Full set of photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/eleonora18/LimaPeru2010# Sunday 2/14/10 Monday 2/15/10 Tuesday 2/16/10 El pours some "liquid Sweet Tarts" We continue on towards the beach and go to the second place on the list
called Punta Sol. It too looks closed. We ask the man sitting on the steps what
time the place opens for dinner, since it is close to 7:00pm. With no posted
hours and he tells they are closed for the day. We are very hungry and want to
eat soon. Without knowing the neighborhood and its streets, we decide to walk
up the nearest street and eat at the first place we find regardless of
location, cuisine, potential quality etc. As we walk we come upon a small
traffic circle with three places on it. El makes the pick and we dine at Brujas
De Cachiche Restaurante. This is a nicer local place. The place is practically
empty except for a young family with a small child and a trio of business
people. I wonder if we are early or late. We start with agua minerale con gas
(seltzer) which hits the spot. They bring us a selection of olives, pickles,
and bread. The first course is the house salad and a potato dish that we split.
The house salads are corn, field greens, avocado, olives, tomatoes, radishes,
carrots, and hard boiled eggs, with a house vinaigrette. The potato dish is
called papa a la huancaina which is a cold dish of boiled potatoes with
"creama de queso fresco". It arrives swimming in the queso sauce and
also has hard boiled eggs on top. They seem to love their hard boiled eggs. The
dish is good, but very heavy. Next out is our tamales criollos this is a
classic tamale served without the husk. The tamale is stuffed with black olives
and shredded chicken, and the criollos is the raw red onion, peppers and cilantro
salsa served on the side. Too much corn meal and not enough stuffing, but then
again, we do have main dishes on their way. For the lack of other patronage,
our waitsaff seems a bit slow. As the meal progresses it looks like a long
night ahead of us as the place begins to fill with other diners. For my main
dish, I order “El Gran Tallan”. This is a house invention and is sautéed
chicken with vegetables in "special sauce" served with a tacu tacu
which appears to be a creation of rice and beans and spices rolled into a log
and then baked or seared. I slice it and it is good for soaking up the sauce.
The whole dish tastes like a fajita. I would like to be more specific about
these dishes, but frankly, I am a bit surprised by how little of the menu we
understand. Even El is having a tough time with some of the offerings. She has
a dictionary, but the size of the menu prohibits looking up everything. We are
far too full to get dessert now, so we decide to walk around a little before
finding a cafe for after dinner drinks and sweets. As we ready to leave a quick
look around sees many tables full and a bustling waitstaff, who, with the
exception of the water pourers, never got around being as attentive as I would
have liked. Although at one point, I did think that with the heaviness of the food,
maybe this is a normal pacing technique. We'll see how it works in other
places. Observation: on this trip we find most of the restaurant food is very salty. Or at least much more salty than we are used to. In Lima we noticed that there were no salt shakers on the tables. In Santiago, however, every restaurant had salt shakers on the tables. From what we could taste, we could not figure out who would actually need to salt any of the food in this country any more than it already is. We walk back to Pizza Street which is now way more hopping than when we had our pisco sours here several hours ago. I heard of a nearby heavy metal bar called Zarco Bar. We walk up and down the street and are being hustled into every place on the block from karaoke bars to steakhouses. Looking lost, I ask a guy who tries to pull me into his electronica bar if he knows where Zarco Bar is, he is of no help. On our way we were able to find a door with no sign and no posted hours. One girl we asked about Zarco pointed to the closed door, but admitted she did not know if they were still in business. As I was trying to answer my question of not open yet tonight vs. closed for business, a young man started speaking in Spanish. When I had a blank look and probably mumbled something in English, he asked me, seemingly confrontationally, "what's your problem?" I assured him there was no problem and for a split second hoped this was not the beginning of a physical altercation. I tested the waters by asking if he knew where Zarco Bar was and thankfully, it turned out he was an employee waiting for the owner to arrive to open for the night. Now I am sure he was meaning to ask “what are you looking for?” instead of the potentially more sinister "what's your problem?". El jumps in because his English is worse than my Spanish (if that’s possible) and she is able to find out that they will open later and we should "come back for rock and roll". In the meantime, El picks a place that has music that is not too bad for us. We walk into The Old Pub with Lenny Kravitz on the PA followed by Counting Crowes (who I cannot stand), then Dire Straits. Compared to the salsa and dance music coming from other doors, this is the best for now. We each get a pint of the local brew, called Cusquena. At s/11 a pint