Back to the Lima airport – with passport in hand! Through interminable, understaffed check-in lines (thanks, swarms of evangelical teenagers) and quick-moving security lines (thanks, Peru). Past the snack and souvenir stands and the selectively confiscating pre-boarding bag check (on behalf of Amanda who lost her newly purchased bottle of water while mine waltzed through […]

We’re about twenty minutes into another long bus ride — this time from a town called Chivay, in the Colca valley, back to Arequipa. It’ll be about 3.5 hours, assuming we have no more delays (we’ve already had two: first because an American guy in our bus missed the rendez-vous, so we had to hunt […]

The second leg of the flight to Lima went smoothly. This airplane was much more comfortable than the first. We had to fly around some storms over the Yucatan, which interrupted dinner service but didn’t lead to turbulence. Once on the ground, we collected our bags, found our prearranged cab (he was holding a sign […]

Stage one of our trip entailed getting up at 4:30am and flying three hours to our first scenic destination: Houston Intercontinental Airport. I generally think that, when traveling, one should put the most important things first, lest unexpected events prevent one from doing or seeing them — so it was a real treat to find […]

What do you watch the night before going to Cuzco, Peru? http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/t_YjSbp5KHM?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0 That’s right.  Call it last-minute historical research.  Booyah!

I need to catch up on the past few days.  The wind-down at work before a long vacation (well, any vacation) is extremely challenging.  It’s always a herculean push to get projects wrapped up, passed on to other people, or otherwise gotten to a point where I can leave without abandoning the client.  When I’m […]

For example, tonight I discovered that The Post locks its main entrances at night so that the only way out is through a secret entrance known only to crazy-haired old cleaning ladies (who may or may not have been the witch in Hansel and Gretel). Also, turns out the walk from The Post to the […]

Yesterday in the midst of errand-running (after the Italian store and the Lebanese store, but before the regular grocery store), Amanda and I stopped at a French pastry shop for a little pick-me-up.  In honor of mon père, I got a lemon tart.  (Unfortunately there was no Perrier to be had.) Also, in anticipation of […]

Amanda got here on Wednesday, and for the next couple of days we enjoyed a sort of quasi-vacation:  We ate out at my favorite Vietnamese restaurant, and a fun latino chicken restaurant.  Amanda spent the days wandering the halls of the Smithsonian, and I came home early from work (8pm) and didn’t check my Blackberry […]

I’ve mentioned a couple of times in earlier posts that Amanda will be staying with me for an extended visit this summer.  Since this is Amanda’s first major appearance in my blog, a brief introduction is warranted:  We met about 11 years ago (!!) during my first year at the University of Utah at the […]