Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day -2

This is the story of the trip Annie and I took to go “Up the Hill and Down the Creek”. The “Hill” are the Peruvian Andes, and the “Creek” is the Amazon (no, not the e-store but the mightiest river of them all). We figure this was high up in the bucket list, and that we had to make it while we are still young and beautiful.

Packing for this trip has been a massive effort. Two different philosophies of packing have come head to head. Me, a minimalist, would rather buy whatever I might need along the way so all I need can be comfortably stuffed in a backpack (well “comfortably” is a bit of a euphemism since my backpack is straining at the seams). Annie, on the other hand, must have everything she can possibly need from the get go (brand new if at all possible, and with a brand name that would not embarrass her in front of the Peruvian and Brazilian aristocracies), which means that her packing occupies a full room (she remembers that Pizarro once demanded a room full of gold to a man’s height, and she is trying to do the same with overpriced REI gear to a woman’s height; nothing like being a history buff!).

After much pain and agony she took the whole shebang and stuffed it in her car, with the idea she will pack it tomorrow in Los Angeles. So we are ready to start: We have checked that we have our passports and wallets with us (and computer, iPad mini, two Kindles loaded with well over a hundred books each, and two iPods loaded with Portuguese phrasebook, 20 books on tape, 500 songs, and two exercise videos), and started on our way to Los Angeles, to pay a one-and-a-half day visit to the family and then to take the flight to Lima from LAX. Annie is behind the wheel, so it will take us less than four hours to get to La Crescenta to meet with Aunt Nancy and Uncle Grady. The adventure starts!