Interesting clouds in the sky west of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Cancun, Mexico on November 1st.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

What do we do on a day off in Peru?

Here in Peru, a day off is when we don't do any hiking! It's important to take a break after some of the strenuous hiking we've been doing.

So after doing the Laguna 69 hike on Tuesday, we made Wednesday a day of rest.  Of course that doesn't mean we just sit around and watch television all day!

It takes a long time to sort through photos and write a blog post for your enjoyment. And while our internet is good... it's not very fast uploading photos. And I like to upload quality files so that you can click on them and enjoy them full screen. So that all takes time.

We were up at around 6:30am. Would have liked to have slept more, but it just wasn't in the cards.

It was probably almost 10:00am before the blog for the day was posted. We have a couple of hot drinks. Neither one of us drink coffee. Ruth likes regular black tea, and I have a hot drink I like made of chicory, and I also like hot chocolate. Peru makes a good hot chocolate! I find the Canadian and American stuff to be far too sweet.

And, we have some breakfast. Yesterday was hot oats with fresh strawberries cooked into it.

While I am writing the blog, Ruth is responding to all of your comments, both here and on our Facebook page. We think it's important to do that. If you take the time to comment, we think we should take the time to respond.

Then, we spent some time planning future travels.

Before we knew it, it was 11:30am. I was feeling a bit drowsy, so I had a nap on the couch. When I got up an hour or so later it was time to go for lunch.

The other day, we had lunch at a little restaurant on the same street as our building. The food was average, but the girl serving us was really friendly and we decided to go back there. She remembered us, and she also remembered that we don't eat food with wheat flour in it.

The menu!

For starters, we had the causa rellana. 
It was delicious. Mashed potato with a chicken and vegetable filling.

Main course was churrasco (grilled beef) with french fries, rice, and a small salad.

Including a juice, the bill was 12 soles ($4.80 CAD, $3.65 USD) for the two of us. We also bought some more causa rellena to go for our lunch today.

Melissa was great, and I'm sure we'll be back there for another meal before we leave here.

Then, we walked downtown. It's 2 kms (1.3 miles) one way to the bank where we took out some more cash. The ATMs only dispense large bills so we waited in line at the bank itself to get some smaller change. Definitely a convenience being a Scotiabank customer.

Then we went to a variety of stores and markets to pick up the goods that we wanted. There is no "one stop shopping" here! And, we kind of like it that way.

These shops make anything out of a piece of sheet metal.

One of the streets here in Huaraz.

This is what we bought.

We bought some broccoli, some peas, some carrots, garlic, dried lima bean snacks, 4 corn flour buns, blueberries, cheese, 1/2 kilo of ground beef, macaroon coconut snacks, a 2.5 liter jug of water, and a 750 ml bottle of scotch. The total bill for all of that was 53.4 soles ($21 CAD, $16 USD).

We purchased from 9 different places for those goods! And we walked to all of them.

Today (Thursday) we have another tour bus coming to pick us up, but not until 8:45am. They are taking us to a glacier located at 16,400 feet. Fortunately, the bus drives most of the way up there and we only have a 40 minute hike. Still, I have read that some people have problems during that 40 minute hike! I guess we'll see.

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And in Canada...




6 comments:

  1. love all of your pictures. but I got out of breath just reading about the last hike. At 6000 I'm puffing. Enjoy your time there.

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    1. Thank you Carol and Bill! We are glad that you are enjoying our pictures and adventures.

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  2. Love the cover photo! The food looks delicious, the town looks intriguing...if only I could speak Spanish I'd have lots of questions. High elevation hiking is no picnic...even a small incline is work even if the trail is relatively easy. After being in high elevation and hiking for a week, the valley walking and hiking was a breeze. Yep, one of my fav trips is to enjoy nature and being outdoors. Of course I love city vacations too...so much diversity and culture in one place. My daughter took me to NYC (my third trip) for my birthday in September and I enjoyed every minute. Our fitbit showed us pushing 26,000 steps in a single day...much more than I usually do.

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    1. Thank you Rita, I love that photo too.

      The food was very good and we are enjoying the town because it isn't a tourist town, so we get to see the real side of Peru with lots of local indigenous people just going about their normal day to day activities. We are glad that we have a good handle on the language for the most part, so we are always asking them questions, especially if we see a different type of food and want to know what it is, or if we are searching for a particular item and can't find it. We are definitely in our element here in Peru, this is what we love to experience when we are traveling.

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  3. When I was a child, I wanted to go live in Peru and work as an archeologist. Didn't happen.I'm a Canadian genealogist.

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    1. Being a archaeologist in Peru would have been an extremely interesting job that is for sure. Do you ever regret the decision of not doing that? I hope that you have at least visited Peru then, if not then maybe it is time to do so. :-)

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