11 October 2012 / leggypeggy

Still not acting my age

birthday, Food and drink, Peru, salads, South America

Still not acting my age, but dressing for success!
Photo by Colin

Some of you may remember my birthday extravaganza last year in China. I wasn’t acting my age then—not much has changed except that I’ve had another birthday.

This one was celebrated in the extreme at the beach in Punta del Sol, Peru.

My birthday was the second one since starting this overland trip last month, so these occasions are still cause for an event. In this case it was Truck Olympics.

First details of the meal

Jong, Poor John and I were the cook group that night (bad planning, but not a bad outcome because I got out of doing dishes). The market in nearby Mancora, where we shopped the day before, was so plentiful and diverse that I decided to make a feast of salads.

Poor John snags a fish. Photo by Colin

To get a head start, I did a couple of time-consuming processes the day before—roasting capsicums (bell peppers), stringing a kilo of green beans, hard boiling eggs and boiling potatoes.

An impromptu fishing trip was organised on the morning of my birthday, and our crew of ‘hunter/gatherers’ came home with enough fish to augment the repertoire of salads. Big bonus was that the fellow who took them out fishing also cleaned and filleted all the fish.

Some of the salad recipes were old standards that I make—including carrot and orange salad, Spanish green bean salad, cucumber salad and capsicum, feta and olive salad. Also did a potato salad and coleslaw. I had ingredients for a mango chilli salad, but completely forgot to make it. I’ll have to make it soon because a few people were counting on it.

Now details of the silliness

Colin and Sammy, our driver and tour leader, arranged the Truck Olympics. As expected, the events were designed for laughs and spills. We started with egg and spoon sprints, sack races (Poor John fell over), and pass the balloon between your knees.

Jane shoots to the lead in the spoon and egg race. Photo by Colin

Then two water challenges with a twist—fill a basin and bob for apples.

The basin was placed about 10 metres from the shore and the idea was to dress in a goofy costume, run to the shore, fill a cup with water and then race it back to the basin., slopping water all the way.

Bobbing for apples was embellished with part 2—bobbing for lollies/sweets in a basin of flour. We all ended up looking like Bozo the Clown.

It’s hard to say which team won. We all cheated, and my team may have cheated more. But we won in the laughs department.

And the finale

It was a great day and imagine my surprise when a cake appeared. Thanks so much to all my travelling companions for making it such a memorable birthday. Still no plans to count it as a year on my age, and definitely no plans to grow up.

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