sewn-in hidden pockets full of nuevo-soles, we were ready to begin the day. We took a cab to a place about 20 minutes away known as Huaca Pucllana. This place is a location full of ancient pyramid-like structures from 200-700 AD, and is right in the middle of the city. It "features walls of adobe bricks, built in a bookshelf fashion, which were found to be earthquake resistant. It was constructed by the pre-Incan peoples of the Miraflores district in Lima as a ceremonial site. Today it is an active archaeological site." Shockingly it wasn't a landmark or anything special until about 50 years ago when the government decided to kick out all the poor people who lived on it and turn it into a national historic sight. When we got there in the blazing sunlight we were happily greeted by our tour guide. He was a very sociable guy and we learned a lot about the history of the place. We learned that they used the structures 
primarily for religious reasons, and they had found remnants of child sacrifices there! Crazy stuff. They also stacked the bricks vertically instead of horizontally, which is how it has lasted through the many earthquakes Lima has. When you climb to the top of the structures you can see the ocean and the surrounding mountains, so it also made for a great view of Lima in general. While we were there construction workers were there too rebuilding parts of the sight since all of the bricks are just made out of sun-dried 
clay.We also learned that in their society, women were the leaders. When our guide said this I nodded my head thinking it was awesome and said "that's right", and then he continued to say that despite this, most of the human sacrifices were women. John of course made some snarky comment and the guide thought we were hilarious. I guess he gets a little bored with his job, but I'm glad we could entertain. Anyways after we looked around the pyramids and at the creepy mannequins for a while we went to a little farm area and I saw my first llama of South America! We also saw a little hut full of guinea pigs getting plumped up to be someone's dinner someday. After the tour finished we perused the gift shop and got some much needed water.We then took a quick cab ride to the next location we had highlighted in our Lonely Planet guide book, which was a place to shop and barter known as El Mercado de Los Indios. We walked around the numerous open air shops, perusing the Peruvian souvenir goods
for the first time. I was impressed by how inexpensive and colorful everything was- though it was a little annoying to have the workers constantly following you around and pressing you to buy their products. (I later realized that only in more tourist cities are the workers this obnoxious.) It was probably more beneficial to the workers who weren't paying attention because I was more likely to stay at their stand longer if I didn't feel pressured. I ended up buying a ceramic vase item for Danielle, as well as a Christmas ornament. John got a traditional brightly colored woven blanket. I didn't have my usual buyers remorse that tends to happen to me 
when shopping because we paid in Peruvian soles- definitely a plus! After we wore ourselves out from shopping it was time for lunch. We were in the fun, beautiful, and more artistic area of the city known as Miraflores, but unfortunately no food places were to be found for several blocks. Luckily, we stumbled upon a tourist info stand where the nice lady kindly informed us of a street to go to that had many food choices. When we got to the very decorative and colorful street we were instantly targeted as tourists (thanks to our pale skin and backpacks, haha) and so the pushy waiters were running out into the streets with their menus, trying to convince us that their place was the best choice. One man was extremely pushy, possibly the most pushy waiter we experienced on the whole trip (and trust me, we experienced many), but unfortunately his restaurant seemed to have the best menu and prices, so even though it hurt our pride to give in to his annoying ways, we sat down there to have 
lunch. We didn't make it very far down the street, haha. John kindly ate there for my sake, since it was an Italian place, even though he disapproved of its status as a "tourist restaurant". He dealt with it though because after being so sick yesterday I needed some substantial food! During our meal a man came by playing three instruments at once, and John of course used his crazy zoom lens on his amazing camera and got some choice candids. (The photo on the right is the view from our table)After a nice and relaxing lunch we went out to hail a cab. (This process of "cab hunting" was a new experience for me that day, but it would later become a very frequent occurrence- You go up to drivers and say "how much would it cost to go to ___"?, scope out their price, and compare. If you don't feel like actually comparing you can just lie and tell the cab driver that the other driver close by was going to do it for 5 soles less, and then they will usually jump down to your price and comply. However, you do have to know how to speak decent Spanish for this to happen!) We then took this oh-so-craftily hailed cab to a more distant location, Parque de Las Leyendas Zoo, which allowed us to take a long and scenic oceanside drive. I had a 30 second chat
in Spanish with our cab driver about sand dredging, which made me happy because I actually understood him. Once we arrived John and I realized that we were the only tourists (white people) around. It was a neat feeling though because we felt like we were finally in the "real Lima" or something. Admission to the zoo was inexpensive, and we walked around for a long time and saw many different animals. One thing I noticed is that the big cats weren't necessarily contained all that well, and they were crazy close! It made for good photo taking, but it was somewhat scary. We witnessed a bear sitting in a hilarious pose eating a banana randomly, and also some jaguars get into a little tiff. I was impressed with all the monkeys there and how active they were being, and also with the fact that I could get within 4 feet of a huge Bengal tiger. John and I also had fun attempting to pick out good candy from the vending machine- we had never heard of a single one of the brands before.After we had our fill of being in the heat we got another cab to take back to the main Plaza de
Armas. Since it was rush hour the cab ride took an eternity. Our driver took a different route than the one we took to get there and we went through some somewhat sketchy parts of the city. Thanks to the paranoia instilled in me by the pessimistic guidebooks I harbored a slight fear that we were being taken to a remote location where we would then be mugged and abandoned. But, that of course was not the case! It was just a usual crazy, jilting, terrifying cab ride! Once back at the plaza we went shoe shopping for me since John thought it'd be a good idea for me to buy shoes I didn't care about ruining for the rainforest trip. After having semi-confusing discussions about shoe types and sizes with the workers (I am a size 39 apparently), I ended up getting some brown gym shoes. John then went outside and bought an empanada, and since we were tired we took another scary, near death experience cab ride back to the hostel. We stocked up on more cash 
from our in-room locker and then at dusk we went to an ocean view mirador (lookout) that we had noticed from the balcony of our hostel. The walk there was very scenic and we got some good pictures, and the mirador itself was very pretty at that time of night. We then had a quick dinner at a local place, and returned to the hostel where I arranged for us to have a cab pick us up at 4am the next morning. Ugh! I hadn't been feeling sick all day luckily, but for some reason I started feeling nauseous again before we went to bed. Also our hostel had a little bar in the common area, and so John got a Cusqueno beer- and now, sleep!
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