Tour of Peru Days 1 and 2

About a month and a half ago we made a 2 week long trip through the southern portion of Peru. We packed up our car, got on the Panamericana and headed south. It was the best trip of our lives. The uncertainty of each day kept it very interesting. Peru is a beautiful country with landscapes varying from coast to desert to high plains to mountainous valleys to near jungle. It's taken a while to decompress from the trip and get back to normal life. We'll attempt to post some of the more interesting pictures over the next few days. This is installment #1.

Browse through the slide shows for pics of what we saw. Lots of scenery since we were in the car a lot of the time.

Day #1: left from Lima to Nazca. Nazca is famous the Nazca lines, which are lines in the desert made long ago that make pictures of animals or just geometry shapes. You can see them from an airplane, but we didn't go for it because we were running late. The drive was mostly a desolate desert. People had plopped down homes in the desert made of matted reeds. We made it to our hotel, Oro Viejo, and enjoyed the pool.

Day #2: drove from Nazca down to Arequipa. It was a day full of driving. The Panamericana made me miss I-80. Outside of Lima it is just a 2-lane undivided road with lots of double-decker buses with risk-loving drivers, semi-trucks from the '70s, and others with minimal driving skills. Some parts were covered with sand leaving only one lane to handle both directions of traffic. In one stretch the road rose along the cliffs and left little room for error. Broken barriers and crosses marking grave sites did not console Stace much. We arrived in the late evening to Mark's co-worker's parents' house (got that?) who hosted us for the next few days. 



More later.

Another Side of Peru

We live in La Molina, a tranquil, nice part of Lima. Stace drives the kids to and from school each day in another part of town and passes Alberto, a guy in a wheelchair, who sells mints or gum. The kids like him and encourage Stace to buy from him or give to him even when he's out of goods. Stace asked what he needed help with a few weeks ago and he pointed to his tires, indicating that they were wearing out. We decided we'd try to help him out by buying him some new tires. So on Saturday, Sept 26, we met up with him and loaded him into the back of the SUV. He said the place to buy the wheels was 15 minutes away, so we thought it would still be in a nice area. We were wrong.

We didn't have a clue where we were going and Alberto only seemed to know the path slightly better.

We were headed to Plaza Grau--a central market place in Lima.

It took 40 minutes to arrive.Our destination was a street with hundreds of bikes for sale. Once we turned onto the street, we didn't have to find the store, the vendors found us. 

We took over 2 hours to get back where we picked up Alberto. Everyone we asked on the streets had ideas on how to get home, but none of their suggested paths out worked.

Later, after telling some neighbors about where we had been, we were told to never go there again, especially in our own car.

Since it was a unique experience in a unique part of Lima, I'm posting a lot of photos.

We drove past many workshops. Check out the housing high on the hills.

Here's a closer shot of the housing.

This is the Lima Fruit Market. The Daewoo minicar (yellow) is a common taxi around here.

 

 Some band going through the streets.

Special price.  We went with the high performance nylon.

Ballerina, Asleep, Alberto, Karate Kid.

   

 I told them I'd buy them soda if they got us out of there quick.

 

Bikes. Alberto in back of car.

 

Fruit sellers.

Grilled bananas.

These tricycles are everywhere and can hold a lot. Once I saw one with a 2 year old child in the front basket with the husband peddling and the wife on the back rack.

  

Some semi-trucks using woven mats and sticks to keep their goods in.

 

 

Traffic.We were the only car that wasn't a taxi or a bus. 

 

This was a unique stretch we drove through. People gave us the "Gringo, you're totally lost" stare.

 

A wedding was being held at the other end of the block.

 More shops.

 Finally made it back to La Molina. Alberto was grateful for the new wheels.

 

Cast Away - DIY

Jane got her cast about a month ago, so it was time for it to come off. The pediatrician in Utah said it could come off after 3 weeks and that we wouldn't need another set of x-rays down here, so I thought I'd do it myself.

[maybe later, problems with video]

Above is video of Jane pouting and walking around like a peg-leg pirate.

Here's Jane in her last days with her cast.

Close up.

Over the course of 3 days I used my multi-function tool to get it off. Here is Jane on the operating table.

First, I used the mini-saw. I could get off the part by her foot alright, but struggle down the length of her leg.

Next, I used the knife to score a line down the leg. Then I cut that line at an angle to get a little chunk of cast off. With a little more help from the can opener attachment and the needle nose pliers, we made it all the way.

Here's the final product. A lot of old, scaly skin and some worn off skin from the cast.

It's now been about 3 days since removal and she's still walking a bit as though she still had it on. A few more days and she'll be back to 100%.

Fiesta

Our nice front door neighbors invited us to the mom's birthday party this past Tuesday. We thought it would be interesting to see how they do it. They were all very nice. We arrived at 8:30 and we're about to leave at 9. They said we should stick around a little longer until mariachi singers came, who were supposed to show at 9. We left at 10:30 with no sign of the singers so we could put the kids to bed. Five minutes after leaving we heard the mariachis singing, so we hurried through bedtime to return. We caught their last number. Stace even got in a little dancing with them.

Here we are with some of the relatives of the birthday girl.

"Yes, in our country it is customary to take your kids to parties in their pajamas."

Stace, with the birthday girl, Faviola.

Stace, with some other party guests. All were very welcoming.

LarcoMar - Oceanside Mall

Yesterday we made our deepest excursion into town. We went to LarcoMar, a shopping/tourist area that is built into the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, in the Miraflores district.

Here we are at one of the lookout areas.

A little better shot of the view to the south.

Here's a shot of the beach and cliffs below the mall.

A lot of people go paragliding in the area. They take off from the cliffs above and go back and forth in front of the mall before either landing below on the beach or somewhere off to the south. This is Stace sailing past us.

We ate at a place that overlooked the ocean and was recommended by the Lonely Planet Guide to Peru, Vista del Mar. They served this really good cooked, salted, but unpopped, corn.

The sunset was awesome but the glass kept us from taking a decent shot of it. 

Pedro wanted his new favorite dish, antecuchos de corazon (skewered cow heart). Eva had fetuchini. Jane had the ham from Eva's futichini. Stace and I both had milanesa a la napolitana, a favorite of mine from Argentina. 

Neighborhood Park

Last Saturday we visited a park that's a few blocks from our place. Immediately this little girl, Nicole, comes up and starts talking to us. Pete & Eva didn't understand a word she said but that didn't phase her: she took their hands and took them to the swings.

Swinging.

Nicole liked Jane. She also invited us all to her birthday party in November.

Ingrid & Ingrid, here, wanted to practice their English with us, a lot.

Hola, Lima!

First sights of Lima on the ride from the airport to La Molina

Lights of Lima

An absolute angel stocked our apartment to make our first days here more comfortable.
Our lovely land lady was there in the wee hours of the morning to greet us.
We have great new friends here who have made this possible.


Mark and Stacey in our new apartment in La Molina, Peru.