Getting to the largest city that you can’t get to from anywhere else by road (-Andrew)

Our trip started off well. Actually, it all went well. Our flights took us from RDU to Miami, then to Lima where we spent a day, and finally a short hop over the Andes to Iquitos. The most exciting part of the flights actually occurred in the US, when our pilot suddenly pulled up just before landing in Miami and did another ten minute loop before landing. (By “just before landing” I mean that we were looking out the window and expecting the bump of our wheels touching the ground) The pilot calmly informed us that another airplane had been moving out onto the runway. This was mildly disconcerting.
After hearing a lot of Spanish in the Miami airport, we flew to Lima, Peru, and made it through customs with very little difficulty. We even had a luggage cart and a driver waiting for us with a sign to take us to a hostel. Lima is a very large city, and like Buenos Aires, filled with insane drivers. If there are 3 lanes across, there will be 4 or 5 cars squeezed in them, not to mention cars passing on the shoulder and on the side of oncoming traffic. We stayed at a pleasant little place called Aquisito, which according to the sign in our room means “just around the corner” or “your goal is close, take heart, you will achieve it”.
The next morning took us to the Fulbright Commission office. The street was closed off a block down by a large crowd and the neighborhood celebration of a local Saint. We met the people at the Comission, who were all very kind and spoke English (very well) for Andrew´s sake. After a few more errands and a broken clutch, we got back to our hostel and explored the neighborhood a little. We ate lunch at a little place called the Canta Rana (Singing Frog), which wa decorated with all kinds of flags, soccer and celebrity pictures, and other random artifacts. We tried our first Anticucho (basically a kabob) and Tacu Tacu con Mariscos (large pile of rice with seafood) and were impressed and stuffed. We walked down to see the coast from the cliffs of Lima, then headed back to the hostel before dark.
The next morning we relaxed and did some reading (Andrew got to watch a little of the Rugby World Cup- unfortunately New Zealand lost to France, which will certainly lead to much heckling by certain French friends... Fortunately Australia lost too). Then it was off to brave the Lima highways to get to the airport, where we found very kind employees who let us bring overweight baggage, and more English-speaking gringos on our plane than the one in Miami. Off to the Jungle!!