Looking back...

At the Lima airport, on my way back, on August 3rd.

So, looking back, how was the trip?

Obviously, it was excellent in all the ways that matter: time with family and friends.

Did I do or accomplish all that I wanted?  Yes, mostly.

Liz and I had our amazing meal at Central, and the fun pachamanca gathering at Diego's new home.  I did get to celebrate my birthday with the extended family and I was able to make it to Toti and Marina's anniversary celebration, even though I was not able to dance.

As for books, I had a small list, and I got them all, so I'm good on that front.

Unfortunately, my ability to get around and do stuff was curtailed by the injury to my knee, which kept me practically house-bound for a couple of weeks, so I didn't get to a couple of exhibits and talks that I wanted to attend, for example.

I did have on my list for the trip getting to know the Lima craft beer scene better --or indeed, at all.

I did know the Barranco Beer Company already and Cerveza De Tomas already --neither of which I was able to return to, despite my wishes-- but now I wanted to get to know more of the offerings, and if I could, installations, of other breweries.

Altogether, I tried twenty-seven different Peruvian beers on this trip.  That alone signals a seachange from when what was available were a smattering of offerings from Backus & Johnston and  Cerveceria del Sur, being principally lower or higher quality variations of the same type of golden or dark lagers.

I did not get to visit Cerveza Magdalena's brewhouse, despite having a personal invite to do so, due to my leg injury, but I did manage to tour Nuevo Mundo's brewhouse and attend the soft opening of their tap room, which was a lot of fun.  I also discovered the Hops brewery. It is nice having a brew-on-premises brewpub so easily accessible from San Felipe.

So, all in all, it was a good trip --which, but for my knee issue, could have been a bit better-- and I am already looking forward to next year.

In Lima!

I got here without any problems or delays, which was great.  Unfortunately when I landed a bit after 11 pm, there were about 5 other flights -judging from the luggage carrousels going- that arrived at much the same time, making for a huge line through immigrations.  Fortunately I got a green light when I pressed the button at customs and was allowed through without my bags being searched.

The weather is surprisingly good for this time of year.  I awoke at 7:30 to sunlight streaming in and the sounds of songbirds and parrots carrying on in the trees below (being on the 13th story, the trees are below not above). 

The morning's remained sunny so far, even though there is some haze and a bit of a fog bank hanging off the coast.  Walking around downstairs, taking care of some errands and having a look around, it actually got kinda hot, what with the tropical sun shinning, even though the air itself is cool and refreshing.  It seems like spring instead of the midwinter that it actually is.

The Resi looks the same, as expected.  The only changes that I've noticed so far are that where the Mi Geon chifa used to be is a new restaurant called Agua y Manto -a play on the word aguaymanto, an Andean fruit similar to a gooseberry-, that the bakery that replaced the Apolo barbershop is gone and in its place is a restaurant -Casimiro- that has pretty much the same menu as Guido's but a better atmosphere, and that the Vivian pharmacy is gone and in its place is a pastry and baguette shop.

Nico's a bit under the weather, so we're taking it easy for now, and waiting to see what we might manage to do in the afternoon.

Unintended side trip: Costa Rica

On the way home on May 2nd, I was forced to make a small and unintended side trip.   The TACA flight I was catching to make a connection in Costa Rica was delayed on its way to Lima from Cusco.  Despite assurances to the contrary, that put us far enough behind schedule that I, and a number of other travellers, were not able to make our connecting flight to San Salvador.   

Luckily -it being their error- the airline put us up in a hotel near the airport and paid for dinner and breakfast.   Unfortunately, the hotel was near the airport. 

The international airport in San Jose is about 23 km from the city proper, and there didn't seem to be much around there other than our hotel, a small, univiting casino, a couple of chain restaurants, and the usual types of business that surround airports - shipping companies, rental lots, Denny's.

It was evening and by the time I got through taking care of all that I needed to in terms of getting ahold of those who needed to be informed in the US it was past 10 o'clock at night, too late to head into town and hope to find much of anything still open.    I had an unsatisfying dinner near the hotel, using the airline voucher, at a chain place called RostiPollo.   It was basically pollo a la brasa, but served with beans and tortillas instead of the French fries usual in Peru.

The next morning I headed off early to the airport, and in the daylight was able to get some of my first and only glimpses of Costa Rica.

One neat thing about the airport was that at the Britt stores -do they have at all of Latin America's airports?- there was a stand with a guy at each hand rolling cigars from Costa Rican tabacco.  Pretty cool if you ask me.

On the leg to San Salvador, to make a connecting flight to San Francisco, the plane was not very full, so I had three seats to myself.  Not having anyone to be disturbed should I get up, I sat by the window and was able to look down at the passing Central American geology below, something I don't usually get to do.

It was rather neat, for example, to be able to look down upon the volcanic islands and shoreline of Lake Nicaragua.

 

Fortunately, the rest of the trip passed without incident, even though the flight from San Salvador to San Francisco was completely full with Salvadoran families laden with bags of Pollo Campero chicken, and Peruvians grumpy at having been delayed overnight.

