We’ve been busy!

Sorry for the gap in blog posts...but we’ve been busy! Since leaving Northern Peru we then traveled to Callao, the port to Lima where we spent a few days. As you may know, Lima is the capital of Peru...a third of the population lives there and it is the 5th largest city in South America with about 11,000,000. Since we have been to Lima several times before, we explored new areas of the city on our own as well as going to the nightly Circuito Majico del Aqua...a major city park with 13 colored and clever water features. It draws huge crowds each evening. We also explored some of the historic plazas which are beautiful and remind us of European cities. Peru is on the comeback after some bad political and economic times. People seem happy and industrious but it is still poor in many areas with tired infrastructure. They are excited about the new president and are hopeful for a bright future. We then traveled South to Arica Chile where we are now. Chile is the world’s longest country and home to the driest desert in the world...the Atacama desert. This is a cute town (been here before too) that always impresses us by how much everyone walks and bikes here. It seems no one is using a car! This is a “resort” area for Chile so it has a slightly more prosperous feeling. However, as a Gringo, you stand out here...they don’t get many North American visitors here. The newspapers today all have a big cartoon of Trump on the cover squeezing the hose at a gas pump with a headline about “Trump trying to make Venezuela American again”. In between long walks (almost 8 miles today!) we have also been busy with ship life. We’ve been getting regular excercise...a tough spin class every at-sea day, swim workouts in the pool using a swim belt tether (you basically swim in place and it works very well) and climb about 20 flights of stairs a day. Di has even played pickleball! We also had a huge Super Bowl party on the ship last night...great food...like lobster rolls...and lots to drink. Too bad the game was such a snoozer.

We now start heading West...5 days at sea before reaching Easter Island our next port of call. This is a bucket list item for us. More news then...