Final Countdown

Peru had elections this week. I admit that I hadn't really been following the various races - we don't have a TV and my Spanish is still quite lacking. Nevertheless, I knew elections were approaching, having witnessed a number of political rallies and parades and picked hundreds if not thousands of flyers off our lawn (I briefly contemplated constructing a sign for our front gate explaining that I would vote for whichever candidate's flyers I had the least of come election day, but it was a little too Andy Rooney and kind of a convoluted sentence to try to translate anyway).

Lima will have its first female mayor - we're just not sure which one yet. Here are the options:
Lourdes Flores is on the left and Susana Villaran is on the right, though that is the opposite of their political positions (come on AP). Susana "won" by less than 1% so nothing has been officially declared. There have been a number of challenges - lots of ballot irregularities. It's all very hanging chad. Fortunately the State of Florida should be entirely unable to muck up the democratic process this time.

But at least one noteworthy race is decided. Here's the Mayor of the district of Magdelena del Mar:
Guess GOB finally decided to live it up down old South America way.

I believe this was his acceptance speech:



Oh - and voting here is mandatory - or at least you have to pay a hefty fine if you don't. What do you think about that? Everyone is involved in their democracy ...albeit in a para-fascist sort of way. Of course, I don't envision Mussolini every time I put on my seat-belt (only on occasion). Though I wonder if the social cost figures for voting are actually the inverse of those for seat-belts.

Apologies all around

Apologies to July – you didn’t even get one post.

Apologies to Pachacamac, the zoo, and Ecuador – it seems so long ago that all I can manage by way of report are photo captions:

Pachacamac is a large archaeological site with a bunch of buildings, pyramids, a nunnery, a temple - but if you ask Half-O, it's the place with the little rocks.

Half-O and Uncle Benny on the Temple of the Sun

with a shot of the ocean

the side of the Temple of the Sun

Pachacamac

action shot

Yeah, these aren't animal habitats a fair distance from spectators. Half-O may seem nonchalant about a huge giraffe just above her head, but this was a quick shot, pre anxious pleas of "ready go; no like it; all done".

A perk of Peru and of only one child, is that we can do all the extra-curricular activities. They don't gouge you on those things here. So first we went on a little motor boat ride. How effective do you think that life-jacket is going to be?

Then we went on a hansom cab ride. On our right are the water buffalo. Perhaps you, like The Archaeologist, will be disturbed to learn that mozzarella comes from their milk.

Finally we went on the train ...or motorized vehicle in the shape of a train.

Ecuador, we hardly knew ye. This is Guayaquil - at least the view of it from our hostel. We chose Guayaquil because it was the cheapest flight out of Lima, and we stayed 2.5 days. But though it began for bureaucratic reasons, we quickly fell in love with the warm days and cool, windy nights.

Here's the hostel - Iguanazu. I highly recommend it if you find yourself in Guayaquil for a day or two.

Half-O really hit it off with the hostel cat. She's got an ad for a river front cafe in her hand - figure they were making lunch plans.

I laughed when I saw this (then made a mental note to try to correct my poor posture). We hadn't planned on imitating the sculpture. Nevertheless, I'm Bolivar and Half-O is San Martin.

The Archaeologist was excited by the port city's probable smuggling history as we walked along the banks of its muddy Guayas River. The city still has a fair amount of crime/corruption (like any port city worth its salt). They're trying to clean it up. This was taken along a newish boardwalk with museums and restaurants and shops and large iguanas.

And finally, apologies to those of you who come here for Half-O – she’s super cute and smart and awesome, and I haven’t been documenting it for you. I hope this is sufficient restitution:

PCH Sudamerica Style (a substandard photo essay)

This photographic journey travels the length of Lima Bay - from the southern tip (Barranco) to Callao (Lima's northern neighbor with the airport and main seaport ...and that's why it's still Callao the city, not Callao a neighborhood in Lima). All but the first two pictures were taken from the backseat of a taxi.

The anatomy of Lima's coast (west-east) is this: ocean, beach, road, cliffs - and on top of the cliffs is the city.



Heading north from Barranco you hit the nice areas - nice homes, nice/huge ocean view condos, nice beaches, good surf spots.




You also hit traffic.


As you head north past Magdelena, the landscape changes. The cliffs are no longer green - they're sand - they've been indunated. And the "beaches" are not really for sunbathing. (I have been quite taken with the word indunated since I first heard The Archaeologist say it back in 2004. Not only is it fun to say, but it evokes awesome imagery.)




