Waiting on the laundry

We leave for the jungle at 4:30am tomorrow morning, so we dropped our dirty clothes off at a lavandaria yesterday morning. Then just walked through a couple of markets, JJ dined on ceviche and I had a "menu" at a market stall -- typical soup course with bones to chew, milanesa y tallarin con salsa verde (flattened, breaded fried chicken breast with pesto noodles). JJ's ceviche included a mountain of fried squid (calamares chicharron). I got some sandals in my size for the jungle; then we returned to our diggs. The laundry wasn't ready yet. "Four O'clock," she said. I took a nap.

At 4 the laundry still wasn't ready, so JJ brought some hot empanadas and beer home, and we waited some more. We finally found a cab driver who had a rough idea where the Nystrom's address was and he then took the ocean route to La Magdalena. The Pacific Ocean. Beautiful!!!!! Peruvians everywhere having FUN. It's what the whole place is set up for.

Walking through La Magdalena was like a homecoming; it's my old Lima neighborhood. The place I used to stay has been replaced by a giant hole with a huge crane towering overhead. The barrio is the same at street level, but looking up the skyline punctured with high rise apartments. Progress.

I rented us a room in a guesthouse there for our return from the jungle next Saturday, so more on Magdalena later on. Today we're repacking for the jungle trip; probably won't do too much.

This is only day 4 but it seems like I've been here all my life.