Relaxation...

Yesterday morning we both slept in until it was time to check-out of our hostel at 10:00 AM. We then enjoyed a small breakfast and went for a walk to Parque San Martin, which is the big park in Mendoza that I went to last time I was there. We had about 5 hours to kill and since the park is bigger than the actual city of Mendoza, we felt it was a great way to pass the time. 

We stopped at Havanna and got caramel lattes to go and walked the 15 blocks to the park. We roamed around the lake and as much as the park that we could. There were many people rowing on the lake, so it was fun to just sit in the warm sun and watch them go back and forth. It has been really nice to just sit back and relax. After a while we headed back to town to grab some lunch before we had to catch our taxi to the airport. 

Our flight left Mendoza at 5:15 PM and from there we flew to Santiago, Chile and had a 3 hour layover and then flew to Lima, Peru. By the time we landed in Lima it was 11:15 PM and I was so tired! We got a taxi to our hotel, which was about 5 minutes away and cost us $20 US which was a HUGE  rip off. Our hotel is very nice, but our taxi driver said that it is not a safe part of the city...I think he just wanted to take us further into town and then charge us more though. The staff at the hotel is very helpful and this morning for breakfast they made us scrambled eggs with ham in them! It was so delicious! Today I think we will take a cab downtown to the historic center and check it out!

Also, I didn't really explain this, but mate is something that is very comparable to tea leaves, but is not usually infused like tea is. Here is a link to explain it in more detail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_%28beverage%29. I proofread it and it is very accurate for :) Drinking mate is a very large part of the culture in Argentina and is a very popular thing to do amongst friends and family. It's what you would call a social activity.

Hope all is well! I will be here in Lima until Saturday morning when we fly to Cuzco!