Culture shock - Part 1

Yes, I'm back in the USA. I have a few hours' layover in Newark before my flight to Seattle this afternoon. I'm pretty excited to be back, but it's going to take some acclimatization!

For dinner last night in Lima I had an amazing 3-course meal plus beverage for $22. Included was a generous vegetable salad with greens, beets, radishes, carrot and avocado; a lovely rich chicken curry with rice, potatoes and vegetables; apple pie for dessert and a choice of wine or soda. Surprisingly, this was at the AIRPORT... for only $22!

Here's the culture shock part: two days ago I had nearly exactly the same meal in Miraflores, an upscale suburb of Lima, for only $2. Yes, that's right. The airport version was a full 10x more expensive than the typical fixed-menu mid-day meal in upper-middle-class Peru. For the last several days in Peru I could enjoy a wide assortment of meals for around 6 Soles (3 Soles to the US dollar). In the smaller communities like Chivay, you can eat rather well for 3 Soles.

Now that I'm back in the USA, I will have to adjust to the cost of food... I realize that. I'll also have to adjust to the quality of food. For the last 6 months I have been eating primarily fresh, locally-produced food prepared from scratch each day without additives or preservatives or any of the crap normally found in commercially-prepared food in the US. I was extremely fortunate that I rarely had stomach troubles in Latin America; in fact I've felt pretty amazing most of the time. I fear that the reintroduction of artificial crap into my diet will do terrible things. I may have to delay the crap-ness by re-learning how to cook, and making some of those amazing made-from-scratch dishes I discovered down south :)