Peruvian Road Trip®!!

As we slammed along on the dental-filling-loosening road on the six-hour-plus trip to Huánuco, with nothing to do but listen to parts of the car falling off as we jarred through the potholes and landslide sites, it suddenly hit me - the solution to any anxiety about our post-mission post-retirement financial wellbeing:  Peruvian Road Trip®, the new video game!

At the beginning of the game, you are given a brand-new Nissan SUV, 

a tankful of gas (at $6.50 USD per gallon), 

a credit card which randomly may or may not be accepted at gas stations, and three missionaries crammed in the back seat, all hungry. 

You are also given a loaf of bread, a jar each of jam and peanut butter and six juice boxes.  You have to get to Huánuco/La Merced/Cerro de Pasco by a certain time, depending on the game level, with the three missionaries still alive and your wife happy.

Each failure to do so adds six months to your assigned role as "Mission President."  By the way, nothing you can do shortens it...

Points are gained by:

Having your license (see previous blog post) at one of the innumerable police stops.

Stopping and feeding the crew at one of the innumerable pachamanca restaurants along the way.

(On the other hand, you lose points if the pachamanca makers weren´t washing their hands.)

Ah, but that's another video game!

You lose points, (and have to use 50 of them cleaning the front of the car) if you hit a llama.

You gain points if you don't become part of the landslide,

and if you get to your destination without the transmission lying on the road from hitting some rock.

However, you lose 50 points every time someone has to stop and throw up (or 100 if they don't stop to throw up) on the curvy roads.  By the way, this is Tarma, one of the cities in the Mission.

You lose major points if you get stuck in one of the landslides.

 OK, but how deep could that stuff be, anyway?

 Ha!  There go major points!  It was deeper than when we came through the week before!

Points back on the chart for a nice family flagging down a good-hearted truck driver.  With towing straps.

Major points gone for a broken towing strap, and tipping the driver.

Some more points down the tubes for the condition of your shoes.

Points back on the board for not being stopped by the police - while wearing pajamas.

Ooops!  Forgot the charge for the car wash guys.

 And the dry cleaners!

We hope you do better on your video games than we did on Peruvian Road Trip.

Hmm, how about Missionary Transfers® for XBox and Play Station?!

Dave & Paula.

Unfortunate names for transportation companies

As you probably know, intercity bus travel in Peru is an often-sketchy proposition.  Due to demanding schedules, cheap fares and scant enforcement, equipment is often in poor repair, drivers are fatigued, and accidents are many.  If the same death rate were applied to the U.S., some 55,000-60,000 people would die there in bus wrecks each year, and one would predict an outcry.
It would seem appropriate for the companies themselves to try and calm the fears of their passengers.  However, among the names of companies plastered on the sides of buses, we've seen one named "Marginal."  OK, scratch traveling on THAT line.
Today, a big blue bus swerved around us, tilting and swaying, but not so fast that we didn't get a good look at the name of the company.

So, we took them off the list also.

We hope that your next bus trip is on a line with a nice soothing name.
Dave & Paula

General Conference Weekend

Twice a year, the first weekend in April and October, the Church holds a General Conference, during which the leaders of the Church address the members throughout the world.  It is broadcast from the Conference Center in Salt Lake, which seats about 23,000.

When I was a kid, we would occasionally be able to watch one of the five sessions on TV, if we were lucky, the TV wasn't broken and the local station had some free public service time on a Sunday morning.

Then, the Church began to phone the audio to the chapels, and we would listen.  Sort of.  It wasn't very clear.

They got fancier, with great big satellite dishes next.

Nowadays, anyone can watch all the sessions via the internet, with amazing clarity, and in multiple languages.  We set up Spanish in the office of the Mission Home.

Meanwhile, all the gringos gathered upstairs.

True to tradition, Paula mended while she listened.

 Between sessions, I grilled hamburgers.  In the rain, as usual.

The missionaries had to try out Paula's exercise machine.

The General Conference was uplifting, and I came away inspired to work even harder to do this assignment right.
We hope that you had a good Conference weekend also.
Dave & Paula

"I did it all by myself!"

When our daughter Brynn was almost three, she was about the only one who actually sang, "I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home" when the kids were doing so in front of the congregation for Fathers' Day.  As the music stopped, she declared in a voice loud enough to be heard by all, "I did it all by myself!"
Paula bought a vacuum cleaner recently, and was reassured by the saleslady that its disposable bags were easily available.

