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.