it really is pretty drinkable. The beer is cold, the music is loud, the company is good, and I'm not in a rush to go anywhere. I expect to stop back at Zarco Bar on the way home though. Some comic relief as the Olympics play silently on the big screen TV and the table of seven young men next to us is comparing the women's speed skating all covered in uniforms vs. when they finish and take their hats and glasses off to reveal a more accurate depiction of beauty. The collective groans from the table represent when a skater should have left the accessories on and left more to the imagination! I am ready for another pint now, however the music here is taking a downward slide including dance mixes and The Cure, which is enough to drive me from most any place. I'll give it another pints' worth and hope to leave on a high note. Nope, the music turns into a sad mix of bad 80's and worse dance tunes. We head back to Zarco Bar. We walk in and we are the only patrons. The bartender smiles as he recognizes us from earlier. The current music is the Doors and the CD selection behind the bar includes AC/DC and Metallica. We order dos cervezas, but, when they bring out two 1.1 liter bottles of beer, we amend to just "uno cerveza, por favor". Black Sabbath "Supernaut" follows the Doors. Then Motley Crue circa Dr. Feelgood. It's enough to keep us here to catch up on the journals and play a game of Scrabble. El points out after looking at the receipt that without a sign we did not realize the bar is no longer called Zarco Bar, but is now known as Crypto Metal Bar (which may help to explain why even the employee seemed a little stumped when we asked for Zarco Bar (but assured us his bar played Motorhead and Slayer). The beer is Cristal which is really not that good. I liked the Cusquena much better. I know that, for the most part, El just humors me with the metal music, so I don't plan to stay all night, but if I have to catch up on my journal, I’d rather do it to the Ramones than the Pet Shop Boys! I think our next stop will be at a cafe for coffee and dessert before heading back to call it a night. On the way back to the room we stop at Cafe De La Paz for a coffee and dessert. I order my regular "cafe con leche, mucho leche" and we order a Suspiro a la Limena to split. It is described as a Peruvian favorite and is caramel custard with cinnamon meringue and it arrives in a martini glass looking like a soft serve ice cream, but has the consistency of mousse, a little gritty and not cold like ice cream. When the server brings the coffee, it is in a container the size of a creamer, while the leche arrives in a coffee cup. Oh, if only they all did that! As I sit here I realize that my lack of solid sleep is catching up with me and I am ready for bed! We pay the s/23 check and walk back to the hotel not forgetting to buy a bottle of water to brush our teeth with tonight. We are beat and call it a night. Wednesday 2/17/10 Now, negotiating a taxi on these busy streets
will be a challenge. We were told that reservations are required to get into “Chez
Wong” and when we called, they said they were full for lunch, but told El to come in around noon and they
would see what they could do for us. So, I write down the address on a paper
and take it to a taxi driver who reads it and quotes us s/8 for the trip. We arrive
in good time as it only takes about 20 minutes to get there by taxi. It is now 11:45am
and we drive up to the door of “Chez Wong”. First, by all accounts is that this
is a very rough neighborhood (Barrio La Victoria) and we have been told to only take a taxi to and
from the door. Second, we are told there will be a security guard in front.
Third, we are told reservations are essential. We stand on the curb as our taxi
pulls away and contemplate our next step. There is no sign other than a 114 on
the wall next to a gated door. I pull out my paperwork to see if there are any further instructions
for getting into the place. At some point El takes the papers and starts
reading these same papers. She asks where the information is that I am looking
for, so I point. She exclaims that this is NOT the place she tried to get us into
yesterday! Now what? We are standing in front of a door (looking very much like
tourists) in a rough neighborhood without a reservation to a place where they
are required. Uh Oh! I spot a store with a public phone and suggest we try to
call and see if we can get a reservation for today. What’s the worst that can
happen, they say “no” and we find a taxi to go somewhere else. El makes the
call and is able to communicate enough that we can get in at 1:00. This is
great! Now we just have an hour to kill before we can get in. With our touristy
backpacks in tow, we head down the street looking for a bar...every seedy
neighborhood has a bar right? Well, we couldn't find it. We walked a bit,
checking both sides of the street for a bar, no luck. We turn around and pass by
more tire and rim retailers than we have ever seen collected in one place,
anywhere. We then walk down the other direction. After several blocks with no
bars, we see a Chinese restaurant and go in to sit in the shade and order some
