aka the AMAZON RAINFOREST!! Woo-hoo, so long gray chilly Lima, hello warm humid jungle!
The Tree of Life is found in Iquitos. Fyi.
The Tree of Life is found in Iquitos. Fyi.Rebecca got in at 4:15 am on Saturday and I went with Carlos the taxista to get her at the airport. It was cool to see her reactions to seeing Lima for the first time--it reminded me of how I felt over a year and a half ago, coming out of the airport and driving down along the whole stretch of highway next to the ocean, from the north side of Lima to the south... the desert sand, palm trees, the sandy rocky cliffs towering on the side of the road. Yesterday we walked around Tupac a lot, went to the market (poor Rebecca the vegetarian, walking by the stands with chickens cut open and dangling by one foot with all their organs on display looking like little multicolored squishy balls! that and the entire pig hanging on a hook on the corner of the meat row...). She was tickled with the mototaxis but we didn't get to ride one just then.
We walked up to the house in Delicias and looked out from the roof over the recycling yard behind the house, which basically looks like a huge junkyard, with the family that owns it walking around in the junk and sorting things, kids running around in the yard throwing rocks at the random roosters strutting through the recycling... all the brown and dustiness and half-built houses... and about a mile downhill, the hazy blue-gray ocean on the horizon. Plus the randomness so Peruvian I couldn't ever have arranged for her to see these things: a guy getting off the back of a bus with a huge wheel, just this wheel that looked like the back half of a bicycle; a dog wandering around in church and scooting under the benches; a musical/dance show set up in the middle of the street for Fiestas Patrias (Independence Day holidays) that included dancing bears (not actual bears, people in bear costumes) and dancing girls...
Then Saturday afternoon we spent getting her a ticket to Cusco, because Machu Picchu is just worth seeing. This task took us to Jockey Plaza, the ritziest mall in Lima, which is exactly like an upscale American mall. A bit different from the mercado. By the time we got home we were so exhausted we went to bed at 9 pm.
I wasn't even going to go to church this morning, because I'm on vacation, and if I'm there (I thought) I'll get dragged into leading the music, with everyone asking me what number every song is as if I had it all in my head, while THEY are the ones holding the notebook that has such things written down. Grrr, so typically irresponsible...! But the thought of not going made me so sad, like something missing in you way deep down. What can I say? I'm hooked, a church junkie. I need my Jesus fix!! But I also needed to just go and sit and not be in charge of organizing music for once. So Rebecca was my excuse. We sat in the back together and I pointedly ignored the choir's not-too-subtle glances in my direction. The music really was kind of pathetic without guitar, but that wasn't MY fault (at least not exclusively). Other people could have been there to play. Padre Kevin, the totally awesome visiting English priest, even gave Rebecca a public welcome, much to her embarassment. She then had to get used to all my friends and lots of random people as well greeting her with the cheek-kiss.
And then this afternoon was the flight! And we got off the airport and it was WARM and HUMID, almost like this time of year in Washington DC! I haven't felt real warm summer weather for so long! The kind that just wraps you in humidity and soaks heat, instead of cold, into your bones! It's warm and there's no AC in our hostel (The Hobo Hideout!!! hehe), but I'm loving it after the Lima chill. Plus, check out the awesome jungle bungalow accomodations!
We walked up to the house in Delicias and looked out from the roof over the recycling yard behind the house, which basically looks like a huge junkyard, with the family that owns it walking around in the junk and sorting things, kids running around in the yard throwing rocks at the random roosters strutting through the recycling... all the brown and dustiness and half-built houses... and about a mile downhill, the hazy blue-gray ocean on the horizon. Plus the randomness so Peruvian I couldn't ever have arranged for her to see these things: a guy getting off the back of a bus with a huge wheel, just this wheel that looked like the back half of a bicycle; a dog wandering around in church and scooting under the benches; a musical/dance show set up in the middle of the street for Fiestas Patrias (Independence Day holidays) that included dancing bears (not actual bears, people in bear costumes) and dancing girls...
Then Saturday afternoon we spent getting her a ticket to Cusco, because Machu Picchu is just worth seeing. This task took us to Jockey Plaza, the ritziest mall in Lima, which is exactly like an upscale American mall. A bit different from the mercado. By the time we got home we were so exhausted we went to bed at 9 pm.
I wasn't even going to go to church this morning, because I'm on vacation, and if I'm there (I thought) I'll get dragged into leading the music, with everyone asking me what number every song is as if I had it all in my head, while THEY are the ones holding the notebook that has such things written down. Grrr, so typically irresponsible...! But the thought of not going made me so sad, like something missing in you way deep down. What can I say? I'm hooked, a church junkie. I need my Jesus fix!! But I also needed to just go and sit and not be in charge of organizing music for once. So Rebecca was my excuse. We sat in the back together and I pointedly ignored the choir's not-too-subtle glances in my direction. The music really was kind of pathetic without guitar, but that wasn't MY fault (at least not exclusively). Other people could have been there to play. Padre Kevin, the totally awesome visiting English priest, even gave Rebecca a public welcome, much to her embarassment. She then had to get used to all my friends and lots of random people as well greeting her with the cheek-kiss.
And then this afternoon was the flight! And we got off the airport and it was WARM and HUMID, almost like this time of year in Washington DC! I haven't felt real warm summer weather for so long! The kind that just wraps you in humidity and soaks heat, instead of cold, into your bones! It's warm and there's no AC in our hostel (The Hobo Hideout!!! hehe), but I'm loving it after the Lima chill. Plus, check out the awesome jungle bungalow accomodations!
We took a mototaxi from the airport to the hostel, and wow, the driving here is just like Lima, except the vast majority of vehicles on the street are motorcycles or mototaxis. There are palm trees everywhere and it's hard to see anything else because, well, it's dark. Will check back in at some point after that changes. Also, odd but nice detail: I don't really feel hungry like I normally would in Lima after eating what I've eaten today. Not as cold = not as hungry.
Let my two weeks of backpacker-adventurer-being begin!!
Let my two weeks of backpacker-adventurer-being begin!!
2 comments:
This surely makes me want to go back to Peru. :)
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
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