A photoblog and other things

This is the first of three parts of the photos from Peru. I think I honestly spent more time reworking my Lightroom to Flickr workflow (I’ve reuploaded photos to Flickr several times working it out), so now I should be able to get photos up online a lot faster. This is going on the assumption that I *feel* like doing it immediately after taking photos, which has always been rather hit-and-miss with me (ask Adriana). I guess I also spent a bit of time working on my new website, so if you went to the old daecks.blogspot.com and ended up here (you should have), welcome!

While in Lima we stayed with Mema (Adriana’s grandma) again, and we were acquainted with her new dog ‘Cookie’, a Maltese Shih Tzu. She already had Gypsy, a miniature poodle, but Gypsy’s getting older and more relaxed now and so Cookie really balanced things out. I have to admit that I was never a fan of the small yappy dogs, but Cookie really grew on me, and we spent most of our time at Mema’s playing with her.

I didn’t get the opportunity to eat Chifa, a form of Chinese cooking where local ingredients are used as substitutes, last time I was in Peru. I remedied that this time around, and the food was delicious.

We went to friends of Adriana’s, Steve and Karla, to see their baby, check out their *fantastic* new place, and eat some anticuchos (normally beef heart on a skewer). The antichuchos were sold on the street, and there was quite a crowd gathering to buy them.

Our meal back at Steve and Karla’s

The next day we headed out to the town of Cieneguilla for some Peruvian BBQ. There was a lot of good food here, as Chancho could testify

Adriana, Chancho and I continued on to Antioquia, a small town out in the freaking middle of nowhere. The draw was that all the houses in the town were painted with birds, flowers, and so on, so it was something that just had to be seen. I didn’t know what to expect on the drive there. The road started off ok, then the condition of it got worse with many potholes, single lanes, rickety bridges and then small rocks that the car kept on bottoming out on. The road followed the river along and we were elevated above the river in some points, but there was nothing to stop us from going off the edge. My fear of heights was kept at bay, I think because I was more worried about not knowing how much worse the road was going to get, and whether we’d bottom out on rocks enough to get stuck.

Finally arriving in Antioquia, we were greeted by a town with very few people out and about, and some nicely painted houses.

After wondering around the town a bit, we finally headed back to Lima. It was a lot better on the way back, simply because we knew what to expect, and I was able to concentrate on taking photos again.

Back in Lima, we visited Adriana’s aunt (who is 25!) and her newborn, Macarena. This photo shows Macarena holding my finger while in Adriana’s arms, and Adriana’s grandfather in the background.

We were also very kindly taken out for chicharrones (a dish made with fried pork rinds) by some of Adriana’s family for our wedding anniversary. I think I got a hint of my future demise while there…

Near the end of our Peru trip, we saw a traditional Peru dance performance at a place called “Las Brisas del Titicaca”. It was fantastic, the costumes especially so.

Pachacamac, a pre-Inca temple site, was the last thing to see on our Lima itinerary.

Someone was having a wedding there while we were visiting

And I finally got to see a Peruvian dog up close. It’s a hairless dog, and in some cases doesn’t have teeth. This is fine example of one.

So that, in a nutshell, sums up what we saw in Lima. There are still posts waiting for Arequipa and Chivay/Colca Canyon. The whole set for Lima is available here.