no kidnappings, no robberies crossing the border!

I forgot and packed my camera cord! I hope. I am sure. I think. Anyway, no pictures until Cusco I think.

I made it to Lima and the trip was really mellow. Luckily, there was another woman crossing the border with the same company and she is Ecuadorian and has done it before, so I felt much more comfortable - there were definitely moments that I would have been confused and feeling sketchy if I were alone. The border guard gave me the six month visa I asked for which is a relief. It is only up to the border guard to say how many days you can have on your visa and there is no way to change it from inside the country, so if he had chosen to give me two weeks, that would have been some big plan changing!

Peru is stunning. I love it so much. We hugged the coast all the way down to Lima. Sometimes on the beach, which was beautiful, though typical coast scenery. When we would get a little further from the water, it would turn very different in that between the Andes and the coast in Peru is all desert. There are scientific, weather related reasons for this that I can{t quite remember. I woke up this morning in that blue light before dawn and we were in the middle of stunning sand dunes as far as the eye could see in that blue light. It was so very pretty. It was the closest I{ve ever seen to what I imagine the great deserts of Africa must look like. Just about the time the sun came up, we entered more normal coastal area and I was very glad to have woken up early.

I found the bus ride not too bad, especially with the help of a 1/2 sleeping pill at night to help get some sleep. Not a whole one, cause you never know when the police are going to pull over the bus and search it. Then you have to get off and show your ID and your bag so I didn{t want to be too far out of it. I think I am going to stay in Lima until Wednesday and take the long bus to Cusco then. I enjoy getting to see the country side traveling by land and I think that most of what I want to see from Cusco is to the south, so I may as well take the bus from here to there to see what{s in between.

If I run across my camera cord I will post some pictures. None of them are super great since they are taken from behind the glass of a moving bus, but some are okay.

Off to find a hostal and somewhere to change money and a phone booth.

Love you!