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Published: August 12th 2008
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Jet graveyard
I think I have a similar one from the beginning of the trip taken at dusk. Here´s one taken at dawn... After roughly 2hrs of sleep, I dragged myself out of bed for one last shower in the Amazon. At around 5:07am I had a phone call that the bus was to leave at 5am, not the "5:15 or 5:30" that we were told the day before. So I scrambled around and grabbed all my stuff and bolted downstairs. I got there just in time to hear that it was too late and the bus was pulling away. It worked out ok though because someone else had overslept, so we just took a mototaxi to the airport (and probably had a nicer ride than the van). We met everyone there, and checked in for our early flight back to Lima. By the way, they only fly really early or really late from Iquitos. Supposedly it´s because of something with the air temperature or humidity. However, we heard the real reason is because there´s a big garbage dump at the end of the runway, and there were too many vultures being sucked into the engine during the daytime to make flying at those times dangerous. I just laughed when I heard that before, now I can believe it.
My flight back was
Down heaven
This is the down bed I kept going on and on about in my awesome room in Lima on the 20th floor. less than ideal. I was sitting smack next to the only child on the plane, who was a very active and inquisitive 5 year old. She also smelled to high heaven (either her or her mother, couldn´t tell). I didn´t want to blame it on them because they looked like decent people, and the mom was actually nice (dragging her annoying child away from me when she got her face in my face to just look). I´m pretty sure it was her though. It really made me appreciate all those times when the person sitting next to me DIDN´T smell. I will never again complain about sitting next to the fat person, or the snorer, or the talker. At least you can block that stuff out. I´m not sure how to block out a really bad smell (short of vicks vapor rub under your nose, and I was fresh out). Otherwise it was smooth, and I managed to squeeze in an hour of sleep or so on our 1.5 hr flight.
When we got back to Lima I thought I had died and gone to heaven. We actually got back pretty early, and were able to check in at
Love park
Weird statue of 2 people sucking face 10:30 (by paying for an extra half-day). Totally worth it. They said that after staying in the jungle the rest of the trip would be like living in luxury. It was one step up at a time, from our modest 4-star hotel in Iquitos, to our amazing 5-star hotel in Lima. Apparently they get nicer too (the Marriott down the street is supposedly the best, but you can never get a room there). We get the embassy rate for the rooms, so it brings it down to an affordable $150 a night (give or take), which is within the allowance per day. I can´t even explain how nice this place is! It´s 21 floors high (minus floor 13) with an amazing restaurant/bar/lounge on the 21st floor with panoramic views of the city. (The weird thing is that the huge windows actually open to the outside, something you´d NEVER see in the states!) Breakfast is included with the room and we made it just in time to catch the tail end of breakfast (perfect since we didn´t have time to eat in Iquitos). They had all kinds of gourmet food (even had a big bowl of pollen set out next to
Love park
The wall done by some artist from Spain -- looks like it belongs in Barcelona. Cool. the cereal), omelets made to order, and the best service you could imagine. Everyone was so attentive and helpful, I think I could have asked for a Big Mac and they would have made it happen. After breakfast, I explored my room (had only just opened the door and threw the stuff in before). Out of 21 floors, I´m on the 20th. I have a corner room with an amazing view of the water. Huge flat screen tvs, beatiful gauzy drapes over the amazing panoramic curved wall of window, very nice furniture, luxurious white bed with big fluffy down pillows, down comforter, and down pillowtop, and a completely marble and granite bathroom. Complete with a cactus and everything. I even had a little sitting area with great views of the water. Something I forgot to mention, though, is that the entire city of Lima during the summer (well, our summer) is covered with a hazy fog -- CONSTANTLY. It has to do with the cold current running up the coast creating cold air above a layer of warm air from the earth, which then condenses out all the moisture. During the dry season, there´s this constant gray that just sits
City tour pics
Me and my travel husband in one of the main plazas in Lima over the entire city. Very dreary. It often spits or mists, but rarely rains. It would be pretty depressing to live here constantly.
I popped downstairs to finally catch up on 4 days of email (I´ve become so dependent...), and lament over missing the opening ceremonies of the olympics (it´s ok, I really don´t care). No rest for the weary, though, we were soon off on our city tour. About half of us opted to take the guided 3-hour city tour. We went all over the city and visited some of the more famous cites, including the San Francisco cathedral, complete with catacombs under the church with bones from people buried there between the 17th and 19th centuries. Pretty cool. If I ever get time to upload more pictures, you´ll see the highlights of the tour there (honestly I´m too tired to even remember right now without some prompting, and I don´t think anyone really cares anyway). We got back and had just a couple of hours before dinner (which made a nice little nap). We all had a welcome-back-to-dinner at one of the locally-stationed infectious disease doc´s house. It was awesome! I can´t believe how nice the house
statue screwup
They commissioned this statue from someone and wanted a ring of fire on her head to represent something. Well the word for that and llama were apparently very close, so due to some typo, she has a llama on her head. haha was! Once you get out of the grimy city, you get some very nice houses. It was a great place, with catered dinner (very cheap here). The food was amazing, and I could finally eat fresh vegetables and not worry about getting sick (you never know at any restaurant, no matter how good). Did I mention that the food was amazing? A few glasses of wine and way too much dessert, and I was feeling pretty good. We headed back to the hotel, and from there a few of us manned up and hit the town. Miraflores is a very posh area of the city, and is quite safe to walk around (especially in a big group). We also have a lot of mid- to high-end stores nearby, within very short walking distance (and the Atlantic City Casino right across the street -- with some of the best gelato you´ve ever had. There are TONS of casinos here for some reason...) The few of us who were going out walked down the mall, which is built into the side of the cliff overlooking the water (and is really high up!). There are a few good places to go out, and
balconies
Very Spanish. Cool. I think we found the most authentic spanish local hangout we could. It was a bar with club music, but almost entirely spanish pop or spanish club music (and everyone else knew all the songs). We danced away and had a great time. I could have done without the cigarettes on the dance floor and the constant threat of being being burned in the face or hair lit on fire, all while stinking up my clothes with smoke. Again we stayed out until about 2am. By the time I got back to my room I just collapsed. By the way, another perk is very fancy chocolates delivered to your door every night (a little night cap), and laundry service picked up and delivered and nice, neat, pressed little piles. All waiting for me when I got back. I plucked the gourmet chocolate off my pillow and turned on some spanish tv. It was about halfway through an interesting looking show on animal planet about snakebites (I say interesting looking because I only picked up enough to follow it with pictures), that I found the SAP button and turned off the spanish dubbing. I let my brain rest for a while
city tour
Cool architecture in the city and fell asleep listening to a story about some idiot cutting his snakebite open and trying to suck out the venom INSTEAD OF GOING TO THE ER. (By the way, forget what the boy scouts told you, that REALLY doesn´t work. You need antivenin. Period.) I sunk into the piece of down heaven they modestly call a bed, and wished I could stay there forever. Can you even buy a bed/linens like that? I think I know what I want for christmas...
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Fernando Woll
non-member comment
Hey, it sounds like your hotel in Lima its just like the one we had in Genaro hahaha.