Again feeling still too full to move after our wonderful dinner we spent the day sitting! Blogging and emailing contacts that kept flying into our inbox from Luis. We mailed several newspapers, TV channels, Magazines etc etc, it was so exciting to feel such a buzz around the whole project! We have never known a man take the bull by the horns like Luis! He was like a man possessed and we loved it!

We typed our fingers to the bone until we needed a glass of wine to cool them down and of course to celebrate! Little did we know as the day dawned (as we
never know what day it is!) that it was the 1 year anniversary of our first wedding back in Didsbury, the day before we set off on this adventure! How time flies when you are having fun! We spent the night reminiscing about all of our weddings, adventures and dramas and looking forward to the next year on the road!

The next few days in Lima were spent meeting great people, blogging, emailing contacts, sorting Peggy for the long road ahead and collecting wedding dresses, suits and accessories!

We met with Tania a great friend of Luis who makes the most wonderful wedding albums (who we hope to ask to make us an album one day) and Paola who, even after all of the confusion with accidentally giving her the wrong cafe’s address too meet us in, we managed to meet up with and who gave us a lovely wedding gift and a small stone ram as an offering to Pachamama (Mother Earth) for our forthcoming wedding!

We were so lucky to have been introduced to so many great people in our short stay in Lima and all of them so eager to help us!
We loaded Luis’s car with ALL 3 of the dresses from Fatima (SOOOOOOO excited…ALL 3! So glad I don’t have to choose!!), the suits from Yirko and the accessories from Roxana and we said our nervous farewells excited to hit the road to Arequipa the next day!

Just as we were about to hit the hay we checked our emails one last time to find a message from Luis to meet him at an address at 8am in the morning to get my hair and makeup done before we hit the road! He had done it again, yet another amazing unexpected surprise!
We went to bed and barely slept with excitement!

In the morning we jumped up and planned a route to Nando’s boudoiur with google maps…we were there a little later than 8 but ran to the address, rang the buzzer and were confronted by a door man! Ooops, wrong address! We had no internet access and the address was off our small city map so we had to return to the hostal and email Luis and tell him where we had gone wrong…long story short we got there late! Nando and Luis were stood waiting in the street for us and we were whisked inside and firmly planted in front of a HUGE superstar mirror…with the big lights all the way around it! I was ordered to put up my feet, my coffee order taken and Alex sat in view of the mirror behind me!

Nando, a man after my own heart and covered in star tattoo’s set to work immediately! He worked his magic in no time, I even had beautiful eyelashes applied and could barely believe it was me in the mirror!
He handed me a lipstick and gave me intructions! “re-apply…ALL the time”

Next I was moved into another room and sat into another plush chair and introduced to the beautiful Danitza who was doing my hair. She was so fast that before I knew it I had braids running all over my head and huge curls everywhere! Nando gave a few instructions and half the braids were out again, the curls even bigger and one of Roxana’s beautiful creations placed in front of them.

I was amazed…now all we had to do was get to Arequipa without me ruining my face or hair! For those of you who know me personally you will know how much I faff…anyway! We waved excitedly to Nando and Danitza and jumped into Peggy raring to follow Luis…who had locked his car keys inside his car in all the excitement! At least it is not only us that is a little crazy sometimes!
We collected his spare keys, collected his car and followed him to La Rosa Nautica to take some pictures there before I ruined my hair!

www.roxanapardo.com

We got changed into our new wedding attire, me in the 2 piece dress and Alex in a GORGEOUS grey suit that we hadn’t seen and we wandered the long pier to the restaurant watching the HUGE bright orange crabs on the sea wall which is built of massive black rocks! They were enjoying the sunshine and the sea spray and all the while Luis ran along beside us snapping away.
The ocean was quite rough to say the weather was so calm, the waves splashed up the rocks with fervour and we made our way all the way to the restaurant and onto the balcony that runs all the way around. Most of the balcony is not really for walking on and was beautifully worn by the salty brine below…beautifully worn for the pictures that is! We could see the waves crashing between the planks we walked on and felt the spray on our faces as we looked this way and that for Luis.

Just before we left the stony beach we had to get one shot of us in the waves! I had my super unattractive flip flops on and we nearly got washed away at the last minute! Still laughing we got changed and followed Luis onto the highway to go and collect our videographer…and instantly lost him!

Again we went back to the hostal, emailed him and arranged to meet him after he had collected the videographer!
We know how to make things difficult!