van- perfect for the 6 of us on a road trip!

Afterwards we wandered around the city and headed down to the 'beach'. While it was a beach, there was no, it was simply small and medium rocks, so not the most comfortable to walk on. Nonetheless, we rented a couple surfboards and boogie boards and headed out on the water. Tyler had never been in the ocean before so he was super excited to try it out, Sami had never surfed before, and Milessa and I were excited to try out

what we'd learned earlier.

Unfortunately, we had a really hard time getting going, but it was sure fun to boogie board and be in the ocean with Milessa, Sami and Tyler!

We had also switched hotels earlier in the day, and helped mom and dad become accustomed to our never-more-than-2-nights-in-1-place policy. I'm sure everybody that saw the 6 of us walking down the street with 6 backpacks had a good laugh!

Later that night we wandered to a big open park area and bought some local food while struggling through the process with broken Spanish words. We ended up with something called Salchipapa

(fries, egg, cheese, hot dog, rice sometimes), a plate of chicken with sauce and quinoa, and beef with rice and some sort of sauce.

The park we walked through afterwards also had a extremely weird number of cats all over, it kind of creeped us out.

The next morning we picked up the van and somehow dad avoided countless accidents along the hectic roads (Lima was once featured on Don't Drive Here). Actually, after leavin and driving around the block to turn around, we almost got in an accident 30 seconds after getting the van- right in front of the rental agency! Embarrassing. After, we miraculously found our way to the south of the city. Not before getting lost and finding a beautiful cliffside shop and waterfront. We spent a little while there enjoying the great view and climbing

around the rocks before leaving for south.

We made a minor wrong turn, again, and after a while found our way back to the highway and continued. We continued driving for several hours and a couple hundred kilometers all the way Haucachina, a tiny little town surrounding an oasis in the middle of huge sand dunes. Somehow, since we were so late arriving, all 6 of us all slept in 1 dorm room for 6 people! What a great bonding experience!

So many tennis courts in Lima!