Dec 31, 2008: On our way to Peru

I started the last day of 2008 at 7am, called American Airlines to check on the flight and found it was still supposed to leave at 10am. We were already checked in and everything, so we just took our showers and headed to the hotel shuttle. At the airport we got bagels with our breakfast vouchers but once we were inside security our search for a Starbucks (we have a gift card, thanks Ellie!) was unsuccessful. Our gate was right in front of the bar with Cherry Wheat but it wasn't open yet so I didn't get another round before leaving. The flight boarded right on time and the plane left the ground at 10:28. I shopped the Skymall, the iRecord looks sweet. You can plug it into RCA cables and transfer anything into digital format. I want to get it so that I can buy the VHS Muppet Christmas Movie and then record it to digital and watch it every Christmas. Then I read magazines.

When we landed in Lima, there was a round of applause from the passengers. We picked up our luggage, my backpack was one of the last ones to come out. I was starting to worry that it didn't make the journey. (Was I ever going to get clean socks??) We got into one of the official taxis. He told us the hostel we had picked was in a bad neighborhood - since I've heard such scary things about the bad neighborhoods of Lima, I didn't doubt him. He suggested another neighborhood, Miraflores, instead. I had read good things about this area so we agreed, and he took us to a hotel he knew. I'm sure he got a cut from the hotel, and it was a bit pricier than we had hoped, but it was a decent place in walking distance from a lot of shopping and restaurants. And we still only paid $50 for the night.

We walked down to the beach, where we saw paragliders right above us. That was pretty cool, and seems like a neat way to see the city! We got there just in time to watch the sun set, which was beautiful.





We were at a ritzy mall area, complete with a Tony Roma's and a Hooters, right there on the beach.



We had a snack and a beer, our first peruvian beer - we learned the Spanish word for hops (lupulo) from the label. The beer was Cuzquena, the beer we saw pretty much everywhere out there. It was ok, not the most flavorful thing in the world but still very refreshing when ice cold. (As we discovered throughout the trip!) Then we walked up to Treff, a German bar that we read about in Lonely Planet. It was a neat place, pretty empty as everyone was probably getting ready for glitzier new years parties but we enjoyed it.



Then we headed to a grocery store and picked up champagne for a new years toast, as well as some cheese and crackers for snacks, and dropped those things back at the hotel. We wished we had brought plastic silverware and dinnerware, but luckily this was a fancy grocery store, kind of like a Whole Foods, and they had a salad bar so we were able to pick up knives and some plastic dressing containers to use for our champagne flutes.

We headed to the Kennedy Garden area, wanting to check out an English pub that we'd read about in LP, but they had a New Years party with a cover charge, which wasn't what we wanted to do. We wandered around for a while first, one street had lots of pizza restaurants and there were people outside of every one trying to tempt you into their place. We also saw a Fazoli's on this street!



I don't know how it usually is but everything was festive and loud with a party atmosphere on new year's eve. We read a little bit about Peruvian New Years traditions before the trip, but there were so many little things that we couldn't remember details on them all. We did see lots of yellow, some people wore yellow shirts and there were yellow balloons and decorations everywhere. At the restaurant we ended up having dinner at, a group of ladies near us had their grapes ready to go.





We tried the dark Cuzquena, but weren't crazy about it - very malty, not hoppy at all.



We also had Ceviche, which was delicious! And a shrimp cocktail, which was kind of strange. The shrimps were along the edge of a big glass, like we'd expect, but the glass was filled with something that tasted like thousand island dressing and underneath that were sliced avocados. The sauce was ok but there was a lot of it. But the shrimp was good and the avocados were really tasty and fresh. Then we headed back to the hotel and toasted in the new year with Anderson Cooper and Kathi Griffin, with champagne and peruvian queso.





We were really looking forward to our jungle trip the next day! We were hoping that the fireworks wouldn't go on too late past midnight.

Travel tip: It is a great idea to bring a little set of dinnerware with you, just a plastic picnic set-up. We had several times that we couldn't find, or didn't feel like eating in, a restaurant and just picked up a couple of things at the grocery store. We would have loved to have a plate, silverware, and a cup.