Lima

Hola a todos,

As you may or may not know, I came to Lima about two days ago. The journey took just over 24 hours because apparently Denver is not a major hub for flights to Peru. But I made it!

Our reason for coming was in order to do quantitative research through surveys for Chris' anti-human trafficking research project that we are doing in conjunction with a professor and grad student of the University of Denver. Our travel companions don't arrive in Lima until 12am tonight, so we have not started on the project just yet.

We have spent our first two days in Lima basking in its culinary genius. Our favorite thing about Peru is the food, so we were extremely excited to eat all of our favorite things and re-visit our favorite places (and maybe find some new things) before beginning our research.

First, we went to La Lucha Sanguchería Criolla, which is among our favorite places in the world. I have no pictures of La Lucha because we were pretty concentrated on our food at the time. We may or may not have gone there three times already since arriving.

We also went for a run on a park that runs along the cliffs overlooking the ocean where you see all the new surfers falling off their surfboards and the Limeños walking their dogs dressed in sweaters and skirts.

Later, we went to Mercado Surquillo, where we ate some amazing, fresh ceviche with canchita (puffed corn) and caldo de pescado (fish broth with lime and cilantro) while listening to a couple play huayno (traditional Andean music).

 We also got a recording of the music our lovely huayno players were making. Here's the recording with all the sounds of the market (hopefully this works, let me know if it doesn't):

We then went to the Peace Corps office and caught up with a few of the employees we knew. One of the doctors had us make an impromptu video about maintaining a long distance relationship during Peace Corps, so we will now be famous for future Peace Corps trainees. You may ask for my autograph when I get back.

Us with the Peace Corps doctors

Tomorrow, we're going to start the research phase of the trip and hopefully collect lots of data!