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Published: October 11th 2009
Happy Sunday.
One thing I always find hard to remember when traveling is what day of the week it is. But today is Sunday, and that was probably why there was not that much traffic on the Pan-American Highway.
Dinner last night was a set menu, appetizer was called la causa, which if you know Spanish means the cause. It is called that because it was an easy dish to serve to the soldiers during the Peru/Chile war. It´s a layer of chicken between two layers of mashed potato. It was pretty good. The main course was similar to teriyaki. It was beef or chicken with onions and peppers in a soy based sauce with rice and oddly (to me) french fries. It´s strange to me to have both carbohydrates at a meal, but apparently, while Peru is the land of the potato, the Peruvians also love rice so it is actually common to have both of them together. Dessert was some kind of caramel cake, but it was not that great. After dinner I went to the 24 hour super market to pick up some snacks. I love getting potato chips in flavors not available in the states and I picked up some sweet potato chips. Yummy!
Oh, before I forget, I have one random thought I omitted yesterday. I am used to "playa" meaning "beach," but here it is slang for "parking lot." So on every street in Lima are signs for Playa, but it is not pointing to the beach, but a car park.
This morning started early. 6 am wake up call, bags out by 7, 7:30 leave the hotel. We drove to Paracas, stopping off breifly in Caneñete Valley. It took us about 3 hours to get to Paracas. Some tours actually drive from Lima to Cusco, but since that takes a full day, they break it up by doing the Nazca lines in the middle. Before, you had to go to Nazca to catch the planes to see the lines, but then they opened up an airport in Ica, and recently, the air force has leased out an under-used air base in Paracas to a private company so, Globus uses that one.
Okay, time to admit I chickened out. The planes they use for the flight are 12 seaters, and they do a lot of banking so that both sides of the plane can see the Lines. Well, 1.5 hours in a small plane to hopefully figure out shapes on the ground did not thrill me, so I decided to pass. And glad I did, a couple of the people who went said that it was a bit nauseating and Jennifer, the nice lady from Minnesota that I have been hanging out with did not enoy herself. I spent my afternoon on the "promenade" at Paracas Bay, watching the boats in the distance (Paracas is a fishing town) and working on my non-existent tan.
The drive from Lima to Paracas was interesting, I am not really used to driving on a road with desert on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other.
I´ve been asked about the weather. Lima is on the Humboldt current, so except for the summer months of January and February, it is always grey and gloomy. That´s why the people use such vivid colors on the houses, it´s to keep from getting totally depressed. Once you get about an hour or 2 outside of Lima, the sky gradually starts to clear and by the time we got to Paracas, it was blue skies, but a bit hazy over the water.
Random thought number 2 for today: There are actually 2 versions of the Peruvian flag. There is the plain red/white/red one with nothing in the middle, and then there is the one with the Peruvian coat of arms on the white section. Technically, the one with the coat of arms is only supposed to be used on government buildings, but you see it all over the place.
The hotel in Lima was quite nice, but today is even better, but a bit weird. We are staying at the Doubletree in Paracas, and it is all suites, but it seems a bit off the beaten path, it is surrounded by empty land. But it is on the beach with a nice pool, and since my time here is almost up, time for me to signoff and hit the sand.
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Haviva Horvitz
non-member comment
Who's your roommate?
Okay, maybe I'm a bit jealous, as I finish Religious School for today and prepare my sermon for Friday night services and get a good night sleep so that I can go to work tomorrow . . . .