There´s a First Time for Everything...

Our nice little room

¡¡Hola Amigos!! ¿Donde esta la cervaza? Anna and Mark here from Sudamérica where the air is as thick as pea soup. We both got a reality check after our first night here with the amount of farewell partying we did back in California. Anna slept like a log and really wouldn´t get up the next day, even if our Hostel was melting into the Earth. Mark on the other hand barely slept do to a few reasons. First, the warm sticky air here made the sheets of his bed turn into Biore Pore Strips, ew? Then the heat... Mark likes fresh cool air to keep his nightmares from becoming hot and malevolent, which is not a possibility in Lima. Next, the only window in our room was on a corner of a small backstreet with a huge wall across from us that created a reverby echo back into our room, making every car sound as if it was flooring it in neutral at the foot of our bed. At last was the little boy from the street side who did the splits-handstand... with every rickety muffler that slammed Mark out of his hot and sticky malevolent pore strip-covered nightmare, he would imagine that cute little Peruvian child sifting through the room looking for our wad of soles ($)...never happened. The room was actually quite nice, with a private bathroom, lively painted walls and view of the ocean from the window.

This squirrel showed up everyday, just chillin' 

The ocean is down there in all that fog

Staircase down to the main floor of the hostel

After getting Anna up around noon, we decided to venture into this new world in which we´d immersed ourselves. We covered each other in anti-bacterial spray, latex bodysuits, gloves and socks, then protective goggles and surgical face masks. Now we could experience the culture first hand... just kidding. We went downstairs and got to see our hostel during the daytime. It had a staircase that wrapped around a small living room area connecting to a big dining room full of small tables with bright Peruvian table covers. Through the dining room was a courtyard with a small bar that sold shots and cerveza´s at a descent price. Here we met the owner of the hostel. He was an English man named Chris who welcomed us, With Arms Wide Open (© Creed 1997) and offered us breakfast, which he said we were a little late for, so we nervously declined. He showed us a cork board in the kitchen covered with pages from a Peruvian cookbook. this was the beginning of Anna´s new found Latin lover... or should we say lovers? One of the pages said ceviche (say-vee-chay) which Chris told us the locals eat as a lunch time meal because it´s light and refreshing. They pair it with a drink from another page, Pisco Sour. It is very similar to a margarita but uses Pisco liquior instead of Tequilla and gets topped with frothy egg whites and a smidgen of cinnamon, plus some other ingredients to tweak with the awesomeness.

Incredible murals are found all over Peru

We left the hostel, after Chris offered us help in every way, and stepped into a world of sounds as bright as the colors splashed on every wall, car and person. Taxis are everywhere, in every make and model, with stickers and numbers all over them, still weavering in and out of each other in a dance that was a chaotic as their random horn taps but as smooth as a Pisco Sour on the beach during a sunset. People are constantly moving this way and that, wearing pinks, yellows, greens and blues... well, you get the picture.

Iglesia La Ermita

We walked up to a park, up the street a block or two and instantly had the camera out, snapping pictures of the beautifully landscaped rose bushes that were briefly interrupted by park benches, huge murals and big metal statues of bulls, horses, religious and political icons, and fountains. The district of Barranco has an old time feel, with a westernized vibe. One city corner has a large cathedral style church with a morbidly awesome statue of a cross with a Jesus head at the center, then bones, skulls and Spanish writing. Across the street is a Starbucks. Up the street from this was where we made our first big purchase with soles. It was peanut butter, jelly, bread, pears, apples, etc... The Metro (supermarket) is a lot like any Safeway or Mi Pueblo back in California. We barely paid our bill without looking like we were totally lost and set out to get sandals for Mark. Anna told him to pack some, but he said not to worry, it´s Peru, we can get sandal anywhere. Well, not knowing how to speak Spanish well at all and every sandal we found being for a little Peruvian foot, not canoe paddles with toenails, meant Mark had to sweat it out in his only pair of socks he brought. He didn´t pack socks either, even though Anna suggested, so he wore hers.

