A story only a mother could hate

So I thought I'd write a little bit about our adventures on Sunday night even though Heather has posted what we did tonight (Monday). When Heather and I arrived in Trujillo, the airport is really tiny. It's one room with a little conveyor belt to pick up your luggage. We exited the room to a huge crowd, which included a little band, some people with posters, a bunch of taxistas, and a whole group of people who felt like they needed to direct us and tell us where to go as we looked around for our ride. Our flight was the last flight of the evening, so they were turning off the lights of the airport and the parking lot was emptying. We tried calling our contact back in Salt Lake, we tried calling our parents, to no avail. Our cell phones, which supposedly would work with high rates down here didn't work at all, so...we kind of just stood there and tried to decide what to do. As it was, our flight had arrived probably a half an hour late so there shouldn't have been a problem for our contact to be there.

A lone taxista approached us and told us he could take us to a hotel where we could stay. Kind of suspect. But what are two gringas in a foreign country supposed to do? Probably stay put, but...we had no idea where the communication breakdown had occurred and we were basically going on two days of close to no sleep. At that moment, I remembered the words of a blessing my dad had given me before we left and I actually felt like we would be okay. So we decided on a hotel and went with the taxista. The hotel was a nice one located right off the Plaza de Armas of Trujillo. We had checked in and had tried to use the phone to call people (which we couldn't figure out how to use to make international calls) so then resorted to using the internet when we received a phone call from the front desk. Our contact here in Trujillo, Jenry (Henry), had located us at the hotel where we were through some great detective work. Actually, it's not too hard to imagine, but some of the taxistas here work for certain hotels to try to get people to stay with them, so when Jenry went to the airport, they described with whom we had gone and which hotel he worked for and it wasn't too hard to find us. There had been a simple miscommunication about what day we were coming in. Jenry happened to call our Salt Lake contact about the time we arrived and realized that he should have been at the airport right then so he ran out to find us. Of course Terry and Jaime and Jenry and everyone was worried about us, but Heather and I were just relaxing in a 4-star hotel, kicking back, watching programs about plastic surgery, and nibbling on chocolates. :) Okay, it wasn't quite like that. We had just gotten there, but since we had already checked in, it seemed simpler to stay.

It was fun to stay in the hotel. The funny thing is this hotel wasn't anything amazing, but you could tell it was a nice hotel for the area. It reminded me of when I went to Manhattan last November. The hotel where I stayed was a W, the room was tiny, it was in Midtown Manhattan surrounded by high rises and brick buildings, and it wasn't really what you would consider the best place, but knowing that I was in Midtown in a clean hotel room the size of a closet with Voss water bottles, fine mahogany furnishings, M&M's that cost $6, and people in the bar downstairs that were so full of their own beauty...I just knew I had reached the pinnacle of social perfection. Kidding. This hotel wasn't snobby, but it was the same in that it was pretty, in a nice location, and our first two water bottles were on the house, so...you know it's the big time.

We actually stayed up pretty late checking our email and eating the finest Peruvian cuisine that room service can offer. In the morning, we slept until about 9 a.m. and debated for 40 minutes if we should go down for breakfast. We were so tired we really just wanted to lounge for the next three weeks. But at 9:45 it suddenly hit that we were starving, so we tried to make ourselves look presentable...alls I gotta say is look at our pictures of us in Lima, imagine us that same way only after having slept for 8 hours so our hair is even messier, and then imagine us wearing black fleece jackets, me in my black velour pants that everyone I know hates and Heather in warmups. Everyone else in the dining room was dressed up because this isn't the Motel 8 with the free donuts for continental breakfast, but...we only had five minutes to get ready and ten minutes to eat. So we pretended that we thought we were normal and ate scrambled eggs, pancakes, chorizo sausage, bacon, fresh fruit, fresh juice, cheese, ham...we were hungry, okay?

After breakfast, we got to shower again. I don't know what it is about traveling but every time I get to shower, I feel like it's a decadent luxury. So hooray for showering! After we got ready, Jenry came to get us and bring us to the place where we will be staying for the rest of our time. We are actually sleeping at the office. We're pretty much workaholics so that's why they set it up that way. Either that or real estate is an even more precious commodity here. Jenry lives across from us and works at the office during the day. The office is made up of a big training room, a couple of offices for Jenry and his assistant Miguel, and then another empty room in the very back of the offices that is being used as a bedroom by us. There is a bathroom in the front of the office and then we have our own bathroom equipped with...that's right...a shower! So it's going to be nothing but decadent luxuries from here on out. The office also has a kitchen that they're going to set up for future interns, but they've only been in this location for a couple of days, so we'll probably spend most of our time eating with Jenry y familia.

Our room has a bunkbed and we have wireless internet. Pretty much we're set. The only thing that is really sad for us is the lack of a kitchen. For anyone who has spent time with Heather and me late in the evening, you know that time is measured only by man and not by the hunger of woman. Heather will often eat at 10 and call it her fourth meal and I'm pretty much down with choco-latay any time of day. We went to the supermercado tonight with Jenry and his family to get potable water for the place. Heather and I were both conservative and didn't buy anything there, but sure enough...at about 11, we were feeling sad about not having a secret stash of anything...except water. I think we learned our lesson, though, and we're going to stock this place with crackers and chocolates for tomorrow night.