Thursday, January 1, 2009

Feliz Año Nuevo

January 1, 2009

First post of the year. Like Christmas, I spent New Year,s Eve in Lima, Peru. The hostel I have been staying at for the past week or so put on a little party. There was champagne at midnight and a lot of rum to drink. There was a huge turkey, ham and salad dinner to go along. Considering I have spent every New Year in the snow with below freezing temperatures, it was a very nice change to be in jeans and a T-shirt outside at 2am.

The Spanish classes I have been taking this week are going well. My last day is tomorrow. Im finishing it off with a bus tour of Lima. When I am not stuck in the classroom, I have been taking it easy. Walking around the city, eating the delicious cerviche offerred at almost all restaurants. Cerviche is a Peruvian dish consisiting of raw seafood with lime juice and spices. Really good! However, I have learnt not to agree with everything the waiter is saying in Spanish. One dish I ended up eating was extremely spicy and I think it was because I agreed to adding more hot peppers.

I visited Plaza de San Martin and Convento San Francisco. I took a tour down into the catacombes - seeing the bones of clergy who died a few hundred years ago. It brought me back to my anatomy class in undergrad. The Spanish architectural influence here is amazing.

I am flying to Cuzco on Sunday morning. Cuzco is approximately 1200 meters in elevation and it is the city where you take a train or begin your hike to Manch Pichu. I plan to organize a 5 day hiking trip starting next Wednesday or so.
I will then head to Puno and Lake Titicaca - the worlds highest navigatable lake in the world. Might take a quick trip to Bolivia and then down to Arequipa, Peru. I want to do some rafting before heading to Chile.

Hope everyone had an enjoyable New Years!!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you are having fun big bro.... i wanna come visit you but i have to work it around softball and school.... too bad you are going to miss my graduation... you can just get a me a small gift from every country that you land in... that would be fricken sweet... love ya
p.s. justin helped me read some of your spanish facebook statuses... lol

Anonymous said...

hi shawn

happy new year. i have never been able to wear short sleeved t shirst on new years for 53 years.

sounds like you are keeping yourself busy. would like to see more pictures of the sites you are seeing.

the hostel you are staying at seems to be a good one you picked.

mom misses you all so much. it was a very different christmas and new year with two of you being away this year. it was nice that nicole was able to spend a lot of time with us.

i will probably be seeing you late in january.

take care
love dad