Lima love--- for real this time!

This Christmas we went down to Peru to visit Mando's family.  We were really excited this year because it was an unexpected blessing to be able to go visit again.  We thought we'd be going down every other year, but in June the stars aligned and we realized that it would be possible to go down this year, and not only that, but on CHRISTMAS!  Mando has wanted to spend Christmas with his family for quite sometime now.  It's been at least 6 years since they've all been together on Christmas, I think.  

Of course, when we planned the trip, we didn't realize I would be pregnant with twins!  aah!  PRO-- it's a great thing that we were able to visit BEFORE the babies come, because it will be a while before we feel comfortable making the trip with three kids as opposed to one or two.  CON--- I'm six months pregnant while traveling to a third world country and it takes two days of traveling to get there.  eeh.  

Disaster struck a week before we left and Nicholas and I both came down with a bad hacking cold, and a terrible stomach flu.  Thankfully the stomach bug passed quickly; Armando never got it.  And the warm, moist air of the Peruvian coast cleared up our coughs within the first few days!  It was miraculous.  

Because we had been so sick, however, I was extra nervous this time around.  We were praying so hard that none of us would get sick in Peru or on the way back.  Thank you to all the family members who were also praying for us.  We were really blessed--- we didn't get sick at all while we were down there and we missed a round of pneumonia that passed through the nursery in our ward, along with a second round of the stomach bug, by just a few days (whew!).  We feel really, really lucky.  

Anyway, the trip was wonderful :)  I even loved Lima this time around.  Because I am pregnant, we decided to spread the travel out a little bit.  We arrived in Lima late Sunday night (early Monday morning, really).  Instead of trying to catch the very next flight to Trujillo, we made hotel reservations and decided to stay a whole day in Lima to rest.  It was great!  The hotel Armando booked was a quaint, picturesque little Inn.  It was very colonial spanish; and our room was up on the third floor (no elevator, but we're used to that by now!) patio-- i.e. the roof :)  This was great because we could open the door and let the warm sea breeze blow into our room and Nicholas sat out in the sun playing with his cars-- pretending the tile grout was roads.  The room actually had three beds in it (weird, right?) which worked out great since pregnant Liz pretty much needs a whole bed to herself :)  

Nicholas was an AWESOME flyer.  This is what he did for the majority of both flights, I think.   I was more squirmy than he was! 

We slept in the next morning--- something we wouldn't have been able to do if we had been on the next flight to Trujillo.  And we spent the whole day visiting with Armando's dear aunt, Tia Chapita, his cousins, and his Dad (who came to Lima to meet us at the airport--- unfortunately he forgot which day we were coming in and slept through our arrival at the airport :)  but we saw him the next day!)  We had enough time to relax, take naps, and take Nicholas to some really fun play areas.  They have REALLY cleaned up Miraflores (the neighborhood we were staying in).  It's beautiful now!  

They have parks and greenery all along the coast with nice big sidewalks.  You can walk along the cliff overlooking the ocean  surrounded by trees and flowers.  It was really relaxing, and all along the way there are small playgrounds with fake grass that looks/feels real.  Very well maintained too.  I was impressed.  Nicholas liked the playgrounds, but I think he had the most fun walking the streets in Miraflores because there were little tiny ramps every few feet leading up to a garage or a doorway.  He likes ramps.... A LOT.  He likes to run down them, and he likes to drive his cars down them.  Ramps rock.

This was at his favorite ramp in Lima.  I had to bribe him with orange tic tacs to get him to leave.  Yep, awesome parenting, I know :)

We also attempted a trip to the zoo in Lima-- which is ENORMOUS and very cool!  I have never seen a zoo where almost ALL of the big, cool animals are active and out where you can see them.  They split the zoo up into sections, like the country is split into regions.  Costa, Sierra, Selva.  Coast, Mountains, Rainforest.  If you look at a map of Peru you will see those three distinct regions---- they are very different ecologically, geographically, etc.  and lend very different wildlife from each region.  They also have a section for animals from other countries--- hippos, lions, giraffes, zebras, etc.  Unfortunately, Nicholas had zero interest in seeing the animals.  He spent half the time crying because he couldn't ride the "train" that he saw upon entering the zoo (some sort of tram that wasn't running the day we went).  The other half was spent running up and down a ramp by the hippo tank.  He could have cared less about the hippos, but that ramp was awesome for him.

When we finally did leave Lima, we were fairly well rested and in a much better mood to meet Mando's family.  It was a good idea to travel slowly :)