MUNGO EATS Latin America

Aah, mountains!!  It has been a long time since we have seen “real” mountains.  We did see some snow covered volcanoes in Ecuador, but these look like real mountains, cliffs, snow, vegetation.  Okay, there are no spruce trees covering the slopes, but there is still vegetation.  

We went for a short walk today, just hiked along one of the ridges and then down to a river.  Two of the dogs from the lodge followed us on the walk.  Neither one of them like Mungo a great deal.  The female, I think her name is Princess, will just take a run at him,  squealing like she is being attacked.  She nips at him.  Poor Mungo, has no idea what he is doing wrong.  He has gotten to the point where he barely looks at her and still she rushes him, jaws snapping!!  Crazy chick! 

The land around the lodge is common land and you never know what you will find just around the next corner.  it could be people, cattle, donkeys, sheep or dogs.  Makes for an exciting walk.  The hills here is littered with boulders, some large, some small.  We had fun climbing around on these as well.   

The river was quite beautiful and we were thinking it would be a good place to have lunch, but unfortunately some biting flies had the same idea about us, so we were forced back up to higher ground. 

Oh well, the scenery was just as good. 

It’ll be really hard to drive back along the desert coast after spending time up here!

Yesterday started out just great.  We got the van out of it’s secured parking space, got packed, left Betty’s at a reasonable hour, and headed towards the propane place.  We found our way through Lima quite easily and found the propane place without any trouble.  They easily found what we needed as our adapter, and we also found our way to a gas station, filled both the gas and the propane tanks AND found our way out of Lima, without any issues.  How great is that?  Our eventual destination was Huaraz, but this is about 8 hours from Lima, without looking for propane adapters, etc.  There is a National Reserve just about an hour out of Lima, and this was our intended destination.  We found the reserve without difficulty, but…NO DOGS ALLOWED!!  Man, would our lives be easier without this hound!  So then, we had no destination.

We decided to beach camp again, even though we spent half a day in Lima brushing sand out of the van from the last beach camp.  We stumbled on an official picnic/camping area, in the middle of nowhere.  There was a salt pond about 500m from the ocean, and there were a series of cabañas around the pond for rent.  We camped in the van though.  It was a nice quiet camp spot.  The only unfortunate thing was that they locked the bathrooms overnight.  We took some nice walks on the beach, Mungo got to chase more crabs, and we found a couple of dolphin carcasses to look at (gory, but interesting).

This morning we were back on our way to Huaraz.  The city is located high in the mountains, so today we went from sea level to about 4000m above sea level in about 5 hours.  Huaraz, the city, is nothing to write home about, just another crowded, kind of dusty, city.  We are staying about 15 km north of the city at a mountain lodge, The Way Inn.

There are beautiful mountains all around.  The lodge has a sauna, sundecks, and a trout pond.   We will be here for 3 nights, then we will be moving to another lodge, run by some Calgarians.  Hopefully, tomorrow we can do some hiking around.  I am very excited to be up this high, and I can’t wait to snuggle under my down blanket to sleep tonight.  There are even snow covered peaks!!

Quite a difference from the sandy desert of the coast!!

Mungo is in dog heaven.  There are great expanses of open fields AND there is a 1 year old yellow lab to play with.

At the moment, he is curled up at my feet, moaning because he is SO TIRED!!  He is going to have a great three days.

We have had a little more fun in Lima, since I last wrote.  On Boxing day (which does not exist here), Betty’s nephew, the ONE with the car, took us for a drive to see the ocean and beaches of Lima.  There were a few sandy areas, but a lot of the coast that we saw was covered in pebbles or cobbles.

We watched some surfers for a while as well.  Also, we watched a monk, or maybe a guy dressed up as a monk, dive off a rock  bridge into the ocean.

There is a restaurant ideally located behind the stone bridge that is aptly called, “The Jumping Friar”, or something to that effect.  The reason I don’t think it was an actual monk is that as soon as he finished jumping, he hoofed it up to the road to collect money from all the people who watched him jump.  Just another street performer?  Oh well, entertaining!

Yesterday Kevin and I  spent a somewhat frustrating day trying to accomplish two tasks, buy dog food, and get a propane adaptor.  Both tasks were largely unsuccessful. 

We have been pretty good at finding “good” dog food up until now.  Whenever we stumble onto a place that has the food that we are looking for, we usually buy a few bags, and up until now, we have managed to keep the hound on premium brands.  Yesterday, we had to sink to the level of buying Pedigree!!!  At least we didn’t stoop to Purina Dog Chow!!!  I know, I will admit that I am a dog food SNOB!!  I find it hard to feed my dog food that is coloured like a box of Smarties.  You know, it isn’t the spinach that is changing the food to a green coloured kibble!!  In any case, we finally relented and decided since our diet has been less than ideal as we travel, maybe the dog’s diet can also be less than ideal.    It’s only another 5 months after all.  Heck, most people spend  their entire teens eating less than ideal!  Kevin is looking forward to seeing if the poop will be multicoloured too.  Yippee!!