Maybe in Lima, like everything else.  She finally was referred to a shop that serviced such things.  With much trepidation, she called and spoke with the owner, in Spanish, and made her need known.  She also figured out that he needed a deposit to order the bags from (where else?) Lima, and where his shop was located.
Today, she drove to his shop and paid the deposit.  She came to the office, and in a proud voice, announced, "I DID IT ALL BY MYSELF!!" and accepted the applause of the office staff.
We hope that you too can do it all by yourself.
Dave & Paula

Hey, hey, wait a minute - that's illegal!!

From our struggles to get driver's licenses, we have become fairly familiar with the Peruvian traffic laws.  There are three levels of infractions - leve (lowest - "light"), grave (medium - "serious") and muy grave (highest - "very serious!").

It is clearly stated that sounding one's auto horn without a life-threatening reason is an infraction at the grave level, warranting a fine equal to 6% of UIT (an annually shifting amount presently at about $3,000.00 USD), thus one stands at risk of a $180.00 penalty.

Yeah, right.  He looks pretty uneasy, no?

There are even signs warning against the honking of horns.

 This sign says, "It is prohibited to honk your horn!"

It is now known that the shortest measurable quantity of time is not the attosecond (.0000000000000000001 second), rather it is the time between the light turning yellow, indicating an upcoming green signal, and the Peruvian taxi driver 17 cars back honking his horn.  

It is apparent from the condition of taxis and other autos here that the required annual equipment safety inspection must be to check the horn only, without which the vehicle would be obviously inoperable.

If drivers were actually fined half of what they are supposed to be penalized for this grave infraction, the city  could fix a pothole or two, or even, gasp, fix the sidewalks, or, double gasp, provide public restrooms instead of the walls of buildings.

Anyway, we hope that you are not guilty of any grave (much less muy grave!) infractions yourself.

Dave & Paula

Tonsorial Excellence, Mission President Style!

So in the new Mission Home, how do we fill the closets?  With great variety, I must tell you.
Sure, they're all white shirts, but hey, they come from all over the place, like J.C.Penney, Joseph Bank and Lands End.

And the suits? No peacock has anything on this collection.

The ties?  Wild and crazy.

Each day, I have to make the difficult decision - what shall I wear today?

We hope that your daily decisions are neither as demanding nor as potentially life-changing.

Dave & Paula

To the Mountain...Again!

One of our beloved Assistants is heading home on Tuesday.  He has always wanted to visit Huaytapallana, the 18,143-foot snowy peak some 45 kilometers behind Huancayo. I've been there, done that, but they needed a guide.  Wisely, Paula came up with excuses not to go.
This was the happy-go-lucky picture at the start of the expedition... (see below).

When we got to the snow, the snowballs flew. 

 The hike began at the parking area at 14,300 feet and the trail turned upward.

We had some luck, as the clouds intermittently parted to give views of the mountains.

The foot of the glacier at 15,350 feet was gained without much difficulty.

Some fresh snowfall covered it, giving an opportunity for 'angeles de nieve' (snow angels), etc.

The Assistant who impelled the trip was seeing snow for the last time for a while.

OK, that was the good part.  As we started down, three of the group insisted on hiking down to the blue-green glacial lake, the trail to which was obvious.  I stupidly allowed the group to split in two, agreeing to meet on the ridge before descending to the car.

That's when the weather turned ugly, with the clouds closing in again, and sleet and snow began to fall. Visibility plummeted, and the temperature dropped.
After an hour of anxious waiting on the ridge, with the time approaching 3:00 PM, worried about darkness, we started down.  I was greatly relieved to hear yells from the wanderers, who had gone by a separate route to the car, and had started up toward the ridge from the other side.
As a reward, everyone ended up exhausted and with bad headaches from the altitude - except for the old guy, me.  We had a debrief on the way down, and decided how we could have done better.

Oh, and just to add insult to injury, my beloved 10+ year-old boots decided to both delaminate on the same hike.  The group accused me of wearing leather flip-flops; the noise was the same.

I'll have to admit, this was eerily reminiscent of dozens and dozens of Scout trips.  Back in the car, warm and dry, everyone fell asleep, leaving me to drive the two hours back down to Huancayo.

We hope that your hikes to glaciers go smoothly.

Dave & Paula