89 Days
89 days away from work. After much negotiations and discussions with our respective employers, that is the number of days we managed to secure for our whirlwind tour of the southern hemisphere. Outside of Africa , India and I guess pieces of Southeast Asia we are pretty much going to cover most of what is left: Antartica, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, New Zealand, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Tahiti and Uruguay. By the end we hope to have fully forgotten all useful workplace skills and be completely unemployable....
The first thing we discovered on our big trip, is that it is really hard to pack for 3 months which include tropical rainforests, scorching deserts and the icebergs of antartica. As such, we have basically been limited to about 3 pairs of clothing each, so don´t be surprised when you see us in essentially the same outfit in every picture.
Panama: Panama City
Our first stop on this trip was Panama. We only had a couple of days to spend in Panama but I think we got a great flavor for the country. 1) Panama is really hot so you need to change clothes frequently 2) Panama is really humid which makes taking pictures really difficult as your camera will fog up in about 30 seconds 3) Panama has a pretty cool canal that you might have heard of 4) That´s pretty much it. The Panama Canal was actually surprisingly fun to visit. We got to see a couple huge ships pass through the canal which was pretty cool. They each got escorted by 4 mini trains which I guess kept the ships from crashing into the sides.
Afterwards we headed to Casco Viejo, and which is the old city. It was very run down, some might say dilapidated, although we wouldn´t because that would be mean. We would consider it to have ¨old world charm¨. Also, it had lots of vultures. Lots and lots of vultures. Kinda creepy actually.
Peru: Lima
The next stop in our 89 day journey was to Lima, Peru. Our first night we decided to take a shuttle bus to Miraflores for dinner. Along the way our driver informed us that there were only 5 things we needed to know about Lima. 1) Lima is very safe 2) Lima is very clean 3) Lima is very safe 4) Traffic in Lima is quite bad 5) Lima is very safe. Overall I think the advice on the traffic was pretty fair but am not so sure about the rest. Within the first hour of our arrival we found our wallet $800 and one ATM card lighter than we were when we arrived. While our loss was due to sheer stupidty (leaving your ATM card in the machine isn´t the best strategy to avoid theft) our fellow back-packers seemed to have similarly poor luck including having a cell phone snatched right from their hands, a backpack stolen from their taxi and having to be escorted by security from the club at night due to the ¨many people with drugs and guns waiting outside¨.
Aside from the whole crime thing, Lima was actually quite nice. We had some outstanding Ceviche at Al Fresca some excellent Guinea Pig at Astrid & Gaston and great hot stone cooked fish at Osaka. Miraflores was also quite beautiful and we got to see a ton of paragliders doing tricks in the constant updrafts along the shore cliffs.
Our time in Lima also included the excitement of watching the US election result from a foreign country. Given that all the TVs in the local bars were tuned into a soccer match, we took refuge in the SPG club lounge to watch the poll results come out. The club lounge was essentially empty outside of a couple of ex-pats who must have been traveling on SPG points as well, but it was stocked with free Champagne so all in all it was still a good time.
Peru: Huacachina
Our first day was awesome. We went on a dune buggy ride, tried sand boarding and sand sledding. Sand sledding is really just going down a steep dune face down on a snowboard. It must help to be tall and lanky and have your weight distributed across the board as Nate shot down the mountains like a rocket. Nate also tried out sandboarding with real snowboarding boots and all. We went down 4 dunes in total. Each dune got increasingly steeper and Sarena ended up eating it on my third dune.... where the ¨it¨was a big mouthfull of sand. Sand does not taste good. We unfortunately did not have our camera to commemorate the moment, but Sarena might still have some crunchy sand in her mouth.
Our second day we started off with a nice hike through the sand dunes. As it turns out, the longer that sand is exposed to the sun, the hotter it gets. As such, if you decide to walk out barefoot in the morning when the sand is nice and cool, by the time you start to realize the sand is getting quite hot, you are kind of stuck. You still have to walk back and the sand ain't getting any cooler. Long story short Sarena ended up hiking in a pair of my old socks and Nate´s feet had a nice black char to them by the end... yum!
After our morning of foot baking, we decided to cool off with a tour of Peruvian wineries. This proved to be another excellent learning experience. Having grown to rely a bit too much on our iPhone Google maps we laughed at the taxi drivers who suggested that the wineries were far away and would cost an exorbitant 20 soles (about 8 dollars). Clearly we would just walk there on our own powered by GPS navigation and Google maps. After 90 minutes walking along desert roads we arrived at our destination to find a small residential suburb with no grapes, no wine and definitely no winery. Being clearly in the wrong place, we resorted to flagging a taxi. Turns out we were not even half way there, though our 90 minute walk did save us 7 soles in cab fare (that's nearly 3 Dollars!). Anyway when we got to Tacoma winery we got an excellent free tour of the facilities a free tasting of about 8 different wines and enjoyed A bottle of Blanco De Blanco out in the garden. So all in all, it a pretty good day.
Aww, what a cute photo with the 89 stones. You will have to tell Diego how safe you felt in Lima. I can almost imagine him telling you the same thing your driver did. I can't decide if eating it sand surfing is worse than snowboarding, probably less painful though.
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