Living life on the edge-of a tectonic plate

The main square in Lima. Plaza Mayor

Dude

The boys’ classroom

Dinner at Huaca Pucllana amidst the ruins

Delicious quinoa bowl

Pisco Sour the delicious national drink!

The cliffs of Lima. A great defense against invaders and a great place to paraglide

Getting settled into life in Lima

We were initially going to call ourselves the “bucket-list” family. But like most good ideas it was already taken…by a millennial who sold his company for $54 million and decided to take his gorgeous-blonde-Mormon family on a trip around the world. We are decidedly not them. Craig said, “we are more of a f*ck-it list family”. Thus, the origin of our moniker.

We are now five days in to our 207 day odyssey. Things have been pretty smooth but we’ve had a few bumps already…

We arrived in Lima at our Airbnb only to find it was already occupied by another family. We have used many airbnb’s around the world but never had something like that happen before. After a few hours of waiting for things to be sorted, we walked a few blocks to the Marriott and stayed there for the night. To their credit Airbnb responded very quickly and refunded us the first night. We moved into the newly vacated (and re-cleaned…) apartment the next day. The apartment faces the Pacific Ocean and has spectacular sunset views. It’s located in miraflores, an area of Lima much like Minami Azabu in Tokyo or Wellesley in Boston. It’s safe and beautiful.

The other bump was Hayden’s drone does not seem to work. It gives an error message about magnetic interference so we are trying to get that figured out. My Spanish is being challenged.

Speaking of which, my one year of university Spanish has come in very handy and given me a lot of power in the family unit. I am enjoying that so I am practicing on Duolingo 20 min per day. It’s my competitive nature.

We have settled somewhat into a routine for now. The boys have “school” in the morning for around 3 hours. Corey, our tutor is great,  working through the curriculum and being a buffer between us when they get annoying. It’s nice to have another big guy around when we tour the more local areas of Lima. He’s very easy-going as well.

Craig and I go out for coffee and then walk/exercise for a few hours. Craig likes to walk and explore. Yesterday we walked 8km to the Mario Testino museum and explored the Barranca district which is the bohemian area of Lima. It had a cool vibe, lots of artists and is an up and coming area.

We have liked Lima more than we expected. The weather is great, cool breezes at night and warm during the day. Temps are moderate and vary from 67(19) to 74(23) despite being only 800 miles from the equator.

Oh, and the food has been incredible!  We knew Peru was a foodie hotspot but we’ve been totally impressed by the quality and diversity. Last night we ate at Huaca Pucllana, a restaurant set amid the historic ruins. The ceviche was the best we’ve had. The Chilean wine was delicious and we are in love with Pisco Sours, the local specialty.

We will spend about three weeks in Peru. We are heading to the Amazon on Tuesday, then to Cusco and Machu Picchu, one of my bucket list places.

The countries we selected are, for the most part, countries we haven’t visited before. Here is the list. I can send our detailed itinerary to anyone who may want to join us somewhere along the way! Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Dubai (UAE), Jordan, India, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Japan, South Korea, China, (Tibet), South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Germany, Croatia, Romania, to be determined…

I don’t want to overwhelm Facebook with too many posts so I will update the blog once or twice a week and post the link on Facebook.

Thanks to everyone following along on our adventure. It helps me feel connected to all my friends back home. ❤️