Our Hotel Manhattan has a day room for us. We nap and shower and then head down to eat some dinner. And there we meet Bill and Joseph & Sylvia who are just finishing up theirs. We compare notes about our separate trips (ours to the dry coast, and theirs in a snowstorm in the highest Andes) and hug each other good-bye. Bill's flight is also at midnight so we will see him again at the airport. Another nap and off we go in our hotel's van to the Lima airport. After waiting in what seems like the longest, slowest (not to mention smokiest) line at the check-in counter, we finally reach the desk. And we are asked if we would consider staying over one more night at a 5-star hotel with shuttle to and from the airport, breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus $1500 international travel vouchers. Hmmm. This isn't a tough decision. YES! Of course we will. We wait and we wait and we wait until it's all set and off we go in a van with five other lucky folks to our fancy hotel right in the center of downtown Lima.

Our room faces the street, which we don't really notice until very early the next day (this is our one and only sleep-in morning). We are woken not by bird sounds as in the rainforest of a few days ago, but to the sounds of honking horns, screeching tires, loud bus noises, and police whistles. Busy, busy, busy. So we are awake. The breakfast at the hotel is quite nice and afterwards we arrange to take a taxi to the Gold Museum. We cash some traveler's checks, as we forgot our gold at home. The Gold Museum is quite famous and it is filled with all sorts of gold collected from long ago Inca days. These are the precious few items that the Spaniards didn't steal and melt down, but oh, what items! There are huge gold masks, gold jewelry, and even skulls with gold tooth fillings. The Incas were quite good at surgery, as a skull with a square hole attests. Julia refuses to look at any of the skeletal remains, as they are much too scary. And of course, no suprise, we see Richard and Elda here too! We have already made a date to see them again when they visit Austin to see their son who goes to the University there!

Our taxi driver comes to collect us at the appointed time and takes us to a very nice vegetarian restaurant, which has been highly recommended by the hotel. We enjoy a great selection of vegetarian fare and are feeling quite pleased with our extra day. We walk through the town a bit, and decide to catch a local bus back to our hotel. It is a very busy, noisy, polluted city and this bus ride is quite an experience. Julia is impressed by the ticket taker, who hangs out the door, hawking passengers to ride.

We return to the hotel for a nap and a bath. We meet our other "extra dayers" in the hotel restaurant where they serve us our least favorite meal of the entire 3-1/2 weeks. The artichoke heart filled with shriveled peas in mayonnaise is especially nasty. At least they have some decent looking cake, which alas, doesn't turn out to be that tasty. So much for this fancy hotel. Must be because it is only 4 stars, not the 5 we were promised. The restaurant staff does seem to be vying for that fifth star with their pretentious attitude. Our van collects us and we ride through the city to the airport to once again catch our midnight flight back home.

Julia has a rough time on the 6-hour flight. Something about the vegetarian lunch or the funky dinner has not agreed with her AT ALL. Or perhaps it was the scary skulls at the Gold Museum. She makes good friends with the airplane bathroom and spends most of the flight home in there. We'll spare you the details, but for their next trip to Belize in November she prints up a giant note for herself that says: Boil it, cook it, peel it, or forget it.

Home Sweet Home and now we have lots of dealings with insurance companies and car repair shops and new car buying experiences. It all works out fine in the end and we did indeed have a wonderful trip to Peru in the summer of 2002. This was the first of many honeymoons for Andy and Julia.