bottled waters. We catch up on journals and wait to head back just before 1:00pm. On a funny note...or not. As we sit in the Chinese restaurant drinking our waters I start to play with El's iPod that has a tour guide of Peru on it. As I read about Lima, it specifically cites the barrio of La Victoria as a generally UNSAFE area and does not advise spending any time there. As I sit here in La Victoria, I am wondering how we will get back to the relative safety of Miraflores. In all fairness, we were similarly warned about the Boca section of Buenos Aires where we did not have any issues. I remain optimistic we will be trouble free. ...and we were. One of the best dining experiences we have had in a long
time. Sankuay is the name of the restaurant, but people who dine here call it “Chez
Wong” after the chef Javier Wong. The place is a small restaurant with no sign
and only 10 tables. They are only open from 1:00 to 4:00pm and there are 5
people involved in the operation. The doorman, the waiter, the dishwasher, the
check keeper, and of course Chef Wong who has a chest cooler with fresh caught whole flounders. When you ring the bell, the doorman welcomes
you and directs you inside, the waiter seats you and takes your drink order. He
relays the order to the chef and the check keeper so that he can get it added
to the correct bill. The chef just starts making the dishes. There is no menu,
just ceviche, hot dish, and cold dish. All chef’s choice based on freshness of
ingredients. Every few minutes, the dishwasher brings a fresh cutting board to
the chef and removes the used one to be washed. The chef stands in the same room
as everyone is eating in. Everything is prepared to order and there is a wok
set up in the back, but still within view, where he cooks the hot food. The
dishwashing sink (and restrooms) are all within arms reach of the wok setup. We
are among the first to arrive and order. By the time we left, every table was
full ordering dish after dish sending the chef and check keeper (not to mention
the waiter) into action. It was fast paced. And every time he used up a
flounder, he threw the carcass into a basket under his work station and grabbed another from the
cooler. Everyone was taking pictures and even getting pictures with the chef.
We were no different. He did scold me for using flash though. The waiter told
us it was so that it doesn't distract him when he is using the knife which I
understood completely. He was still cool with pictures and El even got some video
of the chef in action. This was a very fun experience for us and we are glad we
did it. First course was a ceviche. Simply, raw flounder fillet cut off the fish
in front of you, some chopped steamed octopus, onion, shallot, salt, lime
juice. That is it. The dish is served with a side of minced hot chili peppers.
We added the hot chilis and ate a most fantastic tasting national dish of Peru.
Next we are asked if we would like a hot dish or cold dish. We opt for hot and
then are asked if we preferred a “sweet and sour” or “other kind” (which I
expect would be a flounder stir fry). We chose the sweet and sour. The chef
then cut more flounder for us, threw in some mushrooms and zucchini and then
mixed the sauce with pineapple chunks. A quick trip to the wok and a generous
splash of Coca-Cola and the dish was done. It was very tasty, although a lot of
sauce and no rice was a little different...then again, sweet and sour flounder
is not something I would get at any Chinese restaurant ordinarily. Next up, we
choose the cold dish. This is similar to the ceviche as it is a sliced filet of
flounder but this time, topped with sesame oil and chopped walnuts, then covered in lime juice
and scallions. I think that the ceviche preparation had more flavors making it
easily my favorite of the day. The bill was s/165 (US$58). After lunch we
decide to try taking a bus back to Miraflores, but we are unfamiliar with the routes
and there are no signs or schedules posted. We skip the bus idea and took a
taxi direct to Huaca Pullana. The site is a sacrificial temple that was built
over many hundreds of years and stands in the middle of a residential
neighborhood. We got the English tour and our guide did her best to explain
what the purpose and significance of the site was, but it didn't come across
that way. I had no idea what she was talking about most of the time and I
really have no idea if what I think I understand is correct. The tour lasted 40
minutes and ended as abruptly as it began. I heard a lot of repetition in
information from the guide and it seems like not that much is known about the
temple in that much of what we heard was speculation regarding who was
sacrificed and why. It was on our list of things to do, but I would recommend
that others put it closer to the bottom of their list than the top. After the
tour concludes, we look at a map to see how to walk back to the hotel and maybe
hit a pub or cafe or something. We find a gelato/coffee shop called 4d. I get
the assorted three flavor cup and choose coconut, chocolate, and coffee. I get
a cafe con leche mucho leche too. It is very strong coffee and even though I am
not generally a fan of gelato, this was pretty decent. We rest for a little and
plan to keep walking back towards the hotel and I hope to stop at a pub for a
beer on our way back. I think we will rest a little and then shower and go back
out tonight. I have a couple of recommended eateries near the hotel that we
will try to eat at tonight. I would like to see if we can get onto a city tour
