Lima, Peru.

I decided to give myself another 10 day break at the end of November to go see our northern Peruvian neighbors. I made this trip with my friend Grace, a friend of a friend who's studying abroad here in Santiago as well. Surprisingly enough, Grace and I actually went to high school together, swam for Northwood, and actually had a lot of mutual friends! Small world. We took a flight out to Lima, which acted as the starting and final points of our trip. We were both so mentally unprepared at the beginning that while we were taking a bus to the airport in Santiago, I realized I didn't even have the name of our hostel written down. Luckily we had arranged for an airport pickup from the hostel, so when we landed there was a driver waiting to take us back.

With my partner in crime in front of the presidential palace by the Plaza de Armas

What trip to a Latin American city would be complete without a visit - or at least photo - of a cathedral?

A night view of another cathedral in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima

There was some kind of cow parade slash festival going on, so this is me con mi propia vaca

One guy was giving out free hugs!

As soon as we arrived in Lima, we asked our hostel owners about taking a bus to Cusco, so we could go visit the crown jewel of Peru, Machu Picchu. Unfortunately for us, Peruvian miners had started striking that very day, closing off bus routes from Lima to Cusco as well as Puno, a lake district in the country. Not wanting to spend our whole trip waiting in Lima for the strikes to end, we decided to loop south instead to Arequipa and hope the strikes would end pronto!

Perched and ready to go for our 16-hour bus ride

When we got back to Lima at the end of our trip, we were so exhausted from the traveling we'd been doing (10 day trip, 3 of which were spent on public transportation) that we really just roamed around the city with no real agenda and no desire to do anything. We snacked on some Peruvian food and checked out some artesanal fairs, but otherwise just killed time before heading to the airport back to Santiago.

Grabbing champus from a street vendor - not shampoo, but an apple and cinnamon-y stewlike concoction

Yes, we did stop by a Burger King in Peru; this is a chicken finger sandwich. LITERALLY.