Wish on a star

There is a dove cooing this morning. Not quite the mourning dove but similar. I love nothing more than waking to the sound of mourning doves. I miss them.

Last night we ate fresh, grilled fish by the beach. I had my first Pisco Sour. It's Pisco (liquor made from white grapes), lime juice, egg white and a dash of nutmeg. Yum! Kind of like a margarita, minus the tequila. Much better for Anne!

Later today I'm slated to move on to Lima on an overnight bus. It's 11 hours, I think. So this morning I am sitting in the rooftop café of the hostel, enjoying an espresso--no instant here, what a nice treat--relaxing before the Lima trip. Ellen mentioned that you have to book Machu Picchu months in advance, which, of course, I haven't, so she said I'd probably not be able to do it. That's gonna be a huge bummer. I got the card of a good guide from a Canandian back in Quito & am crossing fingers. Can anyone who reads this wish on a star for me? Please?!?

Over breakfast, we chatted about numbers. She has a thing about birthdays. What a weirdo, right? Wink, wink. She actually has a tattoo of my birthday 8/2 (August 2nd) on her stomach. It's her birth year--scary, I know! I'm hanging out with a kid born in the 80s--and when I saw it, I gasped. ¨You have my birthday tattooed on your stomach!¨ It freaked her out too. Funny. And, of course, over breakfast 2 surfer dudes strolled up to the hostel & 5 minutes later returned in the same direction. One of them had on a jersey. Guess what number was on the back...82, HA! Talking to Ana Maria yesterday, she asked me if I'd still be in Lima on the 8th of May for her daughter's birthday, unfortunately not likely. I write every day, sometimes more sometimes less, but am usually never on the correct day. Later I opened my journal to take down Ana Maria´s information and, of course, I was on day May 8. I mentioned it to Ellen and her boyfriend´s sister´s birthday is May 8th. I love coincidences like that. It makes me feel like I'm exactly where I´m supposed to be.

For lunch we ate ceviche on the beach. It's just hard to order a steak at the beach, no? We talked about Aussie slang...I'm still a little confused. There is a man swimming today in his BVDs. Yes, I just said BVDs! And it's not usually a big deal but they're actually whitie tighties. Oh where is his girlfriend...or boyfriend...probably girlfriend. In Huanchaco the men fish out of boats made of reeds. They are pieced together of overlapping 5 foot-long reeds and look like canoes almost. Actually, they look more like huge elf shoes. And the fishermen don't get int the boats but ride on top of them. You can take a ride on one but end up soaked. And frozen.

We left Huanchaco into Trujillo. In the bus terminal, 2 college girls took our photos with out backpacks at our feet. They said it was for a university project, yeah, right. The tables turned, I told them there was a 5 soles charge. The money here is soles which means suns. So you pay for things with 5 suns, 10 suns, 50 suns. I love it! The bus leaves at 11 pm so we're cruising Trujillo, the Plaza de Armas, their main plaza and the shops around it. We just caught a mime show performed by kids with Down's Syndrome. They were really good! And it was fun watching mime with intermittent explanations in Spanish. There is a national mime festival in June. Bet that's one loud, raucous Lima weekend!