Peru Day 3 (Cusco) Part 1

Courtyard at The Hotel Miraflores

Well it has been a couple of weeks since my last post.  Unfortunately the trifles of life, like work, have gotten in the way once again.  Here is the next segment in the series, enjoy.
I awoke to the ring of the house phone waking me up.  I looked blearily around the room trying to wipe out the sleep and get my bearings.  It was 7 AM Lima time and one quick look around the room and I realized I must have been dead asleep.  My travel companion seemed to be missing.  I hopped out of bed, took care of the morning grooming in the form of brushing my teeth, showering and then putting on the same clothes for the third day in a row.
If variety is the spice of life, then certainly I was finding the lack of it makes for the ease of life.  Elk walked in right as our backup alarm was ringing on the rented phone and we went off to eat breakfast in the hotel lobby.  Breakfast smelled like a mix of strong coffee and homemade bread being baked in a brick oven.

Peru Day 2 (El Salvador and Lima) - Part 2

Welcome to Lima

I will definitely be back to explore more of El Salvador.  Descriptions and pictures do not do justice to the beauty of the countryside and beaches they have there.  We cleared back through customs at the airport with a breeze and headed back into the terminal to go on to Lima.  While in the terminal I purchased 2 postcards one for my nephews and one for my girlfriend.  Surprisingly, there was not post office in the airport to mail them, so I gave the man a the tourism office the two postcards

Peru Day 2 (El Salvador and Lima) - Part 1

The wake up call from the front desk jarred me awake at 1:45 AM on the nose.  It came in just as I was finally beginning to fall asleep, typical.  I guess I won't sleep today.  A quick up and out of bed, brush the teeth, put on my clothes from the day before and out the door.  This would make day 2 in the same clothes.  Because the bulk of this trip we are planning to pack it into the back country we are traveling super light.  Also the way we routed our flights, we would not get our bags until we reached Cusco tomorrow afternoon.

Peru Day 1 (Houston)

I was landing at Houston's Hobby airport and grabbing a shuttle over to Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport.  This would be our Jumping off point for 16 Days in Peru that would take us through the back country on some little traveled trails and to places few people have ever seen.

The Lake Bet

This Post is one that is a bit different.  It is a unique once in a lifetime kind of experience centered around something that happened to me a few years ago.  Now I have had to change the names in here to protect the innocent, but if your were involved that fateful day, you know who you are.

The afternoon started out innocuous enough.  One of my best mates was recently hired to manage a department at our little company and had begun having quarterly meetings for his management staff as team building exercises.  I was invited to attend one of these workshops after which, several of us went to the lake to sit out on the patio, have a few brews and unwind from the busy week.

Mother Road 1 2006 Part 3

Finally the last leg, I can only imagine how these guys felt.  We were marking the minutes until we saw the sun again and praying it would bring warmth with it. I pushed a little hard on this stretch with some long slow downhills.  They guys managed to keep up and we were just moving on down the road.  We had to look quite a sight.  We saw Debbie several times on the stretch out of Kelleyville #2 and finally I just sat for a min on her tailgate.  It felt good to sit.  I could not indulge too long though as the fellas kept moving, afraid if they stoped at the car they just might get in.  So I headed back out to catch the guys.  I caught up quickly and we jogged as long as we could until we just could not move our legs in that fashion any more and had to quit for a min.  At this point everyone was hurting, our feet, legs and akles were beat to hell and my knees felt like there was a guy beating them with a hammer.

Mother Road 1 2006 Part 2

As you remember when we last saw our heroes they were cold, shivering actually somewhere in the dark outside Depew Oklahoma looking desperately for a crew car with their winter coats. And so our tale continues with our runners plunging on into the night seeking out their crew and making progress down the road to the finish...

When we finally caught up with Otis again, he was sitting at the third or fourth turn on a dirt road sleeping.  We woke him up by banging hard on the glass multiple times.  Now I have said more than once to my friends, you never wake a sleeping Otis.