Peru Spring 2013 Day 2

With the late arrival and late to bed we slept fairly late into the morning before we got moving. When we did we walked out to San Isidro where we stopped and got some ice cream before heading to the olive tree park (Bosque de Olivar) to just sit and talk and have a nice sunny afternoon. After a while we were decided to get lunch (which probably turned out to be dinner at a fish restaurant called Punta Sal. We did a cold fish sampler which had ceviche, tiradito and pulpo (which is octopus!) among a few other things. We also got a dish which was fish crochets breaded in quinoa and deep fried and served with a sauce made from a Peruvian fruit called aguaymanto.  This was honestly surprisingly good and though it was sort of more a finger food than fine dining I was very happy to have it. The breading was not oily at all and it was all very tasty.

After the restaurant we took a slow walk back to the apartment and relaxed for a while before going out to shop for snacks for the night because Daniela's sister Donna and her boyfriend German were coming over for the evening to meet me I am sure and have a nice night.  We played a couple games of a cheap reproduction of Jenga (which we did manage to get surprisingly high one game even though the blocks were all slightly different) then played a couple games of darts with a magnetic dartboard (which really helped me think in Spanish numbers). We had a couple beers along the night and a few snacks. It was very late when they left and we pretty much went right to bed after they were gone.

The pictures from today are located here.

Peru Spring 2013 Day 1

I woke up at 4:15am to get everything in order for the trip and we were able to be on our way to Logan by 5:30.  I was dropped off and was quickly able to get checked in to my flights and through security without any issues at all. I chose to just go directly to my gate and start reading The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco (one of my favorite authors) until it was time to start boarding.

The flight to Miami was completely uneventful, in fact I was able to sleep through the majority of it. There is something about being on a plane these days that allows me to do that. It was on a Boeing 757 with only main cabin entertainment.  After disembarking I found my gate for my flight to Lima was one gate away at D22 when I exited gate D21.  I had several hours of layover to go though (the  plane landed at 12:15 and boarding wouldn’t start until 3:30pm.  I found a bar/restaurant not too far away called The Island Chicken Grill and sat at the bar and had a couple of Sam Adams and a Caribbean Chicken Platter which consisted of a fairly spicy chicken breast, rice, black beans and plantains (I still don’t like plantains).  During my time at the bar I met a couple from Massachusetts who were heading home after a sport fishing trip down in the keys and a guy who trains customers how to use blood analyzers from his own company. We got to talk training shop for a bit and the medical instrumentation industry in general as well and swapped business cards.  He was an interesting guy.  Also there was a very sad woman who said she was from California but living in Washington DC.  She seemed to have a desperate need for attention and after the guy left I humored her for a few minutes before I had to move on to the gate.  I felt bad for her because she kept interrupting the conversation we were having to try to cry out for attention.  In the very confused conversation I had with her I got the impression she was married several times and I think I understand why.

From there I moved over to the gate for the flight where I started up some of this to have it done before I took off.  The rest of the wait for the flight to Lima was fairly uneventful if a bit long.  We boarded the plane and I got lucky. It was a 767 with 3 areas of seating and I was on a middle section aisle seat with no one next to me. I again slept through most of this flight. I tried the chicken with mashed potatoes dinner and didn’t end up finishing it.  We arrived on time basically and disembarking and going through immigration and customs was easy. Daniela was at the airport waiting for me and we got our transfer to the apartment.  We got cleaned up and went out for a very late dinner which really was just a sandwich (mine was turkey and was very good) and a fresh pineapple juice.

From there we returned to the room and called it a night.

The few pictures from day 1 can be found here.

Leaving for Peru Today

Sorry the prep posts were a little light due to a lot going on with work and such but today I am departing for Peru for 2 weeks. I am flying in on American Airlines through Miami into Lima where the beautiful Daniela will meet me and we will spend some time in Lima before heading to Gocta Falls for several days then returning to Lima.