Tourism in Lima

Two weeks ago, a few of us volunteers took the weekend off to be touristy in Lima. What a great way to relax! We stayed in this great little hostel in Barranco called The Point, which I would recommend to everybody. It is right across the street from the cliffs that overlook the ocean and very clean, with a garden patio, hammocks, ping pong, a kitchen, and an in-house bar with cheap drinks. We took a colectivo into Lima and got there in time for lunch, which we had at a delightful little restaurant just down the street. I had been in Peru for a month and this was my first meal in a restaurant, and wow! I had the best fish I've ever had in my life, cooked with tomatoes and onions and rice in a delicious sauce. They also brought us a free appetizer of ceviche, a typical Peruvian dish of seafood covered in lime sauce, onion, garlic, and other wonderful things. You can get it with just fish or with fish pieces along with shrimp, scallops, etc. None of it is cooked, which is why we had to wait to get it in a good restaurant--but it is delicious!! We also had chicha, a purple drink made from some type of corn with apple slivers and lime juice, which is awesome. The day was sunny and beautiful and we walked along the coast of Barranco up to Miraflores, the rich, touristy section of Lima. The coast is amazing because it is all high cliffs overlooking a thin strip of beach, and at the top there are footpaths going along among trees and gardens with beautiful flowers. I told the others that I didn't care about living in a poor area of Lima if I could just come walk along the coast looking out at the Pacific every week! Sadly, everyone has been telling us that Lima is covered with fog for the entire winter... so we were very lucky to have that weekend be so beautiful.

Wandering around Miraflores, we came to a plaza with a huge sign that said Dia del Pisco Sour. They have a whole weekend celebration of their national drink! I couldn't believe it. There was music set up in the plaza and a pavilion with lots of different vendors of pisco (a liquor made from grapes) and pisco sour (a mixed drink involving egg whites, syrup, and other good things.) We got lots of free samples and then I bought a little glass of the best kind. Farther down that street was a whole strip of painters selling their art, much of which was gorgeous. I'm saving my shopping for later in the year, however.

As it got dark, we walked a lot through the city and took a bus to the center, where we saw two famous plazas, and in between them a street full of crowds, clothing and cell phone stores, and questionable-looking food places--Norky's, for example, looked like Boston Market but greasier. One of the plazas had an amazing cathedral that must have been from the 16th or 17th century, huge, dark and cavernous inside, with beautiful statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary lit up in the chapels and covered in gold adornments. I've been noticing that lots of the statues of the crucified Jesus that I see here are more graphically realistic than the ones in the US. In the Delicias church, for example, there is a model of Jesus crucified and lying in what looks like a glass coffin, bleeding and wounded--very arresting, and it's literally not far removed from the people, because they walk by on their way out of church and lay a hand on the glass to pray. In contrast, here in the suburb of Chaclacayo there is a mural on the church wall of different scenes from Jesus's passion, but no blood anywhere in the picture--the images are more stylized and Jesus himself looks almost as healthy as the people hurting him, so that the whole thing has an air of sadness rather than violence. The contrasting images remind me very powerfully of the difference in the lives of the rich and the poor and what they have to deal with. The residents of Chaclacayo are saddened by the suffering in the world, but it's the people of Delicias who really want a god who bleeds and dies, who can relate to their suffering. I'm sure I don't even understand this now as fully as I will later; I don't know if I can ever truly understand it, coming from my comfortable background; but I can tell it's there.

Anyway, that night in Lima we went out with a group of gringos from the hostel to a dancing place. The live music was very cool, but I came back early at 3 am to go to bed and get a good sleep. The next day we wandered around some more after a comfortable morning sleeping in at the hostel and then came back. I'm looking forward to trying more typical Peruvian foods in the future--Catherine and I have bought a Peruvian cookbook for when we go back to Lima and have to take turns cooking for the house.

Llama count: still zip.