Although our stay in Lima lasted a bit longer than expected, we had a fantastic time! Here are a few of our our highlights.

1. Papa John’s Pizza!
Lima has the best Peruvian food in the country and we did indulge in some wonderful cebiche (seafood)… but our first meal stop? Papa John’s! Booyah! We were so excited to find one just four blocks from our hostel. It might have cost a bit much for lunch, but every delicious cheesy bite was well worth it!

We ordered the biggest pizza they had... the "fiesta." And we ate all 12 pieces on the spot. Wonderful.

2. A package from home!
Lima was the first time we had an address to give someone, and a friend organized a group package from our home church. What a treat to read hand-written letters and eat homemade cookies!

Granola bars, cookies, letters, soup and Auburn shakers! What more could you want?

3. Church!
We googled “English-speaking church” in Lima and found Potential Church. What a treat! Potential is based out of Daytona Beach, Fla., but has branches all through Florida and a couple of international campuses. So we got to attend their bilingual service, which, fortunately for us, was primarily in English with Spanish translations. We’re so grateful for the fellowship and worship we got to be a part of.

Welcome to Potential Church! We so enjoyed being a part of their Sunday service.

4. Our new tent!
You might remember us posting about a few of our gear failures back in March, and how our tent zipper was having some problems. Well, it finally bit the dust. We got it closed and left it that way for the past six weeks while we contacted REI about our replacement options. Because they have AWESOME customer support, they worked with us and helped us select a replacement … which is a little bit tougher and can better handle the day-to-day use we give our tent. We are now proud owners of the REI Arete 3! It was a bit sad and hard to say goodbye to our old tent, which we shipped back to the US. We will miss our Quarterdome T3, which we received as a wedding gift from my aunt. It has served us well!

Here it is! It has a bit more orange than we hoped, but overall we are quite pleased with our selection. The vestibule is much bigger than the two small ones on our old tent, which means we can cook "inside" in the rain!

We absolutely would NOT have been able to get our tent without the help our new friends, Kathleen and Leo. Here’s our Ferris Bueller connection: Kathleen is friends with the daughter of one of Dave’s dad’s clients. Whoa! She works with the Peace Corps in Peru and they took us under their wing. Leo drove us all over Lima to help us find our tent package, which had gotten stalled at a postal office. We are so grateful for their help. (We also took a picture with them, which, for some reason, absolutely will not load on our web site right now. Bummer!)

5. A real bike shop!
Dave’s back rim failed a few months ago while we were in the desert. Well, the front rim went last week when we were on our way to Lima. Fortunately, it didn’t completely split until we were very close to Lima, and the total breakdown happened about three kilometers away from our hostel destination. So we had to walk a little… but it certainly could have been worse! Fortunately, we were here in a big city where finding an appropriate replacement was no problem at all!

Rim failure number 2... looked a little different from round 1. But it flattened Dave's tired in a hurry!