Day 7 Lima

sightseeing in the morning- eddie took me to pachacamac, ruins just outside of lima. a religious site with a sun and moon temple- one of the hypothesis is that virgins were housed in the temple and at some point were chose to either become courtesans for royalty or sacrificed for the gods. . . supposedly women were considered sacred- during a woman's menstrual cycle the could not be touched by men so men instead engaged in homosexuality, bestiality, etc.

after our tour, we decided to grab lunch. another amazing meal. the best was a minature version of a staple peruvian dish. bite size piecs of plaintain, rice & beans, marinated flank steak, and a piece of quail egg. . .seriously i've been in foodie heaven. who would have thought lima would be a culinary center?

pintobean and i met up in the afternoon to go to the inka market to buy gifts for friends and families. i love markets. . .such neat arts and crafts. the peruvians have some amazing furniture/woodwork, pottery, and jewelry. . . 3 hours of shopping later i had managed to finish the bulk of my gift shopping.

i learned that haggling/bargaining in peru is VERY different than in china. in china, you are given a price by the vendor. generally it's safe to counter with half of that price (sometimes more). there are several rounds and you can usually get the vendor to go down if you (1) walk away, (2) agree to buy more than one piece, (3) promise to bring your friends back to buy more. .

in peru you are given a price by the vendor. you can get maybe 15-20% off the asking price. but bargaining ends at 2-3 rounds and it's impossible to get them to take off just 2-3 solas.