Arriving at the airport in Peru is different... immediately many people (taxi drivers) start to ask if you need a taxi, they even follow you, not really something I like.
I stayed in the same hotel the conference was held, which was nice. Lima surprised me in many ways, I didn't expect to see so many US chains in Peru for example.
The city has also many new buildings and it seems they are still doing a lot of constructions. A bit outside the big city there are really nice argeological sites. As I only had to be at the airport in the afternoon today, I made a stop at Pachacamac before noon.
Oh and about the food, no meat anymore the last two days, seafood instead. There are some very nice places in Lima (Alfresco and Pescados Capitales).
The conference itself had a really good turnout. About 170 people participated in it.
The organizer told me APEX wasn't that known in Peru, that is why they asked me to do an APEX overview presentation. When I asked the people who had experience, only a few hands showed up, so what the organiser told me seemed to be true.
The people were listening carefully, in the beginning maybe a bit skeptical as they didn't know what to expect, but the people became more and more enthusiast the more I talked and showed the power of APEX. During the presentation I didn't get that many questions but after it people couldn't stop asking. Even further on during the day people had more questions, talking to them makes me believe APEX will be more used in the future.
My next presentation was building an application live. The people were very much involved, we covered reports, forms, charts, dynamic actions, many shared components, cascading select lists and so on. Time flew by and before I realised the next speaker was standing next to me for his presentation. Working with APEX let you forget the time :-)
I start to feel the follow-up of flying, a different environment every two days, meeting many new peoples, delivering presentations, checking in and out of hotels. So after the conference I just stayed in the hotel and tried to get some rest.
Today I'm flying to Santiago, Chile. I'm actually trying to finish this blog post while I'm flying. It didn't take much or I didn't arrive in Chile until 5AM in the morning! I guess just like many airlines, LAN airlines who flies me from Lima to Santiago was overbooked and I was the unlucky one... and thinking that I arrived 3 hours before my flight in the airport! They offered me money and a place on the next flight which would leave Lima over midnight and arrive in Chile in the morning.
I didn't like that idea for a second, I was tired and need to give three presentations tomorrow. Finally they told me to wait for 2 hours and see if somebody didn't show up. So I did, I waited and waited. One hour before the flight I got green light, I could check in after all, had to stand inline for border control and started my run to the gate once through... I made it.
Tomorrow is the last stop of the LA OTN Tour in Santiago... the day after I will fly back home. Goodnight.
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