Peru Spring 2013 Day 9

We had to wake up early to get the apartment cleaned from the apartment plus pack and then head to Daniela’s house so she could pack for the trip to Tarapoto and Gocta Falls.  It took us a little while to get all the party cleaned away and to pack and get cleaned up but we made it to her house by 10 and then to the airport maybe by 11:30.  Fortunately there weren’t a lot of lines when we go there so we were able check in and through security quickly and were at the gate with plenty of time to spare.  We had to wait a little bit as the boarding was a tiny bit delayed. We had to get on a bus and enter the plane from a stairway. They had stairs in the front and back of the plane for boarding but everyone entered the front for some reason.  The plane was a BAe 146 which I guess is a British Aerospace 146.  I think maybe it held a hundred people or so but we were definitely not full.  They served a snack and we had some orange juice. The snack was a sandwich and small cake.  Then we slept through much of the flight.

When we landed they said it was 34C which is above 90F. There were a fair amount of clouds in the sky but it was unlikely to rain. We had a transfer from the airport to the hotel for the night in Tarapoto.  The hotel was not far away at all. I do not believe Tarapoto is remotely what you would call a large city.  The hotel was named Tucan Suites Aparthotel.  We checked in quickly and they gave us a fresh grape juice drink as we checked into room 12 which is a suite room. It had 2 floors with the bedroom being downstairs and a kitchen and large balcony upstairs.  After we got settled we went to the hotel restaurant and had lunch. I wanted to eat light so had some pollo chicharon which were chicken nuggets and rice and Daniela had a very very spicy ceviche. After lunch we went down to the pool but I was more tired than anything and headed to the room to take a nap (I really didn't sleep the night before). Daniela had also napped just outside by the pool.  After a while she came up to the room and we talked for a bit before we went down to use the pool.

To me the water was cold and I barely was in there for 5 minutes but Daniela stayed in for near an hour while I sat by the poolside (it was dark out by the time we started this). After the pool we got cleaned up and we went to eat dinner.

For dinner they gave us a pitcher of fresh juice. She said it was called carambula.  It was nice. I had a criole soup for a starter and she had a salad of what I think was palm hearts. For dinner we both had grilled fish but she had hers with a garlic sauce on it. I had fries and she had fried banana chips.  I really liked the soup, the fish was good but a bit greasy. There was a lot of food and neither of us finished. Our dinner came with a dessert each and I had a stuffed crepe and she had a grape mousse. The crepe was good and the mousse was very strong flavored but she really liked it. However this is the first time she didn't actually finish a dessert that I have seen.

After dinner, it was fairly late, so we went back to the room for the night. I was exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before and fell almost instantly to sleep. During the night a severe thunderstorm passed through but mostly it was very heavy rain.

The pictures from today can be found here.