Peru Fall 2014 Day 3

We spent the morning in the hotel in our India suite.  We had breakfast in the room because it was included in the rate then we basically stayed in until it was time to move to the next room as we weren't staying in the same room both nights. When they had the other room cleaned and ready we switched over to Eqipto (Egypt of course).  We really only dropped off our stuff by this point then we chose to walk around Barranco for a while.

In Barranco mainly we walked just out in the direction of the main avenue without really a destination in mind. We stopped at the Barranco Beer Company which is a micro brewery. We started there with a sampler of six beers.  There was a pilsner, white wheat beer, mix of the pilsner and amber ale, amber ale, dark wheat beer and their Octoberfest.  Daniela settled on El Duque which was the dark wheat beer and I had the Don Mau which was the Octoberfest.  They were all reasonably good with the pilsner being the most generic.  We didn't eat except for some chancha they provided.

After the brewery we continued walking down to the main square until we got to the electric trolley which actually runs on the weekends and we took our 2 soles each ride to its end stop maybe 5 minutes away. It didn't go that fast so probably it was only 10 minutes of walking or so. We got off at the other end and then walked around into a gated area because a nice resident let us in and watched the ocean for a few minutes from above as Barranco is also on the same shelf Miraflores is.

After our ocean viewing we turned back in and headed for the hotel with a stop in a new small shop off near the bridge to the old destroyed church.  We took our time and it got back after dark. We only stayed in the hotel long enough to freshen up then got back out and took a taxi to the restaurant Danica which is the place we had our first date that last Friday I stayed in Lima to teach class (not counting our tour experiences as official dates).  The restaurant is somewhere between San Isidro and Miraflores right off a big roundabout.  It didn't take long to get there.  I had a spaghetti dish with an oil based sauce that had tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, prosciutto and parsley. Daniela had the "Oriental Salad."  The food was really good. We each had a glass of Malbec red wine with the meal. After the food we shared a brownie "shifus" which was a chocolate chip cookie brownie with coffee ice cream over it.  They had Baileys and chocolate sauce as well. The brownie was warm and it was very good. I had a coffee and Daniela has an herba luisa tea.

From the restaurant we walked for a few minutes in the direction of the hotel then caught a taxi back t the room where we turned in for the night.

The pictures from today are located here.

Peru Fall 2014 Day 2

We had the late night with my late arrival which meant a late start in the morning. We were at Daniela's house so her mother was home when we got moving and we quickly ate breakfast with her then got cleaned up and separated our packing to take for the first couple days of the trip. When we were ready we took a cab to Barranco where were were going to stay at the Hotel Park Suites for Saturday and Sunday nights. The drive took a little while but we made it eventually. We really on checked in and right away went out to lunch.  The room we got was the India suite for the first night. Daniela told me we were going to change for the second night.

We took another cab to lunch. We had to walk a couple minutes to main avenue to get a taxi but it was fairly quick.  We went to La Salta de Fraile which is a restaurant with a name that translates to The Jumping Friar.  The idea is that a monk jumps from the cliffs into the ocean.  We got there in time to see such a demonstration though we found out as we entered the restaurant after watching (and recording it) that the guy we saw was not the official one from the restaurant but was a guy who was doing it on his own.  Daniela screamed when he jumped but he was fine and climbed right back up the cliffs and came around and collected tips.

Inside the restaurant I got a Chilcano and Daniela got a algorribina which is a pisco drink that has a fruit and some chocolate in it so that it tastes a little like a chocolate shake or frozen mudslide. She ordered and we shared a causa de mariscos which is a potato and seafood (shellfish) dish.  It was very good.  For dinner I had a braised fish in its own broth and Daniela had a rice and seafood.  The food was all very good and I even got some octopus from Daniela's dish because she wouldn't eat it.  After we were done eating we stayed around for a little while and watched the sunset and got dessert and coffees. The dessert was an ice cream dish with cognac, chocolate sauce and whipped cream. The ice cream was strawberry. It was very good.

After dinner we had the restaurant car drive us to downtown Barranco then we walked slowly back to the hotel where we spent the night.  On the way we stopped at a small bookstore and bought Daniela a couple of books.

The pictures from day one are found here.