But, Peru boasts an amazing rarity - an economy that actually improved between 2009 and 2010. They have a rapidly growing middle class (now I'm not an economist, nor do I really speak Spanish, but from what I think I've gleaned, I might postulate that Peru has got it's own credit bubble thing going and right now it's the Clinton years. I'm not saying that within a decade their housing market will plummet, there will be high unemployment, and the sol will have been awfully devalued - we're so beyond my purview here - I assume there are many x factors like the global economy, culture, who gets elected next, etc. - I'm just saying that from what I think I've heard and from what I think I've seen, credit is rampant in a way that it was not 8 or so years ago). So the indunated oceanfront is getting a makeover - a big reclamation/development makeover. They're planting grasses along the cliffs to help stop erosion. They're smoothing out the beach area to make it accessible, and putting in bike/jogging paths, soccer (futbol) courts, ramada thingies, plus more grass to combat the ...indunation.




So that's what we saw from Barranco to Callao, in the order that we saw it. Here's the final shot:

Oh - and here's a picture of Half-O and The Archaeologist at the beach.


Half-O gets very serious near large bodies of water. I don't know if it prompts pondering the imponderables, or if she's wary of our intentions.

Barranco, or On the Road with The Archaeologist and Half-O

Apparently I am drawn to ambiguous plagerisms for my post titles.

Barranco is Lima's bohemian neighborbood. It's where the artists and musicians live ...and surfers (...and people who are ostensibly artists, musicians, and/or surfers, but really they just smoke lots of marijuana).

The Architecture




The architecture is very different from other Lima neighborhoods I've seen. You can see the residual gentrification of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries when it became a seaside resort for the wealthy. There are colonial and republican style facades all over, lots of parks, and a left-over street car track.


The bridge is called Puente de los Suspiros, or Bridge of Sighs. As the story goes, the daughter of one of the rich aristocrats that lived up by the bridge fell in love with a street sweeper she saw down below. Her father forbade the marriage, so she lived out her life looking out her window hoping to see her beloved. People crossing over the bridge could hear her sad sighs, and thus the name.


We thought this was a cool shot juxtaposing the post-renovation and currently-being-renovated parts of the cathedral. And thanks to The Archaeologist, I can tell you that the roof in back is wattle and daub. He also informed me that the banner in the foreground is announcing a Carrot Plan at 3am.

The Ocean



It was awesome to see the ocean again - salted air is refreshing.


Barranco has some good surf spots, but we didn't see anyone out. Later, though, we saw this guy heading down.

Lunch



These are the steps we took down to the restaurant and the view from the restaurant.

One of the downsides of Barranco is that it's a tourist stop, so there are more gringos around, and tours, and people catering to tourists. So, we got treated like tourists - but perhaps part of that was the totally tourista lunch I ordered. I decided to get some ceviche - a Peruvian specialty - and try chicha morada per Damaris' suggestion. So yeah, it was all "Peruvian Experience" but really, I like seafood but never make it at home, and I was going to try chicha morada sooner or later, so why not sooner. Anyway, the cevivhe was very good, as were their fries - I'm loving aji on my fries. Chicha morada was ok. There was an unidentified undercurrent to it that I couldn't place - beets? blood? It was off-puttingly just beyond my grasp. Later that night we had soy sauce (or as Half-O calls it, salty sauce) with dinner and I sensed the undercurrent again. Aha - fermentation. Now that I know, perhaps I'll give it another try.

We didn't have time to see the contemporary or colonial art museums, or stay for any music, so we'll be back.

Emerging Patterns

Half-O and I have fallen into a bit of a routine. Each morning, after we've awakened, had some milk, and read a book or two ...or the same book a few times, we put on our shoes and head down the street for these:

and these:

and these:


We get 2-3 avocados, 12 or so rolls, and a bunch of bananas. All of this:

cost less than $2. The rolls are delicious - they're crusty like good baguettes. The avocados are like butter - no smooshing required; you can just spread them right onto the rolls. The bananas are good as well ...I don't know that there's a wide spectrum for bananas.

Then Half-O matches me sandwich for sandwich.


Afterwards, we sweep - partly because crumbs are everywhere, but also because Half-O has discovered a love for sweeping (let's hope it endures).


Next I start a load of laundry and do the dishes from the night before while Half-O places her lego animals on the window sill (sorry - I forgot to get a picture of this) and watches the action on the street - or foregoes that to make a general mess of the place.

Turns out that hanging the laundry on clotheslines in the sun makes the chore surprisingly more enjoyable for me - some sort of Peruvian pastoral. Initially Half-O will help by handing me pieces to hang, but is soon distracted by lines of ants on the brick wall or clovers in the grass or putting a bucket on her head (sorry, I should have a picture of that too, but was too concerned about her running into a wall or falling on the cement to run and grab the camera).

We eat more sandwiches. Half-O takes a nap. We have a post-nap banana in the backyard shade.

That's as far as the pattern goes. Late afternoons and evenings are less predictable.

