Saturday, March 9, 2013

Yesterday Ben and Gail flew Elgin Air (net jetted) to Atlanta directly from Ben’s Board meetings at Brookings to meet us in Terminal F for our flight to Lima. And the first leg of a two-week trip.  We will first spend a few days on the Amazon in a twelve-cabin riverboat, the MV Aqua that we will board in Iquitos on western edge of the Amazonian jungle and the eastern side of the Peruvian Andes.  After the boat trip we will return to Lima and then fly to Iguassu Falls on the Brazilian Argentine border.  We will then go into the Brazilian interior.  More details on that later.

 Everything went according the schedule for our 5:20 to 11:50pm.   I always have to remind myself just how far east the South American continent swings.  Although Lima is on the Pacific coast of Peru, it is almost due south of Atlanta and on EST.  Of course we are about to go to EDT in Atlanta and I will have to recompute the time zones.

We flew down over Florida, across Cuba, Columbia to Lima.  We were met by a B&R arranged greeter and driver. Even though it was midnight the airport was teeming with people.  Our greeter (whose name unfortunately I did not hear well enough to register) explained that several large international flights all arrive at the same time.

The airport has been enlarged and modernized since the last time any of us were here and things went smoothly.  I was glad we did not have to navigate the taxi process and was able to get into our spacious van for the hour-long trip to Miraflores – the name of both the district of Lima and our hotel.  Shortly after exiting the airport we motored along main streets and were able to see that the side residential streets were secured from the main street by huge iron gates, many of which were manned by security.  We were told that most neighborhoods seal themselves off at 11 pm.  We also noted many vehicles with blue flashing lights and were these were local private security.

Lima is a metropolitan area containing about 8 million of Peru’s 33 million populations.  Its economy is dong better now than the last time we were here.  It was the fading days of the Shining Light Guerilla movement and Fujimori was in office as President.  Many Peruvians had left the country to become domestic workers in Chile and Argentina. Now the economy is growing at a steady 6% and a building boom is under way.  Our guide expressed the fear that “Peru might become Spain” with all the real estate speculation.

Given the hour and the need to catch a 2:45 pm flight the next day to Iquitos, we scratched the sightseeing plans the locals had for us the next day and planned to sleep in.

Saturday March 9, 2012

That is exactly what we did.  We finally dragged ourselves out of bed at 8:30 and went to breakfast at the hotels lovely top floor solarium restaurant.  It was foggy and the visibility was obscured but it cleared during the course of the meal.

After breakfast we organized our luggage for the Amazon and chose what to take and what to leave at the hotel to be picked up when we return.   I had a couple of calls to make so Ben, Gail and Caroline went for a walk.   Lima sits perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific.  The coastal highway and the beaches are at sea level but the city itself is on the cliffs.  There are tsunami evacuation routes clearly marked but the city itself is well situated on tip of the cliffs.  The three of them walked along a path and park that borders the cliff.  I went for a walk when I was done but never was able to find them.  Ben and I both have phones but the reception was spotty and while we were able to connect we could not hear each other - somewhat frustrating at AT&Ts rates.

Now we are on our flight to Iquitos.  In the airport in Atlanta, Ben gave me a briefing book that Brookings prepared in the format of foreign policy recommendations to President Obama for his second term.  I read it on the flight yesterday and just finished it on this flight.  It is remarkable the number of really difficult issues with which Presidents are confronted and the interrelatedness of them. 

I wrote a passage on the Brookings briefing but decided that is not why someone would come to this blog so I deleted it.  Even so I realize that I write more than many would want to read.  Do not feel compelled to read everything.  I write these notes to keep a record for myself and at Caroline’s suggestion am posting them on this blog for those who choose to check them out.

The city of Quitos had a colonial history and Ricardo treated us to a short walking tour of old Quitos.  The name Quitos we were told means surrounded by water and it surely is.  The history is rich and there remain many interesting building such the Guggenheim Hotel and the Eiffel building.  It also has a very nice modern Sofitel Hotel.  The Guggenheim building, now in the possession of the military, has an incredible exterior covered by hand made decorated tiles and took two years to build.  The Eiffel or iron building was built to show the quality of workmanship in the town and the versatility of modern materials.  Gustav Eiffel, the creator of the Eiffel Tower, designed it.  It is the center of the oil industry in eastern Peru.   After our brief tour we were whisked to the wharfs on the Enapu River where we boarded little power craft for the short transit across the harbor to where the MV Aqua was tied up.  The only berth on the wharf side of the river suitable for the Aqua was occupied by a much larger ship, which travels the length of the Amazon from the mount to Iquitos.   It is a lovely riverboat, with twelve staterooms four of which are mini suites.  The Jacobs and we have two of the four suites.  Each suite has ensuite baths and a separate sitting area.  They have huge picture windows that give a lovely view of the river.  Since, once out of Iquitos the river is empty there is a lot of privacy even with the curtains open.  The boat would be very top heavy for anything other than river travel.  It has three decks with the staterooms on the first two decks.  On the middle deck are a lovely dining room and mini-boutique and staterooms.  The upper deck is half enclosed, part canopied and part open to the sky.  The enclosed portion is the lounge and bar and the canopied portion is actually quite comfortable during the day as long as the boat is moving.  Here is a picture of the MV Aqua taken upon a return from our first morning outing.

After settling in we were all mustered to the lounge for an introductory lecture and abandon ship drills.  Our routine for the next three days will be safari like, with 6:30 am excursions, followed by breakfast, followed by a mid morning excursion, lunch, siesta and an evening excursion from 4 to 7:30pm.  After our orientation we had a fantastic dinner.  It was in the form of a tasting menu of local specialties beginning with pisco sours followed by an appetizer of shaved heart of palm with catfish roe and tofu.  The second appetizer tasting was a catfish ceviche.  The main tasting courses were fresh water shrimp and a salad accompanied by a starch.  The other entre tasting was pork tenderloin.  The desserts were a mandarin granita and dark chocolate in a fried plantain ball and fruit ice cream with chocolate sauce.