Peru (Chiclayo & Trujillo)

Flying out of the Panama International Airport on Friday morning.

We were the only ones in the Business Class section of this 2 1/2-hour flight.  The food was much better on this short flight than it was on our 7-hour flight down to Panama.  Strange.

The headspace, however, was not better.  These smaller planes aren't made for gringos.

We flew direct from Panama to Chiclayo, Peru, where we met a prominent businessman (a friend of Miguel and Clara) who owns the largest chain of appliance stores in Peru.  He drove us one-hour north to his ranch where he has what he calls his "expensive hobby" - growing acres upon acres of organic mangos, oranges, avocados.

Left-to-right:  Ricky (the businessman), Miguel, and Doug.

I ate a large amount of delicious mango, and they also served us fresh passionfruit juice.

Miguel and I took a turn about the ranch with a couple of the ranch hands.

A roundabout in Chiclayo

Miguel and Doug - "Heroic City of Chiclayo"

We had a neat opportunity yesterday morning to give a blessing to Clara's mother, Aurora.  Clara is Miguel's wife.  Aurora lives in her home and suffers from advanced Parkinson's disease. 

We have been treated extremely well here.  So much delicious food!  Here we are with Clara and Clara's sister, Ana, who prepared this delicious meal for us before we took off for Trujillo.

Granadilla - one of the many fruits we don't have in the States.

Mmmm.  Homemade sweet-potato chips, tamales, humitas (a lighter/drier tamale) with cheese, little avocado/egg sandwiches, pork, and lemon-grass and passionfruit juices.

This is from a lunch we had today (Sunday).  It's mashed potato with some kind of avocado salsa inside.

 Yesterday we drove south to Trujillo to visit the temple.  I anticipated an eight-hour trip there and back, but it turned into a 12-hour trip due to traffic.  We arrived back at our hotel around 1:00am......exhausted!

This is the countryside along the coast of northern Peru.

 We stopped at a little shop along the way to get Miguel's favorite childhood ice cream.

These "moto-taxis" are everywhere!

Miguel, Clara, Doug, and Daniel in front of the Trujillo Peru Temple.

 We saw Herbie at the temple as well.  Apparently he is Peruvian now.

Today (Sunday) we attended a Stake Conference where Jose found an Elder Haslam with whom he used to play basketball.  Elder Haslam is from Hyrum, Utah, and he also knows Nate (Elder Coombs).  Small world.  Elder Dallin is from Orem, Utah.

I am putting this blog post together while lying on the hotel bed.  Tis the Sabbath, a day of rest.