But today was different. Today I got to cash in on my postponed birthday. So after milk, I deposited Half-O in The Archaeologist's care and went back to bed for a couple hours. It was wonderful. I am a morning sleeper, but since being pregnant - plus the years of working prior to that - I haven't been able to sleep in much. It was very depressing to realize that I would rarely be able to sleep in again - to realize that adults are rarely able to sleep in - to realize that I'm an adult. But when you've got an awesome Archaeologist, there's respite.

Speaking of The Archaeologist - and speaking of patterns - I've noticed that being around The Archaeologist is especially fun and joyous just after he's completed a paper (yeah - I don't think I'll win any awards for that observation). On our way to Miraflores this evening (where we'd be eating my birthday dinner at Calle de Pizzas because he knows how much I like pizza), he was cracking me up. He commented on how tan I've gotten since we've been here, and I mentioned that he actually looked pretty tan as well (I have olive skin and tan easily; he does not). He scoffed at that, and replied that he looked like a Scotsman who's been slapped around.

Olive trees and justification for always forgetting the camera

San Isidro is a neighborhood here in Lima - quite a nice neighborhood – and it has a park called El Olivar. As the name may suggest, it is filled with olive trees (not a tree that is indigenous to Lima) - olive trees in neat row after row. What is especially cool is that the trees were planted by the Spanish in the 16th and 17th Centuries (I'm not saying colonization is cool - just that I was looking at centuries old gnarled and twisted olive trees). Apparently people just go down there and pick their olives when it's the season (I don't yet know when that is, but do plan to find out).

Half-O enjoyed running down the rows of trees, but was more partial to the pond filled with fish.

Of course, once we reached the park I realized that we had forgotten the camera. For years we didn't even own a camera, because it was pointless - we never thought to bring it along and frankly, neither of us liked to stop and take pics. My dad finally got us a digital camera, and we managed to take it on a few outings. Soon after, Half-O came along and of course the camera got more use. Still, we're not photogs.

Luckily, other people are, and I figured I could find some pictures of El Olivar online. I did (thank you munisanisidro.gob.pe and Soldan at panoramio.com):





I also found an awesome example of the shortcomings of automated translation: "The hobby of not yet observing birds is very common in Lima." I laughed almost as hard as when I asked The Archaeologist if he had a man. Had we remembered the camera, I never would have known there was such a hobby.

A question for the ages

It was a little early for dinner, but we were at a mall with many eateries around and basically nothing in our fridge. This is still the first day in Lima. I was feeling a bit better about the whole living in a foreign country. I was also being comforted by the mall – actually, my distinct thought was that I wanted to live at that mall. As I went to ask The Archaeologist if he was hungry, I stopped. I should say this in Spanish – I can figure it out – this is what I need to be doing. So I gave my husband a pleased, what-do-you-think-of-this look and asked: You got a man?

Tienes hombre? Tienes hambre? So close.

"Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment"

So I got shocked trying to plug in the microwave at our new home. I can’t remember the last time I got shocked that badly. It went up my left arm to the left side of my face and brain. I guess I said “Whoa!” when it happened because afterwards Half-O kept saying “Mama whoa, Mama whoa.”

That was the first day in Lima. The Archaeologist had meetings; we were on our own. All the sorting, tossing, storing, packing, and re-packing was finished. We had left an empty apartment at 7am having not slept a wink – but it was empty; we had done it. Next: 17 hours of international travel with a toddler and excess baggage. Now that was done, and the never-ending list of things to do before we left the country had somehow ended. I was listless (and also very listless – I could have slept for a week if Half-O would have obliged), and in this listless state I thought: we’re living in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language and I don’t know a soul, and we’re going to continue to do so for a year. Please can I go back to sleep?

Why didn’t I ever question whether or not this was a good idea? I questioned if it was a good idea to bring Half-O down here, but never delved into my feelings on the subject, like – is this something I want to do?* What’s with this damn stoicism? It’s brought me nothing but trouble. And so on.

Half-O, on the other hand, was gleeful. She was running inside and outside without distinction, half-naked and getting grimier by the minute.

Then I got shocked. It was so jarring – shocking, really – that I couldn’t even get mad about it. I did decide we could do without the microwave until The Archaeologist got home. And as Half-O drank her milk cold, I also decided that I should view it as my own personal electro shock therapy. Snap out of it - we’re here; we’re fine; we’ll be fine. Plus the soda and bread are way yummier here.

I’ve had a few more issues with Peruvian electricity. None as severe as that first day, but I wish I had thought of another analogy.

Here's the culprit:

Both The Archaeologist and our landlady plugged it in with no ill effects.

Here's Half-O in all her grimy glory:






*The Archaeologist said he asked me, and I don’t doubt him. I must not have been listening. I must have been compiling that to do list.