Peru Fall 2014 Day 1

Today started really late to me for a flight to Peru. My plane didn’t depart until 1:30pm so I didn’t even leave the house until 10:00am. My father drove me to the airport and we had very little traffic. This very early time to leave the house of course led to no issues with checking in and dropping off the bag for check in either. Since I put my known traveler number into the mileage plan for Delta I was given TSA Pre automatically and security check in was also very easy (only 2 people in front of me, both business travelers).  I had not flown Delta in a long time and this was a sort of experiment in flying them instead of United or American to Lima. My last United experience in both directions was obviously bad so we would see how this turned out in comparison.  Really I bought these tickets because they were significantly cheaper than anything else for this time at only about $645 or so.  Maybe other airlines got cheaper later than I purchased but one rule of air travel is never go back and look if anything got cheaper. You can’t really do anything about it anyway.

At the airport I sat at the Harpoon Brewery bar and had a couple IPAs as well as a hot dog. The beer was good and the hot dog was ok and very big. It came with chips not French fries.  That killed the largest amount of time while waiting for the flight to Atlanta to board. I spoke to the bartender who was an older woman from Bedford which is where the Hologic office is.  Since they were just opening there weren’t many people there at first and she was pleasant enough to talk to.  When I was done eating I cleared out and headed to the gate (all the way across the hallway from the bar (right there that is)) and waited for the boarding which was only a minute or two late.  Boarding put me in the last group but I still managed to find a slot in the overhead for my backpack.  The flight was mostly uneventful mostly because I think I slept through more than 90% of it, being awake only for takeoff and landing and the drink/snack service time.  They actually gave peanuts, or pretzels or cookies. I was a bit surprised for a domestic flight in the US.  I chose the peanuts.  We landed easily and I was able to get to the E concourse from the A concourse fairly easily too.  I had an hour and a half from landing time to departure time officially and was able to easily get to the gate before boarding started by about 15 minutes which gave me enough time to get this written.  By the way the first plane was a MD90 which had no entertainment system in it at all.  They had wifi but I never took my laptop out obviously and am sure I didn’t want to pay for it anyway.

The second plane was a 767-300ER.  I was seated on the left outside aisle seat. My neighbor was a woman from Winnipeg who was going to Peru for the first time but had traveled quite a bit. We talked for probably the first two hours of the around 6 hour flight until the food was served then we both settled in to watch movies on the in seat entertainment.  The food was typical airplane fare and I chose to just eat the extras and not the actual hot food. I had a glass of red wine to go with it.  So basically I ate the tomatoes out of the salad, the cheese, crackers, roll and brownie.  I watched How to Train Your Dragon 2 which was cute.  After that was over I watched a movie called The Chef, the Actor and the Scoundrel which was a Chinese movie about, I am sure fantasized, about some Chinese agents stealing a cholera vaccination from the Japanese during their east China occupation.  It was partial comedy and partially serious.  I was confused by it at first but that is common with Chinese movies for me.  I think at first I was going to stop watching it but the real plot came in just in time to save it so I watched it to the end.  By the time the movie was over there was less than 40 minutes to landing and I just watched the flight map.  I talked with my neighbor a little bit more and gave her Daniela’s business card in case she had any issues and needed help.  The plane landed 15 minutes early.

Immigration was a bit full after deplaning.  There were 3 other flights landing at the same time it appeared. I got through reasonably well enough though.  Then I think I was the 3^rd from the last bag on the conveyor at baggage claim so I had to wait a long time.  The lines for customs were also long because of all the planes arriving at the same time but I snuck through to the far side and got through that reasonably well also.  They were xraying every bag that came off the planes but not searching in general.

Daniela was waiting outside for me. I had texted her when the plane landed and she got there before I was through all the lines.  She looked beautiful as ever. After greeting each other we got outside and found a taxi to her house where since it was already past midnight we basically just settled in for the evening. Though I had previous had bad experiences with Delta this part of the trip went very well and I was happy with the fact I arrived on time instead of 3 or more hours late.  I know that weather played a part in the last trip but still I think it was avoidable. I am sure that most planes weren’t diverted to different airports like mine was.

No pictures for the mostly transit day.

Peru Fall 2014

I will be departing for Peru tomorrow (Friday the 24th) for a two week trip. I have not used Delta in a while and am trying them out because the cost of the flight when I bought it was less than $650.  I depart at 1:30pm and will depart Lima at 1:30am on my way back. Neither is ideal but that is what I get for the low cost.

Daniela has arranged a trip to Iquitos where we will take a river cruise on the Amazon from the 28th to the 31st. I am sure it will be exciting. I do wonder about the spiders I will see...

Mostly I  am just excited to be back with her for a couple more weeks as we go through this long wait for the immigration process.   I cannot believe how fast a full year has almost gone by since we got married.