Ok. I work at a Christian school. Along with grading papers, I am required to go to church– but not at the same time. For a while, I went to a bilingual church in Miraflores near the Malecon. It met in a four star hotel, lets call it Holiday Heaven, where I hoped to sneak in a buffet breakfast before […]
Church
69 after 60
Am I too old for this,? I asked myself as I grappled for my morning pills and supplements in my travel pill case. I was about to venture Laguna 69, a hiking destination near Huaraz, Peru, and about half a mile in the sky. I checked my supplies: water, fiber-rich trail mix, several sole coins for toilet fees, my tried […]
lluvia
This weekend in Lima, I saw something rather unusual. It wasn’t seeing a guy getting beat up downtown –which I did see–near the used bookstore street–about five guys pummeling one guy. Yep, just another day in the Lima city center. The unusual thing I saw in Lima wasn’t the rare yellow-tailed oriole–which I also saw– the bird looking like a […]
Cantamarca
You can learn a lot of Spanish from a cow, especially when you cross paths with one. Or two. Or more cows than you can count. I learned that last week when I joined the Red de Montanistas hiking group to Canta, a Peruvian town where cow pies are plentiful and oxygen is not. Honestly? I don’t even know where […]
Cusco: from sexy women to llama drama
OK. So if you heard of Cusco, you might consider it the jumping board to get to Machu Picchu. Well, consider not jumping. Cusco has more to offer than alititude sickness pills, all more reasonable than the $400 price tag for a day trip to the ruins. Well what’s to do in Cusco? Let’s start with the llamas. They are […]
Wild Ones
Being typical Peruvians, piranha do prefer chicken.
Knock Out Smile
Life abroad is the daily grind, but with an adapter plug. That is, until you need major dental work. Major as in getting all of one’s teeth knocked out, as I had to do.
Prayers Oraciones
I can’t open newspapers without wanting to rip out my eyeballs. Tariffs in China. Measles in America. Shooting of bus drivers in Lima. All I can say is this: the world doesn’t need political pundits. The world needs prayer. Instead of plucking out my optic orbs over the headlines, I decided to hike with my group to Cruz del Papa […]
Camino Barranco
It was the first time I got naked with a man in a long time, and it didn’t go the way I wanted. Yes, I was visiting a skin doctor, something well overdue after my move to Lima, Peru, a place where the sun radiation is equivalent to living in a microwave oven. I was at the Delgado International Clinic […]
Winging it in Oxapampa
If you see a little Smoke-colored Pewee in Oxapampa, Peru, don’t call your doctor. Call a birdwatcher. Yes, a bird watcher. A smoky-colored pewee is just one of the three hundred bird species that will blow up your Merlin phone app in this high jungle bird mecca of Peru. Who named these birds in Oxapampa? Who knows. But you got […]