tomorrow, and besides a 9:00pm dinner reservation we have no other commitments. There
is an archaeological museum called Museo De Sitio Huallamarca that gets good reviews that we may try for. Observation: I think we saw more sweeping being done in Lima than I have seen in the past year collectively. There are people whose job it is to sweep the highway, and I don't mean in construction zones…but, the shoulder of the eight-lane highway! Everyone sweeps their driveways and sidewalks constantly. Businesses are always tending to the area in front of their establishments. And the ultimate in sweeping that I witnessed was a guy who was sweeping his sidewalk and saw some leaves in his flowerbed and walked onto his lawn and started to sweep the dirt in between his flowers! Now that is a man dedicated to the art of sweeping! After our walk back towards the hotel in the midday heat, I am hot and cranky. El wants to check Facebook and post some pictures. We also want to find postcards which are s/92 (US$32) for 15 postcards with stamps. First we hit Starbucks for free wi-fi, then The British Pub for beer, then dinner. Our restaurant pick turns out to be closed, so we stop at Tascabar for a half pint of Cusquena. They serve tapas, but we are looking for something more substantial. It is a small place that caters to the hostel crowd (which there seem to be a lot in this town). El takes the lead and chooses our next shot for a place to eat. It is a bar called Entre Copas and it is across the street from the place we ate at last night. It is a little bit of a walk, but it is not uncomfortable. We find it and they are still serving food. The menu is mostly Japanese and again, even El is having trouble with some of the menu not recognizing the words. I order a glass of house white wine and something called a Tori No Kaarague. I saw pollo in the description and chose it. Unfortunately, I have no idea what it comes with or how it is prepared. In fact when I ordered it, the waitress asked if I wanted pollo or carne. I think I played it safe with chicken. Fast forward to the meal delivery. Let me put it this way, when you order solely based on knowing the word for chicken, sometimes you’ll get served chicken Kiev and sometimes you get stuck with chicken feet! One of the downsides of not being able to speak the language. My dinner, it turns out, is bits of chicken parts deep fried in pork fat. It is served with two dipping sauces that are not very flavorful and the chicken has no seasoning at all. It's like sweet and sour chicken without the sweet and sour sauce. Thumbs down from me. On the walk home, El concurs this was not her finest pick, although she liked her choices. On the walk back towards Pizza Street, we stop at Vivaldino Cafe for a slice of cake and a coffee. This is the third or fourth time I have seen this, where they serve the coffee in a small serving vessel and serve the steamed milk in a larger vessel allowing me to mix the two myself. I like this method. The cake is OK at best, but hits the spot after the disappointing dinner. Afterwards we are both tired and decide to call it a night. We get back to the room around midnight. Thursday 2/18/10 Observation: while we were in Lima, there was an exhibit going on called the Parade of Cows. We did not know this and I was certainly thrown for a loop the first time I saw what looked like a “cow crossing” sign in the middle of the big city. Come to find out it was a collection of 80 fiberglass cow sculptures all uniquely decorated and set up for display in different parks around the city. It is a project that travels the world where they auction off a bunch of the cows to benefit local charities. Some of the cows were cleverly and humorously made up and attracted much attention from passersby. I don’t know how long the cows will be on display, but they made for some extra entertainment while walking through Parque Kennedy, Parque del Amor, and Plaza des Armas. Our favorite was the Elvis cow. We get up to San Martin and this time Punto Azul is open. We split a mixto ceviche with fish, shrimp, calamari, baby octopus, caracol (snails) and I get an Arroz Punto Azul which is cilantro flavored rice with mixed seafood on top in a cilantro cream sauce. Heavy, but excellent. I am not able to finish the mountain of rice, but figure I am good until our 9:00pm dinner reservations. As we exit, I make a most embarrassing faux pas. When we were finished with the meal, we asked for the check which came to s/72. I had just stopped at the bank and knew that I had a new stack of bills totaling 200 sols in my wallet that had been dispensed as two 50 and five 20 bills. I threw down the cash and asked El to add some more to cover the balance and tip. Not requiring change, we got up and walked out of the restaurant without waiting for the server to return to the table. As we left and rounded the corner, one of the waitstaff came running after us. Thinking for a split second that we may have left a camera or a bag behind we see him waving the check and our money. Before I had a chance to process what was happening, he fanned everything out to show that I had left a 20 and another 20 plus El's change. This means I had left s/40 for a s/70 bill. Apologizing profusely, I opened my wallet to realize that even though I did get the same ATM dispensing today, I also had 20 left over from last night which