Peru: Day 2

Day 2 in Peru was quite the adventure! Little did we know, our first night was probably the best nights sleep we'd get the entire week. After a soundless, dreamless (at least for me) sleep, we packed up and got ready to make the drive from Lima to Huanuco, then from Huanuco to Hauncayo. 

First things first, packing up to go:

Waiting for everyone to be ready:

My MIL, Triana's, first picture with Wyatt in 2 years!  

Happy as clams eating bread and jam for breakfast:

Then all hell broke loose once we got on the road. See that car outside my window? Well I could touch it with my pointer finger. I didn't even have to put my hand out the window to do it either. I just stuck my finger out and tap, tap, I was touching another car. Flip man! And notice how it's a taxi? Now are we surprised to see taxi's breaking the law? No, of course not. But all the cars around Peru don't pay any attention to road rules. Complete lawlessness I tell you! And day 2 was NO EXCEPTION! And this was about 5 minutes in to our 5 hour drive... or so we thought. 

Reesey is all smiles!

Wyatt manning the GPS and the radio:

I think this stop was about 3 hours into our drive. We stopped by a little town called Chosica to get some chicken, chips, and inca cola. Wyatt served in this area. Check the shanty town going up the hill. And the great looking family if I do say so myself.... (Especially the one on the far right)

 Wyatt ran into one of the members he taught while in this particular area. 

Can I just say that these two were complete clowns from the minute they saw each other? I don't know what it is... 

View of the town, Chosica. 

We stopped by some members house, but the parents weren't home. That didn't stop Wyatt from getting the son to show us their absolutely hideous dog. 

See what I mean? I was just waiting for it to mutate into something from Alien vs. Predator. 

Now we were 6 hours into our 5 hour trip, and still no where near Huanaco. The road out of Lima becomes just a two-lane highway type thing. So a) there is a lot of traffic and b) more lawlessness. So once we climbed and climbed and climbed, we passed through the mountain city of Ticlio. There is nothing really great about this place except for the fact that it's almost 5,000 metres (over 15,000 feet) above sea level. 

So we were high, high up. You could definitely feel it. 

Cute little Peruvian moms with their baba's. 

We were originally supposed to go to Huanaco, then Huancayo... but Wyatt got his hours a little off. So we skipped Huanaco to save ourselves about 5 extra hours of driving time and headed straight to Huancayo. 

Here is another little town we drove through. The two-way road that took us from Lima to Huancayo is the only possible way to get there. Lets just say it's not the most smooth drive. Obviously there are speed bumps (massive ones) in the little cities you drive through to keep people going the speed limit, but what's not expected is the random massive speed bumps not in the cities. We hit a couple. Triana almost broke her neck on a few of them and my boobs almost fell out of my chest on a few. It was ridiculous! So- we happy clammers we not so happy near the end of our drive, 9 hours later.... 

Wee stop... bathrooms were hard to come by- not even joking! Don't even get me started on the toilet paper situation...  

When we finally drove into Huancayo, we were all starving and our bums hurt. So first stop first was dinner. Delicious right? And people told me I was gonna starve in Peru.... 

Oh hungry Wyatt.. Only about 400 hours off about our trip length... Don't worry, we still love you!

After dinner we walked around a little looking for a hotel to spend the night. We finally settled on a decent place that had rock hard beds (seriously- when I collapsed on the bed I thought I may have fractured my coccyx) and a noisy door bell (Tri can attest to that)... but the toilets flushed and there was water, so that in itself deserved 5 stars! So all in all, day two wasn't the most entertaining of the trip because of all the driving.... But the food and company was great as usual!

Stay tuned for day 3... it only gets better!

Exploring Santiago: Day 12, 13, and 14

Our last few days in Santiago have been really chilled and relaxed. On Sunday we only started walking around later in the afternoon. Here is Reese hating the fact that I want to take a picture of his candy rabbit teeth and the water bottle that looked like we were walking around with a bottle of vodka.

This is his "aggggh you don't have to take a photo of everything face"

We decided to take a walk to the Santiago Temple. It was quite far, but it was another beautiful summer day in Santiago and why take a taxi when you can walk and enjoy the fresh air right? (It's not because of Reese's cheapness- not this time at least!)

We passed by a pretty church. I forget what religion. I love how old it looks with the pillars and the arches.

A pretty christmas tree!

I LOVE how green Santiago. All these tree's were covered in Christmas lights. Unfortunately we didn't have time (and forgot) to go back in the evening! I'm sure it probably looked magical!

Reese kept purposely walking faster when I'd ask him to stop to take a picture. Maybe I take too many? Wait, NEVER! What a weird boy!

And finally, after about an hour we finally got to the temple! It was stunning, of course! Unfortunately the gates were locked, so we couldn't walk around. It's a pretty small temple, but still really beautiful.

