APEC Weekend

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference was in Lima in mid-November. The city had been preparing for it for over a year...although I'm still not sure how prepared they were.

The best part was that we had Thursday and Friday off from work. We decided to stay local and enjoy the time...


ROCKCLIMBING

We started by stopping by my favorite place outside of Lima, Chaclacayo.

We drove around and gave Anna a mini-tour and then had some breakfast, enjoying the biggest glass of juice of juice I've ever seen.

Rockclimbing was fun. Anna definitely showed off her skills, but Arturo and did well, too -- we just didn't look as graceful doing it.

Dearest Nilo...

...he sat at the top and was in charge of the rope, keeping us safe while we climbed...

Plus, he brought snack.


Yeah, Nilo!


After climbing, we went back into the city (just a little over an hour away) and stopped off for food at Arturo's parents.

LATER THAT WEEKEND...

Maria, Anna and I finally got together after almost a year of talking about it. We went to a delicious seafood restaurant along the coast...yummy...Ladies Who Lunch...that's what we were for a brief moment in time...

The next day we got together with Javier and Tamara at their new apartment and then headed out to Pachachamac, one of the ruins about an hour away. We arrived only to discover that it was closed because of APEC (We later read that First Lady Laura Bush was there). But, we were not to be stopped on our fun day outside of the city and drove a bit further to one of the beaches. Tamara and I went for a walk along the beach - commenting on the irony that both Arturo and Javier, both from Peru, found foreigners as their parents...and both of those foreigners are Jewish.


Along the way to and from the beach, I decided to take some pictures to show people what's between Lima and the beaches.

Essentially, Lima is a desert, but it's also really humid. Once you get on the highway, heading south to the beaches, you'll see great hills of sand, crammed full of hovels where people are living...and factories...and painting claiming all kinds of political statements...and areas where trees have been planted on those sand hills...it's a different part and I wanted to share it.