I grabbed thinking it was a s/50 note. I quickly whipped out a fifty and refused when he tried to return the 20 that was left in its place. I hate the fact that they could think I intentionally stiffed them on the bill, but I am glad they caught up with us to get it made right. We are within walking distance from the hotel, so we plan a pit stop to pick up a bottle of water and ask the desk about directions to San Isidro as we hope to catch a combi or collectivo bus today. The combis are popular mini buses that drive up and down major streets and are Lima's closest thing to a subway network. Everyone seems to take them and they are these, in most cases, beat old buses that play loud salsa music with a hawker/money collector/conductor standing in the sliding door who yells to the people standing on the curb to announce where his bus is going so they can pay their s/1 (US$.35) for the ride. The buses do
have street names painted on the sides, but we are not familiar enough with the
system to know if we will get where we need to go. El stops at the desk and
asks them and they assure us we would be better off taking a taxi and refuse to
sanction a guest taking the combis. They do not understand this is something we
want to do and eventually say that we can get where we need to go and tell us
to make sure the money collector knows what stop we want. We walk up towards Av. Pardo
and a bus is there with the word Arequipa painted on the side. We want Av. Arequipa
and ask for Av. Prada. He confirms and asks for s/1 each. We sit and pull out
the guide book to follow the map and locate streets as we pass them by. Eventually
(even though we know we are close), the conductor yanks my shirt and points to
Av. Prada. He yells to the driver to pull over and let us off. We are now in
the middle of the San Isidro section. One of the attractions is the Museo De
Sitio Huallamarca. Like yesterday at Huaca Pullana it is sort of odd to be
walking through a modern neighborhood to come upon a pyramid whose history
dates back to before Christ! Anyway, we walk around to find the entrance and
are greeted by a security guard who promptly runs into a part of the museum
leaving us to look around for a ticket booth. We find the booth with no one in
it. Before we can investigate, the guard returns with a woman (who I guess was
on lunch break). She sells us our tickets and asks El about a guided tour.
Before we can answer, an ambitious young woman springs up behind us and asks if
we need a tour in English. In the absence of self guided audio tours, we agree
to be taken around by the young lady. She starts the tour off by apologizing
for her English! Actually, it was pretty good, but still a funny way to start the tour. She takes us through the one room museum giving all kinds of historical information and then to the one room tribute to the archaeologist who discovered and excavated the temple in the 1950's. We continue up to the pyramid which you can walk up to the top, unlike yesterday at Huaca Pullana where you could only walk half way up. The view was not very good and the entire exhibit was mucho disappointing. I told El that both here and at Huaca Pullana, it seems almost like they looted part of these ancient temples, put a couple of artifacts in a room and called it a museum as a way to charge tourists a few dollars. The one saving grace about this museum is the inclusion of a real mummified burial which remains surprisingly well preserved. The whole tour took about a half hour and we were once again strolling the streets of San Isidro. We stopped at a grocery store to buy some more bottled water and headed back to Av. Arequipa to catch a bus. On our way, El recognizes a park from the guidebooks and points us into the Bosque De Olivar which is a city park filled with 1500 olive trees that had been transplanted from Seville, Spain hundreds of years ago. Some of the trees in the park date back to that time. We find a shady bench and catch up on our journals. Also, the midday heat is exhausting us and we take advantage of the cool bench location to rest before moving on. El thinks she would like to go to another neighboring barrio called Barranco, but it looks doubtful that we can find a combi bus to take us direct from where we are now, so we may have to take two. After relaxing in the olive garden, we walk back to the Av. Arequipa and stand on a corner heading back into Miraflores. As the first bus comes by, we ask for Parque Kennedy (near the hotel), the conductor affirms and we jump in paying our s/1 each for the ride. Before long, he motions for us to get out, and as we exit the bus, we are stood on the end of Parque Kennedy. Now we need to walk several blocks to get to Av. Panama where we will try to catch a bus into Barranco. We have no sights in mind in this area, so we are just going to walk around and explore a little. I look at the map and see a landmark of Parque Municpale to ask the conductor before we board. On the way El spots another wool shop. This time, they sell only wool, as opposed to the other shop that sold mostly made clothing with some wool. She looks around the small shop and buys some more wool. We press on towards Av. Panama. We stand on the corner waiting for the buses to stop. Within seconds three buses are at the corner screaming for our attentions. I say "Parque Municipale" and the