At 10 we were back down stairs for our ride with Ismael to the airport. He walked us through paying our airport taxes and to security, explaining that the taxes are not paid to the airlines because the airlines don't generally actually pay it to the government. Security was once again quick, and then we waited for 40 minutes or so for our flight. There were two flights to Lima from two adjacent gates leaving five minutes apart. We took off Elias asked when he could use his electronics. That raised the question: if you start at 12,000 feet, when can you start using electronic devices, you're already over 10,000 feet?
The flight is only 1 hour long - just enough time to get and eat your snack that they actually give you. We landed in warm, humid and overcast Lima by 1, but our ride wasn't there. We were immediately approached by a swarm of taxi drivers, and although we said "No gracias" one even just hung right next to Ruben in case he changed his mind. It was kind of eerie and annoying actually. Elias was hungry so Lauren went with him upstairs and got him a sandwich and found a Starbucks (a real one) for a couple of hot drinks for the adults. Elias' comment: "Dad gives mom entertainment, Mom gives dad coffee." The kid is pretty observant.
Hector showed up and met Ruben in the meanwhile and once we were all back together, we headed about 1/2 hour south to Sanborja where Ericka's parents live. It was so wonderful to see them and meet her sister. We then all went off by car to find some lunch, only to realize that every place is closed because it was Christmas day. We wound up eating a really crappy meal at a Bembos, although the gift inside the kids meal was a really good matchbox car for Elias. We did have some really great gelato right afterwards at a shop that just happened to be open next door.
Ruben and Hector spoke about a lof of things including the politics of Fujimori and whether he was effective leader or if he should have been jailed. The landscape seems like a very odd place for people to live. Where there are no houses there is nothing except barren sand dunes. When Lauren asked why there are no roofs on some of the houses Hector explained that it doesn't really rain here - it just gets misty all year, so some people have open air roofs. Many of the houses and neighborhoods look like they'd be completely abandoned in the U.S. but they're not. There are very different living conditions here.
Finally we arrived at the turn off for Ericka's place. A dirt road right turn off the highway. If you didn't know what to look for you'd completely miss it. The road twists and winds around the back of a hill and hugs the hill around a large expanse of open empty sand dune that apparently has been bought and will be turned into another large complex. We arrived at her community and the guard let us in. There were very few people in the community already because it was Christmas day and apparently "summer" starts the day after Christmas.
After unloading the cars we got to tour Ericka's gorgeous house. The pictures honestly don't even do it justice. It's just amazing, calming and very pretty. We unpacked and then went for a drive over to Asia mall to see if we could find some dinner, but there was very little open including a Chinese restaurant "Chifa Yi-Yi" and a convenience store. We had a reasonable dinner and then did some quicky shopping to get some basic staples for breakfast in the morning. The place was packed with people who had arrived that day and needed basics.
Evening time was spent playing "Bananas" (mixed in Spanish and English) and making brownies.
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