Leaving for Cuzco the day after tomorrow, by bus.

We are counting down the days and cant wait to go to Cuzco! I have been here in Lima for a week and a half, and it has been awesome, but I am ready to get away from the horn crazy taxis for a little while and get to the mountains! Whoot!!

Today, I had my first dentistry work done outside of the USA ever! I have been neglecting my teeth for too long.  At first because I was scared of dentists but eventually because of no dental insurance. boo. It was amazing how I went to just have my teeth looked at and ended up getting a cleaning and three teeth filled in an hour.  I will put more on my POV (Point Of View, a film term and since I am a filmmaker I might as well start familiarizing you guys with the terminology, cuz some of my posts will be about film) of Peruvian dentistry on a new post and as I go through this experiment, with myself as the guinea pig, I will keep you updated so you can either enjoy the outcome or avoid the disaster!

Here's a picture I took of the sacred painting of the Señor de los Milagros and front of church.

Today we went to the Señor de los milagros church, which is really La Iglesia de las Nazarenas, (imagen del senor de los milagros) which is the church of the Nazarenes, in case you couldn't tell.  It is famous for the image at the very back(or front?) of the church, behind the Alter, painted by an Afro Peruvian supposedly in the 1600's and when there was a huge earthquake, everything was destroyed, except for this painting. It is considered to be a miracle and people come to have religious images and things blessed, as well as water. This happened at the end of the mass we attended, everyone came up to the front with whatever they had and the priest did a mass blessing and declared all blessed and the water holy.  Im coming back with water! 

The best part of going to the church, was going to eat afterwards! We went to a place called El Chinito.  It is an amazing sandwich place in Old downtown Lima.  Great sandwiches and they were 11.50 Soles which is about 4 dollars I believe.  Not that cheap but pretty yummy!

At least this group of Peruvians loves the "sanguiches" enough to pay that price!

Oh!! and I almost forgot! I was first of all woken up this morning(not too early, about 945 or 10am) by the pounding of drums and music and shouting and I stumbled out into the light of day, in my PJ's to see this:

This was the beginning of celebrations this week, as far as I am concerned! This was all the local Jesus Maria, Lima school kids parading with their classes to show some Peruvian pride! And what true Peruvian pride it was.  There was everything from traditional Incan garb to Afro peruvian black face (not so cool according to my partially Afro Peruvian wife), kids dressed up as people from the Amazon and just about everywhere and from every historic period in Peru. There was even a kid dressed up as a traditional Peruvian cowboy leading along, by a long rope, a kid dressed up as a Cow! That was definitely my most regretted missed pic this trip, so far!

Wow, chicos! That took way too long to finish.  Definitely am gonna search for better internet options for this! Its not worth it if its making me lose precious Peru time waiting on mud slow internet!! LOL

Talk to you soon, ciao Bellos!