Roughin' it in Peru

Once a year, my Siemens Group has a NAFTA meeting somewhere in, well, NAFTA. In 2005, Peru was chosen as the spot. I got to go on the trip and make sure the region that I support (USA) was well represented and well taken care of.

Fortunately, the colleagues in Peru took wonderful care of all of our needs and made us feel very welcome.

As with many developing countries, Peru is extremely beautiful and has both extremes of living conditions. Below is the view from my hotel window. I ran along the beach every morning.

Here's one of the parks alongside the beach near our hotel in Lima. While everything is manicured, much of the work is done with little or no machinery. The wall in the background is actually a mosaic.

We always have a 'fun' event to break up the meetings (as if going to Peru wasn't fun enough). This year, we went four wheeling in the desert. The green valley is Lima. The three rows of houses are chicken houses...which literally spotted the desert.
On the sand dunes...

The most powerful of the whole trip and the 'fun' event was getting to the sand dunes. In order to do so, we had to drive in our huge, new SUV's through many of the 'ghettos' of Peru. You never really felt in danger, but you really got a chance to take a step back and realize what you have got.

In many of the ghettos, there is no running water and power. The city trucks in fresh water to the people in these areas. I've heard and read of many places without water and power, but it never really hits home until you see it.

While most of the time was stuck in meetings and in the hotel, the parts of Peru that we did see were wonderful, and the people were lively, proud, and very friendly. I hope that I will be able to go back one day.