From the Amazons to Lima

Friday, October 13, 2007: +Jesse Avery and I were up by 5:30 a.m. because of the sweltering heat.  I decided to wake up Jesse by deflating our air mattress, which was quite funny.  The motocarro picked us up from my grandparents house and Janette followed us to the Iquitos airport in her motorcycle.  As I left my grandparents house, I turned around to wave goodbye and saw them standing at their window.  I wasn't sure if I was ever going to see them again but that image of them at the window will always remain in my memories.  We arrived at the airport, checked in, paid the airport tax and said our goodbyes to my wonderful cousin Janette.


Rarely did any of the airport attendants check to see if our identification matched our tickets, but I guess I was just used to the scrutiny of American airports.  The plane ride was wonderful because it was the first time in six days that we had stopped profusely sweating.  The air conditioning was on full blast which made us feel almost instantly cleaner for our 1.5 hour flight to Lima.

My Uncle Rafael picked us up at the Lima airport and we quickly started running errands and touring Lima.  It was breakfast time so we headed out to an local outdoor market to buy some food.  While breakfast was being made Jesse and I arranged our Cuzco equipment.  Since we were going to two completely different environments, Iquitos/Amazon Jungle and Cuzco/Machu Picchu (Andes Mountains) we had to bring both sets of clothes/equipment.

After breakfast, we visited some more extended family, visited and internet "cafe" which was somebody's extra room in a house with four computers and internet connection.  My uncle really wanted to take us to downtown Lima so off we went in a long bus ride.


Busy streets of downtown Lima.


The lovely couple somewhere in Downtown Lima.


Maybe we should have tanks rolling around the front of our Presidential Palace.  I thought that was pretty awesome.


My handsome husband in front of the Peruvian "White House" (Presidential Palace).  I have never be to the White House but have been to Peru's "White House".

I don't remember the name of this bridge but it was near downtown Lima.  It was very colorful but the camera didn't catch all the lights.

My uncle took us all around Lima, the Presidential Palace, two different plaza's, the main drag of shops but I was so tired I did not want to shop.  One of the two plazas we visited was known for mugging so we did not spend too much time in it.  We had to take another long bus ride home to my uncle's neighborhood, Los Olivos.  The "bus" was not really a bus, more like a semi-large van with seats but the bus was so full that we had to stand for a long time.

As I have mentioned before, +Jesse Avery is a little too tall for Peru especially the passenger bus.  Jesse had to bend his neck as he was stood for most of the way home.  There was a cute little girl that sang nursery songs and a couple who would not stop kissing in front of me.  Our crazy bus driver hit another large bus and just kept driving.  I was very glad when we finally made it home.  Dinner consisted of tea and a chicken sandwich and with our belly's full we hit the sack. 

We went to bed excited to start our adventure Machu Picchu!

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