Some of my family’s oldest and best friends are Juan and Luisa Proano. My grandparents and the Proanos first met back in the 60s, when Juan attended Stanford. Our families friendship has a lot of history and even more good stories, which is continuing today. A few days ago we were surprised to learn that Juan and Luisa were coming from DC to their hometown of Lima to host us! As Juan joked with us later, “We hosted the Shibata’s the first time they visited Peru, so we’ve gotta host them the second time too.”

We arrived in Lima from Punta Hermosa around 10 and made our way to a hotel that Juan had picked out for us all. I was still amazed that they had actually come all this way, but there they were waiting for us at the hotel. Although they had just arrived from DC the night before, they were awake and ready to show us Lima. We first headed to Regatas, an old beach club which Juan’s belonged to since he was a teenager. Today, it’s really an entire campus, with numerous beaches, restaurants, bars, sports facilities, and so on. After a nice little tour, we ate at a chifa (Chinese Peruvian cuisine) restaurant at the club. We stuffed ourselves on the buffet and squeezed as much dessert as we could in, while we talked and caught up a bit. I was reminded of Juan’s ever-joking and humorous nature as we ate. The restaurant was on the 6^th or 7^th floor and we had awesome views of the ocean and cliffs.

On the way back into town, Juan kind of gave an overview of Lima’s geography, while Luisa told us some anecdotes about the city. It was interesting to see the city from a different perspective, getting local history and stories. We also learned that Luisa would be our tour coordinator for the week, as she’d arranged all sorts of stuff for us. Tonight was a big family BBQ at one of her nephews houses. We showed up around 8 and met tons of her family. Dozens. The topic of conversation was the rain. It had drizzled throughout the evening, which is unheard of in desert Lima. I found out that it simply NEVER rains in Lima. Luisa’s family also loves to travel, so it was interesting to talk to them about many of the places we’ve visited on this trip. We drank pisco cocktails and ate tons of food. I was stuffing myself on chicken wings, until I found out they and the chorizos were only appetizers. Appetizers?! We’ve been eating for an hour- who can eat more food? Then they brought out the steaks and I found more appetite. I ate myself sick. But then they brought out the desert and I found more room in my stomach. Needless to say, it was a happy ending to a happy day.