Saturday, 28-07-07 USA to Lima

Our party arrived at the Dulles International Airport at about 4:15 am! Early day and a long day ahead of us!

And what did I find across from our departure gate? The Australian flag and a woman from Melbourne!!!!! We landed in Panama City, Panama, just long enough to catch our flight to Lima! We did get to see some ships in the locks, how cool!
We landed in Lima at about 2:30 in the afternoon. Japon and Cesar picked us up and ferried us to their parents home! We had one carload of nothing but luggage that had to be taken! (all in all there were 14 of us on the plane..... 9 stayed at Cesars' parents house).

Right after we arrived we went to the local market (right around the corner from the house). We bought fruit, pillows and blankets! Once we returned to the house, we were given a lesson on the drinking protocol in Peru. The custom is to open a bottle of beer and pour a glass for yourself, you then say "Salude" to the person you would like to have a drink next....... and if they accept you hand the bottle to them. When you are finished with the glass you then pass them the glass! Unless you are a woman and a man has said "Salude" to you, then the man pours your glass of beer and you indicate who you want to drink next and they hand the bottle to that person and so on and so on and so on..... with many bottles moving around the room at once it can get complicated! We were surprized by a huge party that started about 9ish! The door kept opening and more and more people arrived. Ten of Cesars brothers and sisters were all together and his parents were both there as well. Jakkie made wonderful tamales and had roasted a pig for us!!!!! It was awesome. We got to see Mike and Ana (Mike sang at our wedding 27 years ago) and Ana is Japons sister in law.....it's too complicated to explain!

And then the dancing began!!!!! Juan and I dancing!
Charles dancing! Steve and Japon enjoying libations!
The guys getting ready to get more beer! Carlos and Juan along with another party goer!
The party went on until the wee hours of the morning (4 am ish)! and Cesars mother and father (both in their 70's and 80's) managed to stay up the whole time! I had to turn in around 1:30 am.....what a long day!

Sunday, 29-07-07 Lima

Breakfast the next mornning was wonderful! Being in a big city (Lima is as big as NYC, 8 million people) I hadn't expected to wake up to roosters crowing!
My first wakening was @ about 4:30 am when the sounds of the party were ending. I slept with earplugs and blinders. Good thing too, at about 6am I got up again and the roosters were beginning to crow and the dogs were barking. I finally got up for good at about 10 am and had breakfast, coffee concentrate (you pour a small amount in your cup, add hot water and whatever else you want in it), fresh bread, pork, some cheese, black olives, and butter. After breakfast we took a walk to the park and walked back through the market. I bought a pair of earrings and a crystal necklace all for 4 Soles (about 1 USD)!
John standing on the landing outside our bedrooms on the third floor (we are on the rooftop next door).
Construction going on in the neighborhood.
The rabbit hutch on the roof next door. Cesar and John on the roof.
The courtyard viewed from the rooftop.
Back to the house after our outing and we toured the house. We went up on the rooftop of the flat next door. There are three apartments next door and Cesar’s relatives live in them. You can access the rooftop by going through a labyrinth of stairs, apartments, and courtyards. From the roof you can see the cages of chickens nearby and rabbit hutches. The way they construct the houses here, they extend upward. You can see all the construction around and the national flag is flying everywhere.



Late afternoon arrives and we decide to all go out to lunch. Three or four cabs are hailed and off we go, all 25 or so of us to the restaurant. This was just the first of many restaurant invasions on this trip! I ate goat meat with rice and beans (muy bien!),

Steve and Charles had ceveche. Stephen wasn’t too hungry (nothing to do with staying up late and partying I am sure) so he just nibbled on some of our lunch. We had more cervazas Crista, Inca Kola (tastes like bubble gum from what I am told…. I don’t drink cola) and chichi morada (a popular drink made from purple corn).

Back to the house, we don warmer clothes and go back out to Miraflores, a huge upscale shopping center that sits on a hillside next to the Pacific Ocean (only 12 total on this outing). We wandered through the shops and stopped at Café Café where we got some hot chocolate, dessert or cervazas. Cesar told the waiter it was John’s birthday so we had cake and sang Feliz Cumpleaños to him!


