Monday, April 30, 2018

Peru 2017 Day 2- Pack to Goo Boogaloo


July 3

Abuelita was kind of on her own custom time schedule and got up excessively early each day. Rosa got up with her this morning while Anabelle and I stayed unconscious to recover from travel and “waiting for Daddy to travel.”

A large portion of the day was spent simultaneously unpacking and packing.  Going to see the Incan jewel of the Andes required some severe Carlinesque “smaller version of your stuff” planning.

In between I started reading the “pre Disney” posts to Anabelle as part of both a proofread and fact check. 

Our first Menu’ of the trip was at a little nearby restaurant owned by one of Abuelita’s friends. 

Considering she lived in the same neighborhood for over fifty years, that’s going to describe many places we ate.

Anabelle went the fried route, which they excel at down there.  I stayed with something I knew, Pollo Saltado, the chicken version of the “Lomo” Rosa makes with beef, tomatoes, onions and potatoes.  Rosa and her mom had the full menu’ with soup and fried rice.

While they took a walk, Anabelle’s Disney Genes compelled her to ask for me to read more of the drafted posts.  To recover from her Abuelita Standard Time awakening, Rosa took a nap while Anabelle gave me a one woman show of Beauty and the Beast in Spanish... 
Because once those Disney Genes activate, they keep running.

To continue the theme, Anabelle also pulled out the old Disney figures we played superheroes with on our last South American adventure.  Their time was short, before we launched into the first of far too many marathon Doctor Who Uno sessions.

All recovered in our own ways, we set out on a supply run (or more accurately, walk) to Tottus.  We needed to not only stock up for the extra-large gringo on the continent, but also to make sure Abuelita was well supplied while we were off on our mountainous adventure.

I guess Anabelle was happy to have all of us together, as she broke into a spontaneous song and dance in the street on the way there. Then again, several others we passed did the same thing when they heard music from nearby shops, so it may be a Latin thing.

There were the same number of street living dogs, but more poop than last time, indicating some sort of infrastructure break down.

Either that or we were walking on Monday, right after a busy weekend.

At Sodimac near Tottus, I learned Anabelle had recently purchased the “magic trick mug” that made it look like she was drinking beer.  I had thought it was something Abuelita already had, without really processing why she would have it.

The stocking up featured essentials, including Coke Zero, toilet paper, and a collection of karamandukas- tiny little rolls that taste way better than they have any right to.  I’m guessing there may have been some ingredients involved my cardiologist would frown on.  Normally, I still try to eat right when travelling, but sometimes I do invoke a strict “Don't Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on the excessively varied and usually scrumptious Peruvian cuisine.

Sadly, there were no Kraps.  I had planned to bring back some of the hysterically named, yet somehow tastier Ritz cracker clones for work.  Our biggest complaint about them was that they fell apart, and a little research revealed that’s why they were discontinued. The Krapologists could not solve the structural integrity problems.  Fortunately, we eventually discovered the even more entertainingly named “Mini Kraps” were still in common distribution.

I don't think there was any connection to the absurdly teeny potatoes the store sold, but there may have been.

The large air mattress Rosa had bought was swapped for a tiny one. It wasn’t that we didn't need the space. It was that we packed (and they lugged down) our giant, queen sized one, and never noticed the valve cap was missing.   As long as we needed to buy a whole new mattress just for the plug, we wanted to minimize.

We got back home in time to catch a Matt Smith episode of Doctor Who in Spanish.  Following geeky shows and movies was my only hope of getting more of the language into my head.  Real life certainly never worked.

Rosa was back on the normal Peruvian “one big mid-day meal schedule” and had some crackers. She was well aware of the kind of physical and emotional breakdowns that schedule leads to in my system and surprised me with a tamale.  Woo!

We had a family Doctor Whuno game after a couple of visitors. First was the woman who came to pay the rent on Rosa’s Grandmother’s house.  Additionally, Concho’s son Milthon stopped in to drop of the Wi-Fi generator we were renting, making electronic use during this stay an insane improvement over the previous trip, and most other places in the country. 

As an indication of how tired I was after eight hours on a plane, this was when I realized that he was also our Taxi ride from the airport and an Uber driver we’d be calling regularly. I took advantage of the Wi-Fi to check a bunch of messages, and keep the old blog links connected.  I felt so technologically international!

Rosa called to confirm our flight for the next morning, while Anabelle regaled me with the tale and photos of her trying “Hen Soup” which uses some different parts of the hen than we normally associate with food stateside.

This was also known as the “Chronicles of the Chicken Foot.”

Before turning in for what would be an extremely short night, we watched a couple episodes of the Sixties Aquaman series.  The limited animation, insanity of the stories and over acting prompted Anabelle to declare, “This Is the Best Show Ever!”




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