At one point the airline representatives offered overnight lodging and expenses, plus a $400 travel voucher, to anyone who'd volunteer to get off the flight and catch it the next day.    As much as I'd have liked to visit El Salvador, when the lady approached, I laughed and told her she was simply asking on the wrong day. Maybe next time?

Off to the airport ....!

Sidetrip Report: Ecuador, Days 1 and 2

Probably from our trip to Huaraz, I acquired a tenacious cold that laid me out for the going away party we hosted at the apartment on the 26th. All the cousins and aunts and uncles showed up bearing cases of beer, and bottles of wine and rum, most of which they ended up taking home as the party died down and ended, uncharacteristically early for a Peruvian party on a Saturday night, by 10:30 pm. Well, while it lasted people had fun. We had hooked up Diego's new stereo which has a karaoke function and those with decent voices sang all evening.

Day 1

On the 27th we departed Lima en route to Ecuador. We landed in Quito in the early afternoon and as soon as we settled into the hotel we went out exploring. Quito has grown upward since Liz and I last saw it seventeen years ago. New and tall buildings abound, at least on the north end of the city. In that regard it is like Lima, but, unlike Lima, traffic is relatively light and drivers respect traffic signals.

One thing that hasn't changed is that the city more or less shuts down on Sundays. Thus, we found ourselves exploring mostly-empty and shuttered streets in the La Mariscal district, where our hotel was located. We had selected the hotel -Jardin del Sol- based on its location in that area, and it turned out to be a fortuitous selection, although it was not so apparent on that first afternoon.

We walked a few blocks down to Avenida Amazonas, which had been a center of activity and one our haunts when we lived in Quito. To our dismay, we found it torn up for repairs and devoid of activity.

Nonetheless, a few businesses were still open despite the disruption, including one that we had been wanting to return to: El Hornero pizza.

At El Hornero they cook their pizza in a big wood-fired oven, which gives the pizza a nice smoky background taste. The oven gives the restaurant its name, as its shape resembles the nests of the ovenbird (hornero) of South America, particularly the Argentine pampas. In fact, there is an ovenbird nest on display in the restaurant. The pizzas are quite good, large, and compared to pizza in the US, well-priced, and definitely hit the spot after a day of travel.


Day 2

Before we left the US we had hired ourselves a morning-long city tour of Quito for our first morning in the city. We were picked up a nearby hotel and taken by bus to the city's historic center.

The first stop on the way was at the Basilica del Voto Nacional. The Basilica stands out in the skyline of the old part of town because of its height (plus being built on a hill) and due to its architecture. The neo-Gothic structure stands in marked contrast to the colonial and neo-classical facades of the rest of downtown. It is alsno noted for its gargoyles. On the posterior end, they are traditional gargoyles, but along the more recent and front end, they take the form of Ecuadorean animals such as iguanas, Galapagos tortoises, Magellanic penguins, frigate birds, anteaters, or monkeys.

Begun in the late 1800s, construction was stopped in time for it's blessing by Pope John Paul II's on his visit to the city in 1985. The interior is lit through by stained glass panels brought from Spain and installed in time for that visit.

The next stop was the Plaza Grande, Quito's main square. Despite its name, which means "large square", the plaza is not particularly large (in fact it seems smaller than the nearby Plaza San Francisco). On one side of the plaza is the former Archbishop's Palace, and across from it, the cathedral. On the two remaining sides, facing each other, stand city hall and the Carondelet Palace, seat of the Presidency.

Because it was the 28th of July, there was a floral offering in the form of a Peruvian flag by the plaza's central monument to the heroes of independence.

The Plaza Grande with city hall in the background

The Quito Cathedral

Courtyard of the Presidential Palace

It being a Monday we were also fortunate to be able to observe the mid-day changing of the guard ceremony at the Presidential Palace with President Rafael Correa in attendance.

The Granaderos de Tarqui (Tarqui Grenadiers) during the changing of the guard ceremony

President Rafael Correa (center) oversees the ceremony from the Palacio Carondelet

Granadero and flag atop the Palacio Carondelet

Our last three stops downtown were at colonial-era churches: the Church of El Sagrario, at the west end of the Cathedral, the church of the Company of Jesus (i.e. the Jesuits), and the Franciscan order's Church of San Francisco. The latter two were undergoing repairs -the first from a fire, and the latter from earthquake damage, but were still well-worth visiting.

Burial in the entryway of El Sagrario Church

San Francisco Church (built 1536-1580)

One of the cool things about Plaza San Francisco is that there are tunnels under the church. On the right side of stairs (and visible in the image above) these have been taken over by a cafe and cultural center which sells native handcrafts from all over Ecuador. The tunnels run deep under the church and seem like great fun to explore while admiring the exquisite crafts for sale (they do have some of the best we saw in Quito). Unfortunately our schedule did not allow time enough to really appreciate the place and precluded a return visit.

The final stop on the tour was at the top of El Panecillo hill, a volcanic mound which overlooks the Old City and sits squarely amidships the city, separating the more prosperous north from the working class south. The Panecillo is made all the more visible by the 45 meter-tall aluminum statue erected on its summit in 1976. Though it is often claimed that the statute represents the Madonna of Quito, it is in fact a representation of the woman in Revelations 12:1-18.

