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!