Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Chanchamayo or Bust: Day 1

Thanksgiving weekend, I completed the final leg of my 20,000-miles-in-five-weeks journey and capped it off nicely with a trip down to see my love in Peru. Erika and I were going to be taking a road trip on my four-day trip there to a town called Chanchamayo, which is on the Eastern side of the Andes in the hilly jungle of Peru. Her friend Ketty is from this town and her and her boyfriend offered to take us there for the trip. Logistically, it was challenging making the long road trip, but, hey, logistically making a trip to Peru for four days is bad enough, what's another two days of driving :o) ??

Lucky for me, the flights to and from Peru are both red-eyes, so I can maximize my sleeping and traveling time for short trips like this - assuming I can sleep. I do things like staying up late the night before, stay away from caffeine substances the day of the flight, and drink some wine before boarding the plane, all in order to catch as much shut-eye as possible on my journey. Usually it isn't very solid sleep, and I caught about three hours worth on the seven hour journey, watching plenty of videos on the comfortable Lan Peru flight.

I arrived drowsy and feeling gross with a raw throat at 7:00 in the morning in Lima. Lili, the link between Erika and I, graciously picked me up at the airport since Erika was taking her English test for her class that morning at the American Institute (ICPNA) when I arrived. Lili and I drove to ICPNA in time to pick her up and head to a cafe to get some breakfast - a turkey sandwich (Happy Thanksgiving!!) and a coffee (wake up!) for me. Afterwards, we drove to their friend Ketty's house and prepared for that day's adventure: shopping at Gamarra!

I'm not really sure how to explain Gamarra. You know the Christmas booths that they set up in places like Union Square (for you New Yorkers)? Well, Gamarra is one street that is probably about two miles long with thousands and thousands of these little booths inside maze-like buildings, some as high as eight floors, lining this street. We spent probably over an hour in one building alone, courageously led by the expert shopper Ketty. It's difficult to explain how crazy this area was, but I promise to take Summer and Faryn there if they ever come to Lima someday (hmmmm) because it has all the latest fashions (designer or otherwise), all for dirt cheap. I ended up buying two t-shirts and two-button up party shirts - all of which are good quality - for about thirty dollars in total. Lili bought several tops for $2 each. Ridiculously cheap. And, I was the only gringo in the whole area to boot! Highly recommended shopping for gringos with a sense of adventure and patience :o) .

After this we headed back to Ketty's house to prepare for the trip - which included me finally taking a shower - no wonder Erika was offering me so many cough drops for my throat all day ;o). Finally ready to depart, the four of us (including Renzo, the boyfriend) piled into his impressive work car - a Kia Sorrento. More on this car later. Anyway, we ran a few errands doing important things like buying more cough drops for my throat, gas, and panettone, which I don't think I've actually tried. Renzo is a big fan of panettone, so I rolled with it. But damn, that stuff is tasty! For the Haines family who hasn't tried it before, the bread tastes like that yummy Hawaiian bread that we used to eat as kids except it's also got a lot of dried fruits in it like mango, papaya, raisins, etc. I think I need to add this to my Christmas-treats inventory every year from now on!

Anyway, we hit the road. Traffic in Lima is nuts, so it was a crawl out of town before we hit a hotel that we stopped and had dinner at. Renzo enjoys the finer things in life down in Peru, so we frequently dined at the nicest places in town, all of which are dirt cheap nonetheless, so I was fine with this. Of course, we're not talking about dining in Jean Georges or anything like that, we're talking about nicest places in town for Peru. Typically, this means a simple, non-lavish (by our - my?? - standards) restaurant with amazing food and good service. Food tourism in Peru is growing pretty rapidly because the food there is incredible!

We fit a game of foosball in before dinner out in the back lawn that overlooked a river and I realized that the foosball standards for South Americans is infinitely higher than for us Americans. Renzo and Ketty both were amazing players, but my Liverpool-like defensive prowess was respectful enough to ensure that myself and Erika, who was poaching many-a-goal like Fernando Torres does every week for Liverpool, dominated the preceding before we got tired of the bugs and went inside for our typical Peruvian appetizer - avocado salad with lettuce, onions, and tomatoes (yum!), topped with oil and vinegar.

One interesting thing that I noticed on the trip was that everywhere that you go to eat, they bring you your forks and knives on a little dish, along with a small bowl of their house-aji - hot sauce! It's not hot sauce in the American Tabasco-like sense, though. It is usually mixed with something creamy (mayonnaise?) and is made from any combination of the plethora of peppers available in Peru. On the trip we dined on aji that was yellow, orange, or light red, all with pepper specks and all with the perfect balance of picante with my palate. I never refrained from adding a dollop or five to my plate to mix with the meal.

Following a fantastic dinner of Loma......something (which was beef in a sauce served with rice I think) and nibbling on Erika's trout as the sole diners in this restaurant, we further gorged ourselves on crepes with ice cream and chocolate. I was seriously stuffed by this time and was already establishing myself as the fat-American and living up to my college nickname "Two-Racks" by this time.

Back on the road, we finally got out of town on the eastern-highway and were slowed, briefly, by many semi trucks that were making the crazy drive through the Andes to the mining towns up in the hills. They proved no match for Renzo's SUV, though. I'm not a huge fan of Kia because I've always considered them to be cheap, no frills cars. But this car had some serious power passing these semis on the twisting, climbing highway with four adults on-board. The interior was simple and functional, a nice contrast compared to most cars these days that make you feel like you're driving a plane with all their frills and gadgets. I had no complaints about the head or leg-room in the leather seats in the back, it was very nice. I came to find out the next day that this thing was actually a diesel! I've never been in a diesel that was so quiet and had so much passing power, not to mention that it sips gas like a Honda Civic. So I was very impressed.

Anyway, since it was dark outside, there wasn't much to see on our trip. We went over the top of the Andes, hitting elevations above 5000 meters (~15,000 feet), passed through dilapidated mining towns with rivers so polluted that nothing could live in them, had pannetone and tea in a one-street town with about 5 nightclubs on it, and finally decided to stop for the night in Tarma at around 11:00pm. I was exhausted!

J. Riley, To be continued....

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