Thursday, Sept. 6, 2012
Warren and I left Kelowna today. I became a problem as soon as I hit security! That lovely little purse that Kathy made me out of a coffee bag has a foil liner. It was in the cargo pocket of my pants and the wand kept beeping near my knees. So I was asked if I had a knee replacement. Since the answer was no I finally clued in that the offending article was in my pocket. So mystery solved and now I make sure it goes through the xray machine in my purse.
Toronto was hot and muggy even at midnight! Glad I don't live there. We had a decent enough sleep then eventually wended our way out to the airport about 1 pm. We had hours to wait but I had tickets for the Air Canada lounge. What a treat! We had lunch in there, played cards and Warren even had a scotch! Nice perk.
Samara and Rob arrived from their flights in plenty of time so finally I was able to relax. The 8 hour flight went quickly as we played Quiddler and/or crib. We switched seats a few times to add variety. We landed on time but it took forever for the luggage to come. I swear that they were bringing it in wheelbarrow loads instead of the usual carts. The drug and food dogs were very interested in our backpacks of course but the guys accepted our explanations of former food. Our poor driver had to wait 1 1/2 hours before we showed up from immigration. The place was a zoo of signs but when he saw us he waved the G adventures sign over everyone's head. Then it was an exciting drive to the hotel. The roads were even crowded at that time of night plus they don't follow any road rules. The gutsiest wins. There were many near misses. Rob had a big grin on his face.
The hotel was adequate but being disturbed at 6:30 am after getting to bed only four hours earlier wasn't fun. Turned out Samara and I were under the breakfast room and we were listening to chairs scraping. We managed another hour or so before heading up for breakfast ourselves. It was very basic -- fruit,cereal, buns, meat, cheese, juice, yogurt drink and tea or coffee.
Because we missed the morning tour, we wandered along the path which overlooks the ocean. Lima is built on a hill way above the water with little access to the water because of immense cliffs. There are a few sets of stairs which double as evacuation routes in the event of a tsunami and of course some roads at spots. We watched the surfers for quite awhile, examined an interesting huge statue of two people in the "Love Park", bought an interesting lunch at a sidewalk cafe (enpanadsa and tamales plus IncaKola). IncaKola is yellow in color and tastes like cream soda with a hint of bubblegum and ginger ale. It's been bought by Coke but is indigenous to here. The path is well used by joggers, dog walkers, families, etc. Lots of exercise stations as well. Also lots of security.
In the afternoon we had an interesting city tour which included the ruins of a pre-Inca pyramid that was used for sacrifices. We also went into the catacombs where there were bones lined up in types after they catalogued them in the 1950's. There were 25,000 people buried there in lime. One spot had the bones and skulls decoratively arranged!
At 6:30 we had our orientation and met the others in the group -- four from Calgary, two from Norway, two from Washington DC but are English, and one from Australia. Our leader is a lovely young Peruvian woman who has excellent English. After this she took us to a "nearby" restaurant where we could have a choice of local foods.l had ceviche (very fresh raw fish which has been "cooked" in lime juice.) It was delicious but too much of the acidy flavor. I would have liked some bread or rice with it for a balance. Warren had a hot pepper stuffed with meat which he really enjoyed. Rob had that as well as a dish of scallops. Samara had the scallops plus beef heart which was delicious. When we sat down we were given a small pisco sour. A lot ordered a full glass and were surprised to find it stronger than free one! Samara,Rob and Warren all got a very nice buzz out of it. Haven't seen Warren so talkative in a long time!! For those who don't know, pisco is distilled wine and about 50% alcohol. It is mixed with lime juice and egg white.