safe and damp

I have arrived!be warned this keyboard is wacky- for some keys there are three options and i have no idea how to get the third (the "at" symbol has proved elusive). so forgive my punctuation.

Flights were pretty uneventful (thogh I will never request a vegetarian option with air canda again). the moon was quite bright so i thought i could make out some mountains and coastlines in the dark. In hind sight it may have just all been clouds. I could see lots of lttle villages below. it was neat because most of them had little plaza that were lit up more brightly than the rest of town so each village had a few rows of lights with a bright circle in the middle. I got picked up by my hotel at the aiport - I practiced my spnish (or lack thereof) with vicente on the ride to the hostal. the whole time I was thinking as we drove [ oh, this must be the bad part of town[ by the end of the drive I realized it was all like that. at night anyways. he asked me what i did for a job secretary was his first guess. how do you explain in ridiculously limited spanish that you work at a not'for'profit women{s organization. eventually I wrote YWCA and he said öh..dee Y¨and he understood. its called the ACJ here.

I went for a wander around Lima today. I had thought I was going to be able to catch a bus out to a smaller twon 6 hours north of here to spend the evening, but all buses seem to leave at night, so I wandered around the city for the day. enjoyed the chorus of [meep meeps] that seem to be the universal language on the roads (who needs signs?) ordered lunch from a hole in the wall cafe something that had [pollo[ in the name because it was the only word I recognized. broke all the travelling food hygiene rules by eating a salad with three different vegetalbles that were neither boiled NOR peeled!! got 1 cat call, 2 hellos, one [very beautiful girl[.not bad for the ultimate tourista walking around in quickdry clothes, hiking boots, a bright red back pack and a camera case. everyone is so friendly and speaks slow in spanish to me (I think 5 people in Lima speak English, and I have met 3 of them).

I am experiencing one thing i really miss from asia - things are sold out of random hole in the wall stores and by people walking around rather than in big box stores. I now know no fewer than 6 places to buy shrink rapped photocopiers in Lima.

So my bus tongiht leaves just before midnight. bright and early tomorrow morning I will be picked up by a priest in Chimbote to meet up with a friend from highschool working in a village on the way to some bigggg mountains.

a reminder that my birthday is september 9th. i like birthday emails.i am only 2 hours ahead. so the emails need to be sent by 10pm to be vaild :)}

ttfn

!trina