first conductor shakes his head. I repeat to the second and she waves us in. I wind up in the seat right next to her armpits, that...shall we say smell like they have been working very hard all day! It makes for a rough ride. At some point though as we are stopped at a light in a construction zone which forces all traffic into one single lane, we hear a police siren. The driver sees that the ambulance is coming right behind us. With nowhere to pull off, our driver takes off, racing the engine just as fast as it will go. With the ambulance, in effect, chasing us, we speed along several blocks, scheduled stops and lights be damned. Finally, the road fans back out into two lanes in our direction giving the ambulance a chance to show that we were still going too slow. At first opportunity the bus pulls over to let off all people whose stops were missed in the commotion, including us. We are let off and the driver actually points us down a street towards Parque Municipale. We are here, but have no destination in mind. We walk a few blocks through Barranco and don't see anything of significant interest. We pass a few bars that we could stop and have a beer in, but it is getting close the 5:40 and if we are to make it back before 6:00, we need to find a bus soon. We head to Av. Grau, which, unfortunately, is different than the Av. Grau near the hotel. We find a street on the map that we can walk to the hotel from. Our first bus turns out to be one we can use. This one charges us s/1.5 each and drops us exactly where we expect. We walk back to the hotel to nap before packing and getting ready for dinner at Restaurant Rafael Osterling tonight at 9:00pm. We take our naps and wake to get ready for dinner. We have arranged for a taxi to the airport at 8:30am and plan to have a late night, so we pack most of our stuff before heading out for the night. We walk to the restaurant and are seated immediately. For first course I get a salad of roasted lobster in confit garlic butter, liquefied coral aiollo and crispy natives potatoes. My entrée then,
is crispy confit suckling pig, “mikakami” juice (no idea what this is!), foamy
root vegetables puree and deep fried Jewish (Jerusalem) artichokes. For my
dessert, I chose the “Nutella Fantasy”: crispy churros with a smoky Nutella sauce;
decadent truffle-Nutella tart; and berry sorbet. The dinner is really fantastic
and we both leave satisfied. Really, a nice meal for our last night in Lima. After
dinner we walk to Bobo Bar just off the corner of Banilla and Lorco. I read
that it is an “80's music bar”. Well, we walk in and we are the only ones in
here. The music ranges from the Clash and Duran Duran to dance remixes of INXS
and Queen. I get a whiskey which is on promotion tonight and El gets a pisco
sour. Not wanting to make it too late of a night, we stay for the one drink and
head out. By this time, there is only one more patron in the place. The drinks
are expensive, we are tired, and I did want to try to hit one more bar tonight,
called La Noche. I have the address, and even though I have seen the street name, cannot remember how far it is. We start
walking towards the street it is on. After walking several blocks I state that if our
street is not next, we will head back towards the hotel for one more stop
before the night is out at one of the places we know. At the next crossing
there is no street sign, so this could be or might not be the one we want. We
turn down it and find it is not the one we were looking for, so it is on to plan
B. I suggest The Old Pub that we have been to a few times. As we are getting
closer, El points out the Crypto Metal Bar from two nights ago which now has several
more people in it than the first time we came and we choose it for our night
cap. I order a Pilsen Callao beer which is a little better than the Cristal
that I had here before. I work on drinking the beer so we can get to bed,
although the music is better tonight than the other day. Tonight Sepultura, then a video of the Wakken Metal Festival from Germany as the customers request
their favorite songs or band be put on next. We catch up on the journals and
split the beer. After a while, I think El has probably had enough and tell her
we could leave. To my surprise, she is deep in journaling and tells me she will
be a little while before she is ready. I don't dare get another beer (remember,
they are 1.1 liter bottles), so I just sit and enjoy the music and people
watching. In due time, she gives me the sign and we bring our glasses to the
bar and wave goodnight. We walk back to the room and I am ready for bed. Observation: I am all for historical pride and naming public
places after important people. However, as an outsider, for the most part, I am
completely unfamiliar with people important to South America, Peru, and Lima.
Therefore, when I visit and have been given an address of 154 Benavides, I have
no way to know whether it is 154 Av. O. Benavides or 154 A. Benavides. It would
be like having two streets in the same town called Roosevelt. Also, while I am at
it, different sections of the same city should not have two different streets
with the same name (referring to Av. Grau in Barranco and Av. Grau in
Miraflores…which are NOT the same). I could even handle it if one was Avienda
and one was Calle, but no, they are both Av. Not easy for the tourists.
Friday 2/19/10 |