April 2022. The covid pandemic finally seems more manageable. Vaccines have been out for 1.5 years. Omicron has peaked. Travel restrictions have finally started to ease. Now it was time to go on a “big trip”.

A “big trip” for me is more than a week or two vacation. It is travel where you have time to dig deeper. Maybe it’s time to explore more of a country or learn the language. This time I had 9 weeks off work and I planned to spend 6 weeks in Peru and Ecuador. My goals were to travel all over Peru, improve my Spanish skills, complete a trek towards Machu Picchu and explore the Galapagos.

Language school in Lima was step one of the trip. My mother came along and we both attended Spanish school in the morning then explored Lima in the afternoon. I studied Spanish in university and lived in Spain for a few years but the vocabulary and even the grammar in Peru is different. This week of class helped me adjust and not make as many embarrassing mistakes.

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The first afternoon we tasted our first ceviche of the trip. Delicious! Then we explored the neighborhood of Miraflores.

The next day we joined a walking tour of the old town

Wednesday walked over to Barranco, a neighborhood with a small town feel, and had ceviche style sushi. Yummy!

Thursday we tried lots of different fruits from a local market. Granadilla is the orange and grey one, maracuya/ passion fruit is the orange and white, cherimoya/ custard apple is the white and green, carambola/ star fruit is the yellow one.

Friday we graduated from Spanish School! In the afternoon we visited Huaca Pucllana, a clay pyramid from 200-700 AD. They laid the bricks vertically which is thought to help prevent collapse during earthquakes. Dinner included Causa Limeña- a typical dish made from layers of potato, avocado and fish.

After a week in Lima, it was finally time to leave. I enjoyed the city but felt ready to explore more of the countryside. Plus I was tired of homework 🙂 sitting in class for three hours was an adjustment.