We arrived in Tarapoto around noon. With our flight back to Lima departing at 5PM, we debated heading into Tarapoto for a few hours or just cooling our heels (literally) at the airport. Our collectivo to Tarapoto had two other passengers. One was a middle aged woman with a pet parrot, which she kept locked up tight in her small handbag. Sometimes it would peek its head out and she would stroke it, until it squawked, at which point its head went back in the bag. She hid it when we passed the police checkpoint; she claimed it was her pet (and its behavior seemed to match that description), but taking birds from the Amazon basin to the highlands is an easy way to have the police ask a lot of questions. Animal smuggling is quite real and a significant problem.
We had arranged for a taxi pickup at the airport through our hostel. When we arrived, after a short trip to the near supermarket, we experienced the terrific and so long missed luxury of hot showers. With shampoo. And soap. A scrubbing. I washed my hair twice. While we were clean, though, are clothes were not. Señora had washed them, but she had done so with river water, so practically everything we owned had a smell to it. We hand hand washed a few things for our first of two days in Lima (note to future travelers: white vinegar is great for getting smells out, soak clothes for 30 minutes or so in a sink of cold water with a few tablespoons). First thing the next morning, we took all of the rest of our clothes to a laundry. Oh, having a bag full of clean, clean-smelling clothes, it was so comforting.
In our two days, we went to the Museo Larco, the church of San Francisco, which has a crypt, the Plaza de Armas, the old town, and wandered some around Miraflores. Our conclusion is that Lima is a wonderful city to live in. It’s cool, dry, has a love of literature, wonderful food, the ocean, nightlife, wide sidewalks, parks, many of the details that make it remind me of San Francisco. But for tourism it’s pretty thin, in part because earthquakes mean there isn’t much that’s very old. The Museo Larco is stellar, but besides that… well, except the laser light water show at Parque Reserva.
Watch The Private Eye leap in front of the watery fire:
Imagine a medium sized park, about the size of Dolores Park, with a dozen or so fountains, some of which change and shift their flow over time. At 7:15, the music starts, the projectors turn on, and they, along with lasers, begin a multimedia experience of ridiculous scale with sheets and streams of water as the canvas.
With not that much to do, The Private Eye and I spent most of our last two days languorously enjoying an introduction to city life. We had excellent coffee, strolled in parks, and retold stories of our trip to each other. I joked that after eight days in the rainforest, a 17th century painting of St. Francis just doesn’t seem that… exciting. I think each of us is going to come up with a best of list, and we might perhaps put together a “what we’d do differently next time” post.
We are now in UA 927, 38,000 feet up, somewhere over Nevada, on our final flight from Houston to San Francisco. These last two hours seem more difficult than any others during our trip. I’ve watched the in-flight movie, Life of Pi, we have played a game or two of Ticket to Ride, now I am anxiously counting the minutes until we land. I read Bleak House in Peru, but now I can’t seem to read more than a few pages of Hard Times before my mind wanders. Tomorrow morning I’ll get on my bike, ride to Caltrain, go to the new company offices in the morning, then the university in the afternoon. Tonight, we’ll be seeing a lot of friends at the Orbit Room.
The captain just told us the seatbelt sign will be on in 5 minutes, we will be landing in 25! Home!
— The Professor
The Professor and the Private Eye: Adventures Abroad 