After the temple, we made our way back to the city center. I swear the entire city of Santiago was there because of the Paris Parade. Anyways, there were a ton of people all over performing. These school kids were serenading the crowd with Christmas music. They were pretty good too!

We were walking down one of the streets when we heard someone shout "police" and within seconds, all of these street vendors picked up their merchandise and pretty much ran off to get away from the police. It was pretty funny actually. So Reese and I learnt that they aren't proper street vendors and that the stuff must be either stolen or pirated. Good thing we made no illegal purchases!

And yes, along with stray dogs sleeping in the streets and walkways, there are occasional "stray" humans who do the same thing. Just keeping it classy as usual!

The Paris Parade wasn't scheduled to start till about 7pm and this was at around 5pm. It was complete madness!

Paris is a department store just like Macy's or Edgars, so the Paris Parade is just a Christmas version of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade... just on a smaller scale!

After walking one block through the crowds and it taking almost 30 minutes, we decided not to stay for the parade. It was just too crazy and only getting worse the closer it got to the start of it. So like old party poopers, we made our way back to the metro to go back to Las Condes for dinner.

Here were some kids hanging on the gate above the metro entrance waiting for the parade to start.

Yes, we were lame.

After dinner we went back to our hotel. There is this cool new hotel opening up right next to ours. It is massive! And I love how the walls are real grass!

Monday I didn't do much. It was our last 3 days in Chile, so Reese had to work almost the whole day. I walked around the area our hotel was in and started reading another book! For dinner we went to a Peruvian restaurant. It was really good. Of course, the place was empty. Remember dinner doesn't start till about 8pm? We got their at 5:30... Lucky it was serving dinner then. Reese and I were starving and we discovered that a lot of places wont serve you dinner till 7pm. And only serve starters till then. I would definitely have to get used to eating so late if (and when hopefully) we move there!

Reese: My refusing to smile husband.

Empty restaurant!

Of course, I had to get inca kola.

The food was really delicious! I got a breaded chicken and Reese got something else chicken. And of course, everything was really fresh! I still don't know how sanitary the seashell was...

Tuesday was pretty much the same as Monday. For dinner though we went to a fancy seafood restaurant. Reese wasn't too impressed only because the waiter smelt like poo. Or as Reese put it "like a sewage line". The food was really great though. I know, I say that about all the food we eat but it really was! We didn't ask too many questions because of the stank, but we found out that this particular place is only open 2 hours for lunch, and from 7-11pm for dinner. They get fresh fish caught that day in the morning before lunch, and then again right before they open for dinner. I feel like a broken record, but I am going to say it. FRESH FOOD!

And how about it, Reese actually smiled for a picture! He's pulling a Wyatt pose, for sure!

The yummy dip for our fresh bread rolls!

I got a crab casserole. It was really yummy. I have never had one before and I was impressed. It was really rich though, and I could only eat a couple bites. Good thing you get unlimited rolls and fresh butter! :)  

Reese got some seafood everything plate. His was really good too!

I don't have any pictures because I ate it too fast. (Should I be embarrassed?) But for dessert we went to our favourite place right by the hotel. I never really looked through the menu, we would usually only order ice cream... But this time I looked through it. It was a very smart move because they had LEMON MERINGUE!!!! And it was so divine. Well the picture looked great, so I ordered it and it tasted just like South African lemon meringue I was almost tempted to order another one. It was so good!!! Um, Reese got plain old ice cream. It was probably actually a good thing he did too, because had he ordered the same thing as I did I would have eaten his too.

We went back to the hotel for our last nights sleep. Wednesday we packed and left for the airport. We had such an awesome experience in Chile and can't wait to go back! It was such a wonderful holiday!
The flight home however was horrible. I hate Delta for sending the junk old planes to South America. For 10 hours I was stuck between Reese and a female rugby player and did not sleep a bit. On top of that, this was such a junk plane it didn't have personal tv's. So there was nothing for me to do. I finished all the books I had in Chile and was miserable till we got to Atlanta. Then instead of having an hour layover in Atlanta we had a 3 or 4 hour layover. And then only while we were waiting for our flight did Reese and I realize that we both had middle seats. And just my luck, I sat in between two big men. Reese wasn't much more lucky. Excellent! On top of all this rubbish making me hate flying, the flight was an extra hour longer than it was supposed to be. I really thought I was going to die which is weird because I love flying. Delta was ruining my life. When we finally go into Phoenix, Delta decided to be an extra pain in my bum by making us wait close to 45 minutes for our luggage. And not just our luggage- the entire planes. So, Chile was amazing, the flight home was not! The good news though is that I really thought I had put on weight because of the lack of exercise and the amazing amount of food I ate. Anyways, turns out I lost weight. And not just a few pounds either! So that made me love Chile more for letting me eat so much food but still loose weight because everything was so fresh and not processed.

I can't wait till I get to go back to Chile! I do recommend you visit Chile if you ever get the chance.