Lima, 3:30pm

Good afternoon all,

Stephen and I arrived in Lima yesterday.  We said goodbye to our fabulous new Aussie friends and decided to do the last 5 days on our own here.  We were invited to go along to Bolivia with the gang but we would have had to arrange our own private transport for parts of the journey that we weren't even sure we could get, so we decided to come back and do our own thing.  Then we thought about going to a lesser known sacred site 6 hours north from here called Marcahuasi, which is supposedly just as magical if not more so than Machu Picchu, but for the last couple of days I have had a major case of the sniffles, which would have been torturous on a packed bus for 6 hours, so we got ourselves a room in a hotel in Miraflores (the nice part of Lima).  And I am actually feeling much better today :)  The weather is quite grey here, which is quite a change for us, having had almost 3 weeks of sun.

A funny thing happened with our hotel yesterday.  We found it online and decided to just show up.  It was advertised as $40 US a night with full amenities, swimming pool, beautiful photos, etc.  We arrived and it wasn't nearly as nice as advertised, there was no swimming pool and it was double the price!  At first we thought we must be at the wrong hotel but we soon discovered that the website we were looking at was actually a scam!  How relieved were we that we didn't book it online?!  Note to all: Don't use travbuddy.com! We actually ended up getting upgraded to a suite on the top floor because the room they originally gave us had a wet carpet and mould growing.  We now have a jacuzzi tub, big balcony and plenty of DVD's to watch.  We're feeling the need to unwind a bit after spending so many consecutive days on a tour bus seeing so many sights.

Miraflores is a pretty cool area of town.  We went out and had a delicious Mexican meal last night with the best fresh baked tortilla chips I have ever had.  We even enjoyed a little reminder of home- Starbucks!  Although it does feel a bit strange being there in a country like this ;)  So, we will have a few more days of rest and relaxation here and then...we are coming back to Canada. 

We have had an amazing 4 months but we have decided the smart, sensible thing to do is come back and make some money before we head out again.  We are off to Calgary where Stephen will be working the holistic show.  The family of one of the girls from the Italian singing program I did offered to sponsor Stephen and put us up at their house for a month.  After that, we will head to Vancouver to stay with my amazing friend Leanne (can't wait to see her!) to do another show, and then back to Toronto for the show in November.  

We're actually looking forward to coming back for a bit.  Being away, we have realized how lucky we are to be from Canada, where everything is just so relaxed and easy.  I love the West coast too and this will be Stephen's first time seeing Vancouver.

Going to go watch a movie now...it's a toss-up between Star Wars 3 and Lord of the Rings...Yoda or Smeagle?  It's a toughie... ;)

Adios,

Andrea & Stephen