Gleanings...What I'm Learning in Peru

-Canada's own Scotiabank s is everywhere in Peru. What's that all about?

-At 6'2" and blonde, nobody's ever gonna take me for a local...I spend most of my time feeling like the Friendly Giant. No matter how many "Holas" and "Muchas graciases" I attempt, people can just tell I ain't from these parts.

-You know the big fibreglass animals cities decorate and display for civic pride? Berlin has its bears and Calgary had its moose, but most cities seem to like cows. Well, bar none, Lima has the most creative and hilarious cows I've ever seen. Cows in Nike sportgear, upright cows with Gucci shopping bags, you name it. Hands-down favourite? A cow sliced horizontally in two, the bottom half set up as a barbeque for hamburgers and steaks, and the top with hooks for tongs and burger flippers, with ventilations fans for smoke to come out of the cow's ears, nose and, uh, other orifice. Brilliant.

-Lima seems very happy and laid-back, until you notice more security guards, armed officers and riot police than I've ever seen. Makes the security New York's Times Square in the 70s look like lunchroom monitoring.

-The world-famous Peruvian Picsco sour tastes pretty much like a well-made margarita (get Bob Erkamp's recipe), except for that layer of sweetened eggwhite on the top of the glass.

-The centuries-old library of the Franciscan Monastery in Lima is heart-stoppingly beautiful, like something you'd expect to find in THE NAME OF THE ROSE. The creatively arranged heaps of skulls, femurs and tibias in the monstery catacombs are centuries old, too, but they look more like an entire Ice Capades company died in formation.

-It has now been proven! When a tree falls in the jungle, it really DOES make a noise...and it scares the bejesus out of a bunch of tourists walking beneath it. Much laundry was done that night.

-Being stung or bitten by something unseen in the Amazon jungle is just as painful and alarming as you see in the movies. Newlywed David swelled up like a pumpkin, and the strange welts and markings on his stomach looked for all the world like a map for the lost treasure of the Incas. Repellent with Deet and sunscreen are absolute musts if you're coming to Peru.

-In terms of company names, "Mother of God Tourism" does not inspire a lot of confidence.

-There's a reason they call it the RAIN forest. And when it does come down, the heavens open in an instant, and I mean open. And that's how I've learned in Peru that you can fly on airplanes and wander through the next city in your pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt...hoping that the rest of your clothes will eventually dry.

-Coke Zero is only one ingredient removed from Diet Coke, and was so developed and named to convince men that it's still manly to drink a diet product. One gets very interesting and well-placed roommates on Intrepid trips to Peru.

-The Peruvian CANARO fish is so tiny that it can swim almost anywhere. Unfortunately, when people swim in the type of lake we canoed across today, and decide to, uh, relieve themselves while swimming, the canaro is attracted to the salt flow, and is small enough to swim straight up the urethra. Where it lodges. Where it can't get out. From where it, and its very sharp spiny fins can only be surgically removed. Ouch. Wish we'd been able to have them around when I lifeguarded at the Lacombe Swimming Pool.

-Those brazil nuts you eat at Christmas? The ones with the incredibly politically-incorrect nickname...something to do with "toes"? Well, you find them in the Peruvian jungle, too, and they're amazing. Up to sixteen of them are lodged in a baseball-sized, cocoanut-type shell, and can do serious damage if you're standing under them when they fall.

-I know they're really cute, and I know their wool makes really great sweaters, and I know they remind us of Dr. Doolittle's pet pushmi-pullyu, but oh my....alpaca meat is really delicious.

Talk about a trip of a lifetime.