Lima: Take Two

We took a 7:30 bus from Chiclayo to Lima on Monday night.  It was not my favorite bus ride as I only slept for a total of maybe two hours.  I usually sleep fine but for some reason I just couldn’t fall asleep.  When we arrived in Lima we were alone for the first time in Peru.  We had no friends, no one who knew the area, no one who was coming to pick us up…nothing.  We got to the bus station and had to find our own taxi to…well, we didn’t exactly have a place to stay yet.  We just got a man that worked at the bus station even though his price was twice what an outside taxi would cost.  We figured he was safe bet and he seemed nice.  

We had him take us over to the Mormon temple about 15 minutes away because we heard there was a place we could probably stay across the street.  It took some bouncing between places and a lot of talking to people who didn’t speak English, but we finally ended up at a house a few blocks away where we left out stuff.

The rest of our afternoon/ evening consisted of going to the “Mormon tienda” that sells ties and scripture cases etc, walking around the temple grounds, going to the temple, getting lost and eating dinner.  It was really fun to talk to the temple workers from North America because we could speak English to them!  We asked them lots of questions about what to do how to do things.  We were still stressing because we didn’t have a way to get to the airport the next morning and they gave us the phone numbers of a few taxi drivers they use and trusted.  What a blessing! 

Oh, for lunch we ate at the temple cafeteria…my very first time eating at one of those!  It was in a separate building but was still on the grounds.  Also, they’re in the process of building this HUGE building on the grounds.  The third floor is where all the senior missionary couples will live, the first floor will be a bigger cafeteria and the second floor will be used as a sort of hotel for Peruvians that come to the temple.  Many people have to travel so far to get there and it’s expensive to get a hotel in Lima plus taxi rides and whatnot so they’ll be able to stay close and it will hardly cost them anything.

 That night we decided to try a restaurant that one of the temple workers suggested to us.  Bad choice.  Worst 34 soles of our Peru trip!  We got a mixed plate and ordered the things we hadn't tried before without even really knowing what they were in English.  We still don't know exactly what we ate, but it wasn't good.