Without breakfast or lunch, we decided to get some grub. Anna noticed a place by the park that goes by the name of Rustica. We said ¨no gracias¨ about ten times as we slid past a man selling packs of Chicklets in one arm and coddling an infant in the other. They really train them early down here. Rustica was our first outing for a meal and our first time having to sit at a table and basically say ¨si, no habla español¨over and over until we realized we agreed to a Peruvian all you can eat buffet. What an overload of flavors, spices and different dishes that was. The buffet table looked like an artist spilled paint on every single dish. Anna loaded up on ceviche while Mark kept going back for some green rice chicken dish. Muy Bueno!

First Peruvian sunset

After pushing our tummies to the limits, we walked to the beach next to our hostel. But first, the Metro for a bottle of wine (twist off of course) then watched our first sunset in Peru. Not as epic as we had hoped. The whole day was overcast with a hazy fog that cleared slightly to see the orange outline of our true creator dip into the Pacific for some skinny dipping. Back to the hostel, exhausted from all the confusion, we went ´home´and called it a night.

Passed out

We Made It!!!

Hola Familia y Amigos,

Mark and Anna here in Peru. Where do we start? When did our trip actually start? That is the question. Was it the good-bye Jamm Sammich party on Thursday night that lead into a weekend of alcohol and procrastination? Or was it the plane ride and whole day of traveling vast distances while physically not moving muscles for hours and hours in our seats? I guess our trip really started when we were up in the air looking over the beautiful snow capped Sierra Mountains, leaving stormy Marin Country behind. The world from above is quite an incredible site.

After a three hour flight to Houston and a silent black and white movie that knocked Anna out, we landed at our first stop. A two hour layover in Houston left us anxious as we re-boarded our now sold out flight. Next stop, Lima Peru. The next 5 1/2 hours of our flight proved to be a true test of our patience. Between claustrophobia and the horrid Jon Bon Jovi New Year`s Eve movie to help pass the time, the pilot`s constant reminder every 15 minutes to stay seated due to patches of bumpiness, was the only thing that kept our attention alert. During the bad patches of turbulence, looking out the window at night and only being able to see the lights at the end of the wing go up as the body of the plane goes down, like a turkey vulture soaring, can really send your imagination flying, no pun intended. Mark was thinking about how he was going to save Anna, and then everyone else on the plane, after the wing broke off and we all hit the side of a mountain. Or how he was going to kick the sharks off Anna after skipping across the Pacific. But none of that happened and we saw a gorgeous sunset from 33,000 feet above the Panama Canal. The site of the golden sun setting behind the horizon was magnificent and actually calming.

I guess our trip started for us when we landed in Lima and we spent an hour waiting in line at immigration and non-strict customs. After that, our excitement arose as we were told a chauffeur was to great us with a crooked smile and a sign that said “Anna.” We were at a point of confusion as we entered a room the size of basketball gym full of hundreds of crooked smiles, and a myriad of signs with misspelled names. After a half hour and several phone calls we were told our chauffeur had left an hour earlier and we needed to find our own cab.

Our first culture shock was Lima at midnight in a cab, with windows so tinted you literally couldn’t see out. As we pulled up to the first stop light, Mark started opening the window to the view of a humid world where a five year old boy came up to the window instantly calling at us, “Senor, Senor!” He disappeared into a handstand spread-eagle splits hoping for a sole or two ($$.) Our driver took off immediately, cutting other cabs off on a road that should have been a four lane highway, but instead was one giant river of mid 90`s rundown cars with missing bumpers and slightly repaired fenders. All the cars are constantly tapping their horns to keep each other from playing bumper-cars at 40mph. There was no lane dividers for a majority of the roads, yet they all seemed to find their extremely chaotic groove.

It was a bit overwhelming, not only being reminded of our several car crashes together, but also looking out the window to flashing lights like a mini Las Vegas in a foreign language and odors that reminded us of the bushes on your way out of a festival. Several stops later to ask the local police for directions and avoiding the local dogs roaming the night, we arrived on a dead end street to a gated building. We rang the door bell on the gate and paid our cab driver. A lady opened the door, took our names, gave us a key and sold us a much needed chilled bottle of water. We sluggishly walked up the stairs to our final destination… Room 6 at the Barranco Backpacker`s Inn.