Peru in Summary

My trip to Peru to meet Joanna can be described as such: you've got eight days to see Peru, patch your relationship and plan for the future.  And to complicate matters, you'll have a relapse of a stomach virus, altitude sickness and no one in this country will give you a double bed.  Go!

OK, we were able to get a double bed towards the end, but only after I'd convinced Joanna to just give in and pretend we were married.

It's been a whirlwind, touristy, hotel-based, tour-bussed trip.  My photos have been rushed by the group we were with or by the grumbling in my stomach.  I'll feel lucky to get five images I'd use in a slideshow.  But I can't complain.  Given the restrictions we had, we made the most of our time here and now have a good idea of where we want to return to when we have more time.

More importantly, I've discovered that Joanna likes traveling, would rather see a single area in detail than to tour through an entire country and that we can survive together for eight days.  She pointed out that we'd never spend a full 24-hours together.  Alone.  There was always the crush of friends or Eva.  She was testing me as I was testing her.  She wanted to see if we would fall apart with the constant contact.

We didn't, I'm happy to say.

First a few observations about Peruvians:

• "Defensive driving" means one hand on the horn.  There seems to be plenty of traffic cops, but they must have a lenient definition of "reckless."
• Peru overflows with both history and poverty, often at the same place.  The dirty beggar children are so plentiful here in Lima and in Cusco that you no longer feel the gut-wrenching sorrow as when you first arrived.

Artisan works seem to be of high quality and low prices.  I'm outside an open air market right now and have my eye on some wooden serving bowls and a painting.  We'll figure out how to get those back to the states later...