flora (and a note on local fauna)

Although we live in a desert, our neighborhood of San Isidro is relatively green. It is filled with parks, flowers, and a remarkable assortment of flowering trees. Because it's so warm here year-round, many of the plants we think of as small shrubs and perennials bloom all year and grow to the size of trees - poinsettias, for example. There are also interesting cacti and trees. It's really pretty.

The pyramid that you can see in the photos is our local, Huaca Hullamarca. It is about 4 blocks from our apartment. It has been heavily restored, as you can tell. Bacchus and I go there daily to visit his pals. The Huaca has two resident dogs. One is blond and shaggy. The other is a black, peruvian hairless - totally hairless except for punk style tufts on its head and tail. They make a funny pair. The shaggy one is very friendly and always glad to say hello to Bacchus. The dark one is more territorial and likes to bark at him. 

Lunch should involve tentacles

The food in Lima is wonderful. 

Today's lunch was no exception. We like to keep a certain amount of mango and pulpo (octopus) in our systems at all times.

Today's lunch featured pulpo as an appetizer that we all shared (no photo available). Britt followed up with a grilled pulpo. I had palpas rellenos (sort of fancy mashed potatoes) stuffed with seafood. These were washed down with a Chilean white wine, very nice. 

Addison had some sort of fish with a pyramid of rice.

(Sorry, I don't know how to rotate the photos.)

post flood

Well, the ceiling is still dripping from the other night's flood.  But luckily, the weather is warm and sunny, so we are hoping that things will dry out in the coming week. 

Today, we walked from our apartment to the ocean. There's a very busy freeway along the beach itself, which makes the access difficult. 

But, there is a very pretty park/boardwalk area on the hillside overlooking the water, so we strolled along there to a most excellent seafood restaurant, where we had lunch. Afterwards, we checked out the action at the skateboard/BMX park.

New look

Britt has new glasses. He looks really different in them, don't you think?

New look

Valerie has new Peruvian earrings. Like em?

Festivities for Lima's B-Day

Well, it's inauguration day. We are very sad have missed celebrating this historic day with our DC friends. We are doing what we can to follow the energy and events remotely via the Web and CNN. As a consolation prize, on Sunday, we stumbled across the festivities celebrating the 400-something anniversary of the founding of Lima. There was a long parade of dancers and performers from all over Peru. You really got a sense of the diversity of cultures here, ranging from people from the Amazon or mountains to the decendants of black slaves or Chinese workers. 

furniture friends

We met these little girls while buying furniture among the stalls of furniture maker/vendors set up along the PanAmerican highway on the outskirts of Lima.

goofing around

The Gwinner boys are very serious at all times.

Lima, Huaca Pucllana

Paracas nature reserve

Hotel in Nasca

dog stories

Pre-Departure:

Bacchus was very worried about all the packing and moving, initially. He didn't like watching his favorite furniture disappear from our DC house.

But he was very good during the long plane trip to Lima and breezed through dog customs even though the agent didn't speak English and Valerie didn't speak Spanish. 

In Peru, dogs say guau-guau instead of bow wow. Bacchus seems to be getting the hang of it.

This is one of Bacchus' favorite places in our Lima apartment - the downstairs, front terrace. He can lie in the sun and spot the action; cats walking on rooftops, birds, other dogs, etc...

Bacchus loved life on the road, along the Pan American Sur highway. Here on a Paracas beach he found some particularly rotten-fish-smelling sand to roll in. He thought it was great. We didn't and wouldn't let him back into the car till he'd taken a bath in the Pacific.

Peru is filled with stray dogs, including this ancient breed, the Peruvian hairless dog. The dogs look surprisingly healthy and don't seem to be particularly aggressive. Locals put up with them without much concern. 

They got a good laugh out of the idea of charging us full fare to take Bacchus on the boat ride to the Ballestas Islands. In the end, he stayed on shore with a friendly tour operator.

Addison exits our Magic Bus.

Panamerican highway near Nazca. This is one of the greener parts of the desert.

Grave at necropolis at Chauchilla. These people built the aqueducts. The mummies were originally wrapped in several layers of finely woven cloths. Graverobbers have taken them. 

Desert around Chauchilla. The barely visible beige mountain in the background is Cerro Blanco, a sand dune that is about 6000 feet tall. For the Tour de France buffs reading this, that's about the size of Mt. Ventoux.

A landscape shot of Valerie's near the aqueducts.

Ica and Nazca

The oasis at Huacachina, near Ica, on the road to Nazca. We stayed one night in a truly funky hostal. Very cheap, plaster fell from the bathroom wall during the night. Bacchus barked at the cats, eventually made peace with the other dogs.  

Britt pinky swore with Addison that we would go back to sandboard. No time this trip - just scoping things out. 

Near Nazca, people of the Paracas culture built aqueducts about 1800 years ago, before the Incas. These spiral vents allow the water to move through underground passages. Local people still maintain these aqueducts, clearing tree roots from the tunnels every year, weeding and rebuilding the spiral vents. There are something like 36 similar aqueducts in the area that local farmers still use. Truly amazing.

View with Jeremy from observation tower of the lines in the desert outside of Nazca. The lines in the pic are part of the Arbol. 

We need more tables.

Living and dining room, rental furniture.

We've Arrived!

We dove into the seafood, with ceviche of sole, tuna and scallops. These are the scallops at "Pescados Capitales". 

The grilled octopus. This stood out, in a good way. Addison wasn't sure, but after a small bite we had to remind him about sharing. 

We posed for our album cover in front of a pyramid.