Day 3

I was able to sleep in a bit and awoke without a hangover:) I joined 4 of my Brasilian friends on a trip to the Historic center of Lima to see the Plaza de Armas & the gigantic shopping aveneues. We took public buses there, or tried to, and ended up getting off in the "wrong" part of downtown. A short taxi ride and we were back on track. The architecture is very impressive-Colonial style, and all the building are in remarkable condition. The locals are very friendly and even the police were helpful answering questions from their armored vehicles with .50 caliber machine guns mounted on them. The street vendors here are the most aggressive I have ever encountered-wish I could hire some of them to work for me.

We went to the National Art Museum afterwards to see works from famous Peruvian artists. I was most impressed with some of the sculptures that stood more than 30 feet high! The art museum building & grounds were beautiful with all of the fountains and flowers blooming. There were street performers and artists all around. I was very impressed with Lima as all my research indicated that it was a dirty city full of petty thieves & rapists. I doubt it is no worse than Newark, NJ:)

Though walking around with 4 beautiful girls even I got sick of all the cat calls and jeerz from all the men. Really glad I dont ever have to put up with that!

We grabbed a cab and headed back to the beach in Miraflores near the Hostel. Miraflores is a swank district with nice places to eat & drink, trendy shopping and yes, all the fast food chains from the US-yuk! The district sits atop large cliffs overlooking the ocean- very nice 1500sf condos sell for about US$45,000. Pretty tempting:)

Another night of clubbing till dawn ensued- luckily the US$ goes a long way here and most things are much more affordable here.