With regards to the propane adaptor, we equally struck out.  There has been propane available, all though the trip.  The real trick though is, can you find someone to sell it to you, and if you do, are the valves and fittings compatible?  At the beginning of the trip, getting propane was just a matter of finding a plant that would sell it to us.  In Peru, propane is sold at the gas stations (just like in Canada), making it readily available, but the fittings are not compatible.  We were trying to find an adaptor, that would allow us to fill our propane tanks at the gas stations.  We know where to find the fitting, we think we know what it is called, we even got a taxi to drive us to the right store, but, it was closed.  So we will end up there again on our way out of town on Monday morning, and hopefully get what we need. 

Last night, Betty and Maruja (Lucho’s mom), took us to a park, to look at the Christmas lights and fountains.  In Canada, you tromp around on snow looking at Christmas lights.  In Lima, you go to the water park!!  There were a number of fountains, all lit up with different coloured lights.  Many of the fountains “danced” to music, kind of like the fountains at the Bellagio Hotel in Vegas.  Water would spray from different jets, in different directions, in time to the music, to create a show.  At times, various images were projected onto the water, like a movie.  It was pretty cool.  I did not have my camera with me unfortunately, so I did not get any pictures.  I am sorry.  The communication in this house is not always ideal.  Sometimes, I understand exactly what I am saying yes to, sometimes it is a total crap shoot.  Last night, I understood that we were going to a park, but I really had no idea why.  It was therefore a pleasant surprise!!!  It is fun though.  Betty and Maruja are a comical little pair.  Betty is always moving at about 5 million miles an hour, she crosses roads without a moments hesitation, just a little fireball.  Maruja, in many ways, is the total opposite.  She just slowly walks along at her own pace, checks and double checks before crossing the road, often pulling Betty out of danger (although, Betty has been crossing the roads of Lima fine, for her entire life!!), and often when Betty looks around for Maruja, she finds her sitting on a park bench, relaxing.  In many ways, Maruja has the right idea.  She just watches Betty buzz from place to place like a little bee, and once she has found the right direction to the hive, Maruja joins her.  Smart girl!! 

Today, we restocked the van.  We were out of pretty much everything.  It is amazing that you can fit all the contents of one very overflowing grocery cart into a little camper like that!! 

Tomorrow, we will be leaving Lima.  We will be heading north again to see some of the things that we missed in our rush to get here in time for Christmas.  Be forewarned, that we may be out of posting range for a few days.  I will do my best, as always.

We celebrated Christmas with the Arévalo family last night.  It is the custom in Peru to celebrate on Christmas eve, not Christmas day.  Most families get together in the late evening, and the Christmas meal is eaten at midnight.  This family moderates a bit, and we ate supper shortly after 10pm, so that by midnight, we were all finished eating and ready to open presents.  I was expecting a HUGE meal, maybe I got Italians and Peruvians mixed up in my head.  Instead it was a moderate sized supper.  We ate chicken and pork (mmm, the pork was to die for), stuffing (made with rice, not bread) and a salad.  Yummy, yummy.  We had canned peaches for dessert. 

When midnight came, people started setting off fireworks in the street.  Some of the fireworks were just little noise makers, but some were full blown fireworks.  The kids thought this was great, fireworks right outside your door. 

After fireworks, it was time to open gifts.  The kids also thought this was great.  You don’t have to wait to open presents??  Sweet!  I made off with 2 very cool nativity sets.  I have been collecting different nativity sets on this trip, and these two are very nice.  One set has the characters dressed in Peruvian Andes garb.  Baby Jesus is wearing a Peruvian toque (chuyo, chullo…I don’t know how to spell this word), and there are llamas instead of donkeys and cattle.  The other set has characters that are black as night, with curly little afro hair.  So cute!

The other funny thing about last night’s celebration was that as soon as present opening was finished, and thank you’s were said, all the guests quickly hurried out and the family was in bed in minutes.  No sitting around, party’s over, time to hit the hay!

A  nice Christmas for sure.  Not a Calgary Italian Christmas, or even a Kelowna Canadian Christmas, but a nice Christmas all the same.  It was nice to be with a family for Christmas, even if it was not my own.  It made being away from my family a little more bearable. 

Merry Christmas everyone!!  I hope you have a great holiday!!!

We are in Lima, at the house of Betty Piedra, who is the mother of our good friend Giulliana back home.  Originally Giulliana and her husband Lucho were supposed to meet us here, but she decided to get pregnant instead…way to go, and is too fat to fly!!  Just kidding, we are very excited for them, but missing them as well.  Anyway, Betty is taking very good care of us.  I promise to write all about it and post pictures, etc once I can find some WiFi. 

Merry Christmas to all, we will be thinking of you all!!!