This tour was organized by OATS (Overseas Adventure Travel) an arm of GCT (grand circle travel), which started in Lima. We arrived in Lima on a bright beautiful day. Our tour guide was there to make sure we were settled in then off we went, in walking distance, to a restaurant for our welcome lunch. Here other members of the tour joined us. We were introduced to ceviche (raw fish treated with juices of lime served with onions) and to their famous drink pisco sour. You have to be careful because it creeps up on you. There seems to be a competition between Argentina and Chile as to who has the best pisca sour but it originated in Peru so that puts Peru out of the competition. Besides the alcohol used in Peru is their own and Chile and Argentina have their own.

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After lunch we took a driving tour around Lima in preparation for our exciting tour the next day. The next day we visited the Historical Archaeological and Antropological museum with quite an exhibition of Inca artifacts. Not sure exactly who is credited with the wood sculptures outside of the museum but they were amazing.

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Some of these pieces caught my eyes immediately because it represented birth practices, of course being an obstetrical nurse (registered nurse who cares for childbearing patients pregnancy, childbirth and post delivery care. The displays throughout were made of ceramic, steel and other materials. This was quite an impressive exhibition.

One of the great things about traveling to different countries, is to get to experience how the real people lives and have great interactions with the natives. We had an opportunity to visit a soup kitchen in a neighborhood but before going to the soup kitchen we stopped at a market to pick up supplies to bring to the kitchen. It should be noted, although referred to as a soup kitchen, it did not only provide food for the community but other supplies as well.

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Our market experience was led by a local tour guide, where you could buy flowers, dried food, fruits and meat products. We saw chicken cut open hanging at the stalls, in fact we observed one with an egg still in place see above picture. Hmm quite a surprise and different. Here we got rice, grains and paper goods and headed to the kitchen.

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We noticed the children were more interested in having their pictures taken and being able to see themselves in the review. We also noticed there was no begging as is often seen in other countries. In fact we were discouraged from offering children money or anything because they did not want them developing the behavior of begging.

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Our visit to Pachacamac archaeological site. Here my friend appears she is about to fly maybe she thought she could fly. It was an Hike to the top but I made it just in time to take a group picture but missed the narrative, oh well.