Traveling Applejax

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, whether you celebrated with turkey and carols, fondue and games, or chifa and a movie. We found ourselves amidst fruit cake and merengue music…

On Christmas Eve, Mike and I checked into a mid-range hotel as a special treat for ourselves. After a week in the friendly but bare-bones accomodations offerred by Lucho at the Casa de Ciclistas, we were excited to have a cushy bed, hot water, and a TV. Mike was also a little too thrilled by the fact that our room was carpeted (carpeting isn’t very common anywhere in Latin America).

Despite the fact that we were staying in the hotel for the night, we joined Lucho, his family, and 5 other cyclists for Christmas Eve dinner. Following is our menu:

Appetizer: Toast with a spread containing onions, peppers, etc.
Main corse: Turkey, turkey gravy, and a potato salad of sorts
Desserts: Fruitcake*, chocolate chip and mandarin orange cake, pineapple cake, some other cake, apple cobbler, and truffles.

Seem a little unbalanced to anyone else? Not that it wasn’t good…I just could have used a bit more substance.

*Side note: The Peruvians are out of control when it comes to fruitcake. It’s not the joke it is in the United States — here, fruitcake is serious business. The top shelf of every single aisle in the downtown Trujillo grocery store was stuffed with fruitcake. There were also giant pyramid displays of stacked fruitcakes and fruitcakes piled up next to the cashiers in case you decided last minute to buy just one more. Every third person on the street in the week leading up to Christms had at least one fruitcake in hand. The obsession with fruitcake is truly frightening, and now that I’ve tried it I can confirm that the stuff is nasty. I’m glad the fruitcake is out of vogue in the States.

Anyway…on Christmas day we left the Casa de Ciclistas and Trujillo and biked to Huanchaco. Huanchaco is only about a 15 minute bus ride from Trujillo and is situated right on the Pacific. It’s a lovely little beach town popular with tourists and surfers. As such, it’s filled with cute cafes and nice restaurants. We are going to be here at least until the end of February.

After a couple of days of staying in a hotel we found a place to live for the next 2 months. Well, 2 places, really. We’re staying in a one-room apartment until January 15th, then we’re moving upstairs to an apartment with a kitchen because that’s when it frees up. We have loads of storage space, our own bathroom with a tub (almost as rare as carpeting), hot water, carpeting (!), Internet access (for when we get the computer working again), and a shared weight room. The best grocery store in town is literally next door, and the beach is 2 blocks away. We have an ocean view from our apartment. Perhaps you are wondering how much our dream palace costs? Well, with Internet, water, and electricity included we’re shelling out about $217 a month. Kinda makes you want to pack up and move to Peru, doesn’t it?

We should be pretty busy during the first few months of 2008, even though we won’t be biking as much. With the ocean so close, Mike and I are planning to learn to surf. I start teaching English classes locally on Wednesday and online ASU classes again on the 14th. Now that we’re settled, Mike looks forward to getting the computer working again. Once that’s done, he’ll be back to working on his photos (which we’ll hopefully start posting again soon) and selling body jewelry. We’ll also both be busy soaking up the sun and some awesome experiences. I hope your New Year is looking bright as well! Keep in touch!

Also, don’t forget to take a stab at the latest trivia question. Only 3 people guessed last time around. By the way, the answer was “Kids like pretty white girl doll most best.” We saw all of the other ridiculous slogans.