Peruvian Adventure: day 2+

Day 2 and 3 into the Peruvian trip.

Been a modestly slow couple of days. Which, honestly was nice. The weather has grown hotter now, more humid at noonday. However, the night is still cool and temperate.

On Monday we took a cab down to the Parque Kennedy. It's a large, large park down in the Miraflores district. It's super nice, and on the weekends, craftsfolk and painters show up and display their wares. Naturally some is for sale.

On one side of Parque Kennedy is a lovely church called Iglesia de la Virgin Milagrosa. The design was by a Polish architect named Ricardo de Jaxa Malachowski in 1939. The design is a pre-modern, with a heavy local influence on the architecture. It's very very beautiful. Also the home of one of Peru's most beloved writers is turned into a museum.

We tried to visit the church but it was closed at that time. Most unfortunate, I wanted to see what the interior architecture was like. We never made it down to visit much else, we decided to come back later.

Stopped off for a pizza then, which was really good! Like most things here, the food was fresh. Which makes a difference. Off Parque Kennedy, there is an overabundance of little places to eat. Several are pizza places. McDonalds, Burger King and the like are all there also.

After the pizza, we headed over to Inca Market. It's like the flea market style with merchants setup in a large, sprawling open air location. Lots of booths held much the same thing. Not all though. Some held some really unique stuff. One, for example, had a man who specialized in making flutes. Amazing flutes of all kinds. The sounds were amazing. I had to get one. I loved the sound, now.. all I need to do is practice!

After that, we came back to the apartment and relaxed for awhile. Then we considered going for dinner, but kinda gave up on it and ordered in. Amazingly almost everything delivers - even McDonalds! So we had fast food for dinner. Not very 'local' in the food variety but eh... it was dinner.

Tuesday morning, we got up and headed over to the Embassy (Charley got called into work for the morning). I followed him around and hung out in his office for awhile. Then he led me over to a Starbucks while Charl went into a meeting. That was a small adventure. I got to practice my spanish while ordering and dealing with the locals. More often than not, the locals would come over to ask me a question or two, I'd answer (fortunately I was able to), and they'd go about their day.

Eventually, around my second cup of coffee, I sat down with a couple of American ladies and talked a long time with them. They had a really bad time of it. They started off in Chili visiting relatives, then the earthquake kicked off. Once they could leave Chili, they came to Peru and visited Cuscos... and immediately was robbed. They headed for the embassy to get replacement passports and were 'OVERJOYED' to speak with an American. I felt sorry for them.

They were really nice to talk to. One lady I know was from New York. Her husband was in the music industry before he passed away. She was a historian also. I don't know if they got home, but I hope they did. They seemed to be more than ready to go home.

Other than that, we came back to the apartment and mostly crashed. That turned out to be a better idea than I first thought. I slept like a rock, which I apparently needed. While in Starbucks, one guy was smoking a russian cigar and it seriously kicked off a bad case of allergies. More of a chemical burn meets allergy. Very irritating. But the swelling isn't bad and seems to be slowly leaving. Which is good.

Well, tomorrow should be interesting. We'll be taking the city tour, then exploring the local ruins..or maybe the other way around! Not sure! But that's all part of the fun.

Peruvian Adventure: day 1

Actually, I suppose the title should be 'day 1 1/3'. We arrived in Peru late last night. The flight was .. a flight. No flight is actually completely comfortable, you are sitting in a flying bus with recycled air after all, but this wasn't vile.

We arrived about 11:30 (12:30 local time), met up with Charl and headed to his place. Given it was midnight on a Saturday night, I spend time looking around as best I could in the taxi. At night, it's interesting. Lima is trying to do their best to boost things for tourism. They are doing a good job too, but there are some things left to work on.

The traffic is the most interesting part. Cars, taxi's, etc aren't all that bad. The traffic rates right up along with the worst of Atlanta traffic, however ... the small bus traffic - commuter type buses - are just unreal! They seem to pack them full of people and bus them between districts. Ok, that sounds normal, yes? Now imagine a small mini-bus, holds roughly 10 to 15 people now packed with 20! Now imagine they are racing along at breakneck speed, darting in and out of traffic like mad. That would be a recipe for disaster. From what I understand, it often is, as traffic accidents are the leading cause of death in Peru.

Where we are staying is a nice place, with a fantastic view of the Pacific ocean. Out the main bay window, there is a modest park with a large lighthouse in it. Very nice.

Today (Sunday), we'll be taking is slow, with a lunch at a nice place that overlooks the Pacific from 300 feet up. Tonight possibly a nice dinner as well. Between that, not too sure yet, I think we'll just take it as it goes.