I bought some posties and the kids played some games at the arcade. Steve, Stephen, Charles and Cesar took a cab back to la casa, Barb, John, Lynn, Keely, Emma, Barbarita and I went with Japon. Halfway home someone realized they had left Scooby Doo somewhere!!!!!!!
Major meltdown there. It was a little bit of a ride back to the house and someone didn’t hit el baño before we left!!! We had to stop and get a phone card too so we could call Emory for his birthday!<

After all of that we went out the get Chifa at the corner Chinese restaurant. We ordered a bowl of noodles and Charles got some chicken and noodles. These are huge servings. There were quail eggs in the noodles so I got to try those for the first time. Adriana (one of many relatives who was at the party) stopped by the restaurant while we were there, she and Charles chatted quite a bit the night before. A woman with a young child stopped at the table and asked for our leftovers, we gave them to her. We headed back to the house for an early evening, we all have to get up early to either catch a plane or bus. Steve has to leave at 4 am to catch his flight and the bus leaves at 7 am. We did get in touch with Emory who was recovering from his Feliz Cumpleaños!

Monday, 30-07-07 Lima to Ayacucho

6:30 when Stephen knocked on the door. Took a quick shower, packed, and grabbed a quick bite to eat and then out the door. We crammed all 10 of us and all our gear into 2 cars! Had baggage on our laps!!!! Made it to the bus station in just enough time to have the baggage marked and put on the bus. No time to even use el bano at the bus station! And my brother didn’t know you weren’t suppose to use el bano for anything but number 1! The bus is really hot! I had some chamomile tea and watched the Wicker Man with Nicolas Cage.

Before the hurling incident!





Chicken houses!!!!!!



The bus is really hot! I had some chamomile tea and watched the Wicker Man with Nicolas Cage. We took lots of pictures of the scenery, which was ever changing. We had business class seats but it was so hot it was almost uncomfortable. I used some of this time (it’s a 10 hour journey from Lima to Ayacucho and we travel over the Andes). The upstairs on the bus is regular class, they have a better view but the lower level seems to be the better of the two choices. The sway on the switchbacks and heat got to Stacey and she got very ill. Emma spewed her ice cream and whatever else she had at lunch all over her seat causing a chain reaction with Barbarita !!!!

Stopping for lunch in Pisco






Barb the nurse!!!!


John doing what the natives do!
Stacey actually had them stop the bus and we were stopped for about 45 minutes while she tried to regroup. I didn’t take any Dramamine, just chewed my gum to keep my ears from popping and seemed to do fine even with all the hurling going on around me. Stephen and John were borderline sick and Keely read the whole way!!!!! The highest elevation we reached was 15,661.8 feet!!!!!!! The mountains remind me of the Sierra Nevadas. We saw llama, sheep, Andeans, alpaca, horses and cows. We nearly ran into a cow and an oncoming truck!!!!










We got to Ayacucho at about 6 pm. Cesar and a friend picked us and all 26 pieces of luggage up from the bus station. Our hotel was just around the corner from the bus station so we walked our luggage to the hotel and took a cab with Juan and Dahlia to la casa de Cesar and Barbara. They don’t speak English and we don’t speak Spanish so it’s been quite a journey.







We arrive at la casa and a birthday party/dinner is prepared. Gloria is our cook for the week and she prepared a traditional meal, soup, chicken, and rice with vegetables and chichi. After dinner Jimmy (Glorias’ son) and Danielle (Juan and Dahlias’ son) brought in a beautiful cake complete with Steve’s name on it. We sang Happy Birthday and Feliz Cumpleaños to Steve.

Cesar said it was the tradition for Steve to take the first bite, while Gloria held the cake, Steve went to take a bite and Gloria proceeded to smash the cake in his face! We all had a great laugh and Steve had icing up his nostrils the rest of the evening. The cake was yummy, a caramel topping with thick rich icing three layers thick. One layer had jam between it. The girls seem to be none the worse for wear after their sickness earlier but Stacey and her daughter were still under the weather and stayed back at the hotel.


The boys went and got a case of beer, we cleared the table and moved them out of the way and the dancing began! We drink the Peruvian way…….. no one ever seems to over imbibe between the dancing and the long waits between drinks. I got to see my first glimpse of the Southern Cross from the rooftop! We partied until about 10:30 and then the girls got a cab while the guys walked to the local plaza to see the cathedral. The plaza is not far from our hotel so we walk back there after our sight seeing.