HISTORY LESSON

With only 24 hours, I forgave myself for being a tourist for one day, hopping a Uber to Miraflores Parque Kennedy, hiking over to the Huaca Pucllana ruins, and then boarding a Miratour bus to circle the highlights of Lima, the capital city.

Freaking yummy street food, I heard myself thinking. Maybe I simply got caught up in the Peruvian foodie mystique. 

In the park, actors were performing (or rehearsing) a dramatic play and drawing a small crowd. The park is known for the cats living there, sleeping under bushes. Signs warn against dropping off more cats and urge people to "adopt, don't buy" the feline creatures.

The pre-Incan Huaca Pucllana ruins from about 400AD were a center for sacred congregation and human sacrifice. But covered with mounds of dirt, they were used as a motocross racing hills up until 36 years ago, when the ruins were discovered and excavated. 

They were built with vertical bricks -- resembling arrays of bookshelves -- to withstand tremors of earthquakes, something the Quechua speaking people apparently understood well.

So far, the Peruvian people strike me as very neat or orderly, in speech as well as city planning and care. The places I've been are cleaner than the ticking of a Swiss watch. 

Riding al fresco on the top of the double decker bus, I manage to take in more sun than was good for me. My face is red. 

A young Australian guy tells me of his six month plan in the country, a trip he intends to culminate with an ayahuasca ceremony in Iquitos.

"I'm ready for it now," he said.

Apart from chewing coca leaves for the altitude, and sampling various cervezas and pisco, I probably won't take the psychedelic trip this round. 

Our three-hour tour passes the parks and buildings, with a stop at the Iglesia de San Francisco and Convent. 

This could be the most impressive Catholic structure I've seen. Every inch is a work of meticulously crafted art, with ancient library, winding staircases, a pipe organ, and a room where the friars gathered to sing. A few dozen monks  live nearby and continue the traditions. 

And underneath the church itself are the catacombs, where some 25,000 bodies have been buried, their bones visible to visitors who must crouch to walk through the labyrinth beneath the church.  No pictures are allowed, supposedly, although everything about the place cries out to be photographed. 

Somehow a photo of the mass grave managed to turn up on my phone!

I wanted to go to Peru since I was 22 years old. In fact, in 1972 Kevin Casey and I embarked on a hitchhiking trip with that destination in mind.  We had set out from Denver on the ramp to the interstate with a cardboard sign that read simply, "LIMA".

Lee had planned to go with us, but the veterinarian at the animal hospital where she worked talked her out of it. He thought I was a bad influence on her.  So she baked us Logan Bread, a protein rich molasses concoction, that Kevin and I lugged all the way to Guatemala in a black garbage bag when we finally ate the last of it.  

Of course, the veterinarian was right.  I'm glad Lee ultimately didn't listen to him. 

When she and I decided to get married and Lee told her parents she was getting married, her father Clyde looked at her and said, "Not to Greg, I hope."  

Pastors turned down our request to be married. No one believed it could work. Then, a wise Mennonite preacher counseled us and agreed to perform the ceremony. We didn't lie about our steep differences. But he must have seen something that convinced him it would work. I always believed that the strength of his faith in us was a factor in the longevity of our times shared.

A New York Times headline just popped up in my phone notifications, "DJT prepares to sign new executive order..." 

I'd rather puke ayahuasca than dwell even a moment on such news. I deleted it, unread.