Afterward, desirous of traditional foods, we headed to Mama Clorinda a restaurant the the tourbooks and our tour guide recommended as one of the best, if not the best, place to eat Ecuadorean cuisine.

I started off my meal with an Ecuadorian classic: cebiche de chochos. Chochos are lupini beans and are a characteristic of Ecuadorean cooking where they are used in cebiche (as they are also in Peru's Ancash region) and incorporated into aji sauces.

I followed up with the local version of chicharrones, fritada, which came with lots of corn -in the form of corn on the cob, cancha, and mote- and, this being Ecuador, fried banana. The rest opted for llapingachos, cheese-filled potato pancakes acompanied by fried egg and either sausages or a thin steak, and an old favorite of Liz's.

I don't know if their cooking was uninspired or whether that's the way Ecuadoren food is, but I wasn't very impressed. I think that Mama Clorinda, while a solid restaurant, is recommended to tourists more on the basis of being clean and in a decent neighborhood than anything else.

After lunch we hopped on the trole bus and headed north to wander around Parque La Carolina and our old neighborhood near the stadium. There wasn't much to look at there, so we ended up wandering inside the revamped Quicentro shopping center.

We finished off the day with dinner at a spot that Susana had wanted to go to since the moment she saw it - as I think did the rest of us: La Boca del Lobo restaurant on the corner of Calama and Reina Victoria.

La Boca del Lobo restaurant

La Boca del Lobo has got to be the funkiest and coolest restaurant any of us have ever set foot in. The walls of the converted house are decorated in vibrant tones and dozens of painted dythirambic sheep cavort across the ceilings, yet it all somehow managed to remain cozy and intimate. The food was as great and imaginative as the setting (just don't order a pisco sour), and although it was busy, we never felt crowded or rushed. It was a fun meal in a fun place, and a good way to wrap up the day.

Video

I had intended to edit and paste together some of the video I took, but the format generated by the camera is not supported by either of the video editing programs I have available. So, instead, I'm just sharing some of the best of the raw footage.

This first one is inside Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima, just as we are entering the immigration and customs section. The personnel got agitated because, it seems, videotaping and photography are forbidden in that part of the airport. However, as I quickly shut off the camera and put it away, they didn´t give me a hard time.

Avenida de la Marina. This is a main north-south artery in the more coastal part of town, and is amost a direct shot from the airport to San Felipe. When I was a kid, all that you see was mostly empty sandlots with a few housing developments and large stores. Long ago it was where the Maranga people, a pre-Inca culture, had their civilization. Today, it is a busy commercial hub, lined with stores, big and small, restaurants, nightclubs, bingo parlors, and casinos. It sounds and looks bad in the day, but it is a great place to get a pitcher of beer and a bite to eat at 3 in the morning.

Past Av. Gregorio Escobedo the Ave. La Marina becomes Avenida Pershing. By then, the stretch is more residential, older, and nicer. Here we are approaching San Felipe, the tall buildings that appear from the left side of the screen, after we make the U-turn. It has been unusually cold and wet here, with actual rain in Lima, but most of the water on the street is from an overflowing water line.

We have just parked and are unloading the luggage. Our apartment is in the tall residential tower. That's Toño running back to help get the suitcases out of the van.

We're in Lima!

Yes, indeed, we are here. It was a very uneventful flight, but we all agreed that we rather like TACA as an airline. The service was good, the snacks and drinks were frequent, and the flights were on time.

We met up with my parents in SFO and then in San Salvador, from where we took the same flight to Lima. Nico and I agreed that it was rather frustrating being in El Salvador , seeing it out the windows, and not being able to go and poke about. As it was, we were there less than an hour before reboarding the plane and thus only had enough time to grab a coffee.



My brother Toño was there to meet us at the Lima airport, and we caught a cab to San Felipe. I was rather surprised that it was basically raining in Lima, as you can appreciate from this photo taken along Av. Pershing, which runs along the western edge of the our neighborhood. It's not supposed to do that here.


My aunts and uncles came over to the apartment later. (The apartment is on the next to last floor -the fourteenth- in the building you see in the title banner for this blog.)

We went out to dinner a 'El Corralito', which is a rotisserie chicken (pollo a la brasa) joint, which makes some of the best chicken, nicely spiced in the Peruvian style, accompanied by really tasty fries - in Peru potatoes do have a lot of flavour.

Later we retired to my cousins' apartment in the next building over. My uncle Willy, and my cousins Diego, José, Mito, and Juancho were there and after a while of chatting over some nice Argentine wines, the kids and Juancho got hungry, so some more pollo a la brasa was ordered. Naturally, this too was cleaned to the bone. Even Diego's puffball of a dog, Kafu, helped in this task.

It´s now a bit past one in the morning and I´m the last one up. It's pretty quiet, but we've already had one earthquake at about 12:30 am. No one even got out of bed.



I took a bunch of video on the way from the airport, but it either didn't turn out or the software on Toño's computer isn't the right one to read it. It's late, so I'll worry about it tomorrow.

Good night.