Back in the Big City (and at sea level!)

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Geo: -12.143, -77.0186

For those of you reading this in "real time," there is a gap for the days we were out on the Inca Trail. Good news: we made it! Obviously we didn't have the time or internet connection to blog while hiking 26+ miles over and around mountains, so I'll have to go back and fill in the blanks when I return. I think the common reaction of everyone in our hiking group was that it was an epic experience, well worth doing and we never want to do it again.We got up around 7:30 this morning, still incredibly grateful for having had a shower and a night in a bed. I never really got fully acclimated to the altitude and my chest still felt a little tight so I was really looking forward to getting on a plane to Lima and sea level. To be perfectly honest, I was tempted to walk from the domestic terminal to the international one in Lima and ask them to change my ticket and fly me home today. After getting back to our hotel and taking another shower and nap, however, I felt more ready to spend a few more days in Peru. If I were planning this trip again, I would have taken an extra day near Cusco to go visit the mines of Maras where they harvest pink salt. I talked to a couple people who have been there and it sounds really interesting.If I haven't mentioned it before, cabs are incredibly cheap here. It cost us about $6 for a half hour cab ride to the airport in Cusco and another $9 for the cab that picked us up personally outside baggage claim and drove us 45 minutes to our hotel in Barranco, Lima. In both cases, the hotel arranged the ride. I don't know if that helps or hurts in terms of price, but it certainly gets you where you need to be with a minimum of fuss.I had an interesting conversation this morning at check out from Andenes al Cielo in Cusco. Javier who manages the hotel asked us if you can use Peruvian Soles at stores in the US. Here you can use either Soles or Dollars almost everywhere and Euros are widely accepted as well. I can't imagine trying to find a vendor in the US that would take Soles. Mission Impossible. Questions like this do make you think about how other people imagine our country and what a position of privilege we hold in having one of the world's standard currencies in our back pocket.Travel was pretty easy today. We had good experiences with the airline LAN. They are pretty orderly, even if they do some things differently from us. We were able to check bags for free and we got snack packs and drinks on a roughly 90 minute flight. Luxury! We weren't able to get wifi at either the Cusco or Lima airports which was a little maddening. Once we got to our Lima hotel, I was able to pick out a restaurant for dinner and make reservations for a city tour on Thursday.We ate at a neighborhood place called Canta Rana that I found on a web site called New World Review. It's just a few blocks away from our local digs. Barranco is known for being a little on the Bohemian side, but this is a very family-friendly kind of place: tables covered with repurposed flour sacks and family photos and memorabilia cover the walls. For an appetizer, we started with cheese fried in olive oil & peppers. It came out in a small cast iron pot, still sizzling like crazy. The top of the cheese was all bubbly and the bottom had a nice crust on it. We dug in with forks and ate it with hunks of baguette (which, btw, is available for about $.50 a loaf at the store next door). Then they brought Mike's meal, an enormous plate of rice, beef, onions and fried potato strips called Tacu Tacu lomo saltado. We both worked on his plate of tender beef chunks while we waited for my ceviche with the fish of the day. Apparently the waiter forgot to tell the kitchen about it. After a prompting, it finally arrived. This version was served with the same corn and sweet potato sides, but was also flavored liberally with a red pepper. The dish had a real nice kick to it. The meal included three drinks, two entrees & an appetizer for $40 all in. Lima is an amazing city for eating.We popped into a grocery store very briefly. I think we will go on a purchasing trip tomorrow for our food souvenirs. We found the pisco brand we were looking for and the flavor packets for the sours. I know we won't have any trouble filling the extra space in our bags.One last note before I head off to sleep. One of the clippings on the wall at dinner had the pull quote, "Si viajar is vivir más, yo voy por los 130 años." It translates roughly to, "If travel gives you a greater life, I will live to be 130."

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Photos

Fried corn nuggets & menu
We get these little corn nuggets all over the place. They are softer than you think they would be, but a little crunchier than popcorn. Same flavor profile though.

Melty cheese appetizer
Make sure to get some of the wonderful cheese crust from the bottom. Melty cheese doesn't make for a great picture, but it certainly is good eats.

You can't truly appreciate how large this plate is
That's more than a full cup of cooked rice plus the potatoes, meat, onions and tomatoes. Really delicious

I used to live in Texas
I think Peru is where many VW Beetles go to die. I never saw a single new Beetle, but these old ones are all over the place.