A Picture is worth...

I can write for days about my experience here in Peru. In lieu of boring you; take a look at these six thousand words:

My first time...

Today was a day of firsts. We traveled to lunch with our client, Mili Blume, and dined at an upscale traditional Peruvian restaurant. Marcos ordered a very exotic dish complete with cow stomach, cow heart, chicken heart and assorted other meats. Mike Seeger opted for the swordfish and Lucia Chen had fried porkchops.

Now it's time to guess what I ate? Okay, okay, I admit; I did not have anything too exotic (a variation of steak), but I did try the swordfish and chicken hearts! The chicken hearts were not too bad-they actually tasted like sausage.

The second first I had was venturing to a custom tailor. My roommate Eric and I purchased 2 custom dress shirts each. The feeling of getting measured by a tailor for perfectly made-to-fit shirts was awesome. I may end up going back for a custom suit...who knows?

Why we are here

Although this is spring break, the real reason we are here is for our GLOBASE project. GLOBASE is a course that matches up a small Peruvian company with MBA students from Kelley. Yesterday we met with Apomipe, which is a non profit agency that serves rural companies in Peru. We had a presentation from Inter Cooperation which is a division of Apomipe which specifically works with natural resources in Peru. You can see more about them here:



http://www.apomipe.org.pe/contenidos/que_es_apomipe.php



My team is working with a silver jewelry manufacturer, Mili Blume. I will fill in the details about her shop later today. For now, check out her website at:



http://www.miliblume.com/



After Apomipe, we decided to go back to the hotel to change clothes and then depart for dinner. Several members of our group found several restaurant choices about 1/2 mile away. The weather was great, so we decided to walk instead of taking a taxi. After watching a beautiful sunset over the Pacific we decided to eat at Magoe's restaurant. The restaurant was situated high on a cliff overlooking the ocean. We couldn't ask for a better location.



The group all ordered the local drink favorite-a Pisco. I am not sure what is was made of, however it was quite tasty. Dinner was a variety of ceviche, calamari, and kabobs. The food was by far the freshest you could imagine. I also became aquanted with Cusquenos, the local beer-similar to Bud Light.



After dinner, we decided to make a "quick" stop at the casino. The interesting part about the casino is that they do not accept soles (the local currency), they only accepted American dollars. It really didn't matter because I only ended up donating my $25 to the Peruvian economy.



Next up...the details from Mili Blume. Buenos tardes!

Getting Settled

Day 1 flew by quickly. We got settled in Lima, touched base as a large group on our in-country work plans and visited a future potential NGO partner.

We also had a chance to get acclimated to Lima and get a taste of the Peruvian culture! Lima is a much cleaner city than other big cities I've visited in developing countries. We enjoyed great weather, walking through the Mirafloures area and a fun group dinner overlooking the ocean (I have great seafood paella!).

Tomorrow, we're off to our client site for the first day. We'll review our pre-trip research that we sent to our primary contact over the weekend and get a tour of the office.

I'll report back on how it goes!

Oh how sweet it is ...

Well, we finally made it to Lima! Our hotel, Casa Andina, is pictersque.

So of course a few of us just could not get a good night sleep w/o checking out the town ...

We found a 24 market and decided to purchase water, juice and some fruit ...
A Brazilian friend of mine suggested we try golden passion fruit also know as maracuya. The aroma of this fruit alone was inticing but the taste ... Oh how sweet it is ... the taste was perfect - a blend of the bitter, in the seeds, and the sweet in the juice--

... Until tomorrow

Lo siento...

"Lo siento, digame in ingles por favor." These were my first words when we landed in Peru. I was apologizing to someone for my lack of understanding because they were speaking too fast in spanish. Stepping foot onto the South American continent for the first time was great. After a 6 1/2 hour flight, I am happy to be off the airplane.

After spending 40 minutes in immigration, we loaded a bus ride to our hotel. Our tour guide, Ralph, shared a few intersting facts along the way; Lima is home to 9 million people (that's 1/3 of the entire population of Peru), it never rains in Lima, and Lima is directly on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Travling through Lima I noticed several familiar signs including KFC, Papa John's, Citibank, and Starbuck's (are they everywhere?)


The hotel is great-free WIFI, nice stores, and a great bar/lounge. I am thankful to be on this trip and I look forward to the next 9 days...until next time, Adios!