Djurdjevic - Personal Photos

06 Feb 2010

Updated Jan 21, 2010

Back in Peru for Annual Pilgrimage...

...this time, with Elizabeth

FROM LIMA, PERU, Jan 21 - I am back in Lima, for the first time with bags. And with Elizabeth, too - on her first trip to Peru. But what a journey it was... about 10,000 miles with two back-to-back "red eyes" and a Big Blue 4Q (a long working layover in Miami).

You see, we weren't supposed to be here in Miami until after 8PM on Tuesday night. That would have been unfortunate for my business as IBM 4Q earnings report was scheduled to be released that afternoon. Our original LA-Miami flight did not have WiFi on board. Which means I would have had to wait for it to land in Miami to find out what happened in IBM's 4Q. Which would have been past most daily and wire media deadlines. In other words, a bummer.

So on Sunday, I sent an apologetic message to that effect to my clients and media friends. But when something is meant to be, it will happen, even if heaven and earth have to be moved first.

As it turned out, we were able to get out of Los Angeles as a stand-by on an earlier Miami flight early Tuesday morning. If you click on IBM Delivers... (analysis of Big Blue's latest results), you will see a “business as usual” coverage of IBM's 4Q release as a result. Here's what Miami looked like when we landed around 1:30PM Tuesday.

What I did not realize until arriving in Miami, however, is that getting out of Dodge (LAX) was very fortuitous for weather reasons, too. Throughout the afternoon, TV newscasts showed vicious storms slamming California right after we left Los Angeles. LA has even had tornado warnings, along with a 15-20-foot surf. Which means our original flight have been probably delayed, too. Yet when we landed there at 5AM this morning after a "red eye" from Maui, the LAX runways were bone dry and everything was calm.

As you can see, when something is meant to be... it will happen no matter what. I was evidently meant to cover the IBM story Monday tonight. And did.

And we were meant to arrive in Lima on time, and for the first time for me - WITH bags. I rejoiced when I saw them coming off the conveyor belt at the Lima airport (see my 2008 and 2009 Peru stories for my first two "bagless" arrivals).

We arrived at our hotel in Miraflores, an upscale district of Lima (left), just as the sun was rising. The air was misty, a mixture of fog rolling in from the nearby ocean and smog from car exhaust fumes.

While they were getting our room ready, we went for a walk to the ocean shore. We were surprised to see a Waikiki beach in Peru (middle left). Up until now, the only Waikiki we had seen was the one in Honolulu, Hawaii.

That was not the only similarity between Hawaii and Peru. We were also surprised to see the African tulip trees here (middle right), just like the ones we have in our gulch at the Rainbow Shower. The shoreline here is also line with Wedelia flowers, the ground cover shrubs that are all over the Rainbow Shower as well (right). There were also similar cacti and many other plants that made me wonder if Peru and Hawaii were perhaps joined at the hip at some point in the past? (Lemuria, perhaps?). After all, there are also linguistic similarities between Hawaiian and Inca Quechua terms.

On our way to the beach, we passed a lovely looking Miraflores tennis club, whose red clay courts were cut into steep hills that reminded me of Capistrano in California (two left shots). We also passed a scenic restaurant, Rosa Nautica, whose Victorian era turrets stand out as an unusual landmark off the Mahana beach pier. Our taxi driver told us the food there was okay but overpriced. You pay for the view, I am sure. If you can get it, that is, after the fog lifts.

Our next surprise was to see a stone-inscribed message atop a hill that seemed inaccessible high above the beach. It read, "Nenad Serbia 1.10" (left). "The Serbs seem to be everywhere," I told Elizabeth. Indeed, later in the afternoon, I also overheard Serbian being spoken by two men in the streets of Lima.

The colorful flowerbed shown in the middle left shot, which reminded us of Lucern, Switzerland (see Touring Switzerland, Sep 13) contains a riddle. Here's a clue. There are two giant beetles on one of the red flowers. Can you find them? :-)

We ended our walk at the Larcomar mall, a fashionable area at the ocean end of Miraflores' main drag. The park around the mall was full of cow sculptures, just like some we saw last September in Switzerland (see Zurich, Day 2, Sep 12).

After resting for a few hours, we went out for a walk in late afternoon through the busy streets of Lima's Miraflores district (above).

We ended the day in Beirut (i.e., with a dinner at a Middle-eastern restaurant of that name in Lima).