The October 08 Vacation Part I

Richard and Vivian
At Vivian's school

at the waterfountain park

Richard and his Dad

Main Plaza in Lima

Mariano Zavaleta, Richard's paternal grandfather

having fun on the beach!

Here are some sample of photos. The rest are on the photobucket site. More than you ever want to see. Remember the password is laura.

I got way behind all of the last month's travels. Here is the update! Step by step. We had so much fun I didn't stop to record it. Oct 6th we started our month vacation. Richard finally was given the okay to get his month off after 2.5 years without it so he was way over due. We took a 17 hour bus ride from Ilo to Lima and off we went.

We decided to go ahead and try for a tourist visa to the USA. However, we told the truth on the form and mentioned me as his fiancee and he was denied. They thought we were trying to beat the system and get married in the US, and they kept the $140 to apply. It was really heartbreaking and maddening. I can visit his beautiful country and he get rejected for no reason to visit mine. So we spent the first week in Lima. We stayed at his brother Juan's house and did a lot of errands until we left for the next destination, Cuzco.

It was great because we were able to spend time with his niece Vivian who is now 7. His parents are also staying at the house for several months after the nanny quit and they have no one to watch Vivi. So we had a full house and full days. We went to the Water Fountain Park one night and took these great photos. Each fountain has it's own music and theme and sometimes they have laser shows in the water. I don't remember now what took up all our time, but we were busy looking for shoes for Richard and new lens for his glasses and very unvacationlike things.

It took a few days to get over the realization we weren't able to visit family and friends in the USA together at this time and we don't know when we will be able to visit in the future. The paperwork involved in living in Peru for me and for him to come to the USA is long, tedious and unbelievably frustrating, but I will not give up!

So here are a few photos from our visit to Vivian's school in Lima for it's 84th anniversary. She attends a Chinese Peruvian school that teaches both Chinese and English as well as Spanish. It felt like being in China.