Blogs from Lima, Lima, Peru, South America - page 105

Heard horror stories from some British ladies of a certain age over breakfast this morning regarding food poisoning, gastro-enteritis, saline drips, money-changing horror stories and police corruption involving arrest, imprisonment and court appearances but, despite this, our raconteurs seemed to be enjoying themselves!... read more

After another wonderful breakfast and meager but honest conversacion with my beautiful host family, I begin a typical walk through Miraflores, Lima, to espanol school. This walk takes approximately 30 to 40 minutes depending on which lefts and rights I decide to take and provides me a healthy dose of toxic exhaust, tightly packed but beautiful homes enshrined in electric fences and a plethora of security guards dotted thoughout the city. The streets and sidewalks are swept daily, and the public grounds and parks are kept in immaculate condition. I am truly in the nicest neigborhood in a city of 8 million, and I am witnessing what happens when you have an extreme gap between rich and poor. A liikely scenario for the US in the future as our gap widens. There are parts or Miraflores ... read more

My life is starting to really settle down now; I have my daily routines, I can navigate around my house in the dark, and I am starting to recognize overplayed songs on the radio. I have moved onto the second level of my Spanish courses and am able to have basic conversations pretty easily. Besides the daily routine (which normally includes some sort of stomach pain; my stomach isn't a big fan of the Peruvian bacteria), I have gone to see a friend in a play (Bodas de Sangre), maybe half of which I understood, taken a trip to the Lima Zoo (nothing to brag about, but it was a fun afternoon), started volunteering at the largest orphanage in Lima (with the cutest kids ever), danced the night away at discotecas, headed into the mountains for ... read more

September 26th saw us leaving behind a cold and wet San Francisco at 6:30am, full of cold and a chest infection - a great start to South America and the Inca Trail! The flight from San Francisco to LA was a smooth 50 minutes and we flew in alongside the Hollywood sign as we descended. We had a 3 ½ hour wait in LA before our connecting LAN Peru flight to Lima. Most of that time was spent getting to the right terminal. LAX is absolutely enormous. We were expecting an old shoddy plane to get to Peru, in fact it was a brand new 767 - we had great seats with tons of leg room and the flight was really smooth 8 hours. We arrived in Lima around 1:30am, but there was no-one from GAP ... read more

It is difficult to believe that Melanie and I have been here for about two months already. Melanie has lived overseas before but this is new for me. It is interesting going through the daily routines down here in Lima which usually starts with walking 20 minutes to Spanish class. I just completed the month of September spanish class but this month I am going to test to see how disciplined I can be by studying by myself. I will give it a try for about a month and see what happens. Check out the following youtube video to see what happens when I want to test out my Spanish skills on Melanie in the evening: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ngRq82c8Baw Melanie recently went on a week-long trip to Arequipa near the southern border of Peru to speak with doctors ... read more