THIS IS THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF E-MAILS SENT TO VARIOUS PEOPLE DURING A JOURNEY TO PERU IN APRIL, 2007. THIS ONE WAS DATED APRIL 10.
THEY WERE GENERALLY COMPOSED QUICKLY WITHOUT MUCH EDITING OR SPELLCHECKING, AND I’VE LEFT THEM AS IS TO LEAVE THE UNEXPURGATED FLAVOR.
THE PICTURES ARE OF MASKS WE COLLECTED ALONG THE WAY. WE DECIDED TO OPEN AN ON-LINE MASK BUSINESS DURING THIS TRIP, AND THESE WILL BE AMONG OUR FIRST PRODUCTS IF WE CAN BEAR TO PART WITH THEM.

I sent a version of this whole message, but it seems to have gone out blank. I have had bad luck working on line. Let me try once more from memory.

I’m sitting on Sean and Erin’s (For the untutored), Erin is my Niece works for USAID) Peruvian patio. It’s a nice warm southern hemisphere (late summer, early fall) morning. What time? Don’t know, don’t care, we’re on vaction.) In my view are fruiting trees (banana, Mandarin Orange, passionfruit). This morning a Mynah bird work me. Beyond the yard, golfers trudge down a fairway. Beyond the golf course, abrupt hills. The base of the (Jeopardy time. For $5, 000, 000 alex says, “the base of THIS mountain range.) Right. Now you’re rich. Aren’t’ you glad you opened this e-mail?
Lima is on a coastal shelf. 12 million people spread along the edge of a tectonic plate. We’re told to expect earthquakes while we;’re here. It’s a cosmopolitan place. The big supermarket is Wong’s. A multigenerational success story of a family who started with a little Chinatown tienda 30 or 40 years ago and has become a national food power. Only in America? I guess not. Whoops–a golf ball just flew in here. It’s all right, no one hurt. And I did not make that up.
The place is supposed to be a gustatory paradise. There’s a Cordon Bleu Academy branch which sends shefs out to NYC, Paris, SF, etc., then they come back and open up culinary heavens here. We’re anxious to check all that out.
The underside to the whole thing is that the fence is electrified and all the embassy vehicles are armored. Even if shooting assassins are rare, window-smashing-grab-and run thieves are not. They wander not only the parking lots, but the traffic jams, so you can get stuck in traffic and lose a lot more than time if you don’t have the extra-thick windows.
Today, we take off for our rainforest adventure on the upper amazon. We’ll go out of a town called iquitos and spend some time finding monkeys, bright birds, anaconda, and pirhana. There’s electricity onl.y from 6-11 pm, so no more missives till Friday at least.

In the meantime, enjoy yourselves.

C&S

Oh, am glad to report that Caitlin’s (age 4) Spanish is doing well. She had quite a little argument this morning with her nanny (yes, a livein nanny) about whether she could take her “Penguino” to school. The nanny won after daddy stepped in.

hasta la hasta
C&S