I spent Tue FEB 12 in the air flying from SFO to MIA and then changing planes and on to Lima.  My friend Fernando met me at the Lima airport and took me by taxi to his home.  My plane arrived one hour late, at midnight, so we got to his home almost 1AM, a long travel day since I got up at 4AM to get my van to SFO.  But the good news is all went well, no problems...and we talked I guess till 3am.

Fernando has been working full days so a chef graduate of the Cordon Bleu Cooking School, Mariano Lopez, volunteered to be my personal guide to show me around Lima.  Fernando has been teaching him English so I will be able to give him some practice speaking English with me.  Mariano picked me up yesterday, the first day, and we went to Miraflores district, the new modern and upscale tourist area of Lima.  We went to the Gold Museum and took a long walk along the Malecon and Miraflores where large numbers of tall new condominiums facing the ocean are being built. 

At 2:30 we stopped for lunch at a famous restaurant, the owner was one of his previous cooking teachers, and we had a two hour lunch featuring all the most popular flavors of Peru.  We sampled six different ceviches, several meats, potatoes and corn.  The corn here is very different; the kernels are gigantic and have a very different taste, not sweet like we are used to at home.  After lunch we continued our tour first by bus then by taxi, arriving back to my home at 7:30pm.  I was exhausted and went to bed early that evening, around 10pm.

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