Saturday, December 19, 2009

It's beginning to look like Christmas?


It's December 19th.
A blizzard is hitting the Eastern seaboard of the US, dumping what is expected to be 20 inches or more of snow on DC. Friends and family in Paris, London, and Brussels are dealing with the beauty and travel delays associated with snow storms there late last week. Not to mention the ones in the northern Midwest.

Meanwhile, here in Lima it is nearly summer. The spring was unusually gray and chilly. But a few days ago, the sun and warmth finally made an appearance. Today, we awoke to a blue sky and sun in our garden. It inspired us to go buy some charcoal and fire up the parilla (grill) for dinner.  By midday, however, the clouds had rolled in, so now it's back to gray, though still warm enough to cook outdoors for dinner.

We are coming close to the one-year point of our lives in Lima. There's much we've learned, and gotten used to. Little by little we are adapting. But, it's definitely hard to get our minds around the concept of Christmas with palm trees. There are many fewer decorations here for Christmas than in a typical US or European town. And it's funny to see the efforts some do make to hang icicle lights or put out the dancing reindeer in a country where Christmas signals the beginning of beach season.

We did buy a Christmas tree (even though we'll be in DC for the holidays). And for the first time in any of our lives, we had to buy an artificial one. Firs and pines simply do not grow here, though the poinsettas thrive and turn into trees. And you should see what happens to a ficus, when it's not constrained to a pot and left to grow in a tropical climate...

We put up the creche. And we decorated our putti.

So here are some photos of the pre-Christmas season in Lima:



This photo was taken near our apartment, by a fancy hotel. The colors are Christmas-y - even the red and white Peruvian flag on the building. The palms trees and 70 degree temperature are not what we are used to associating with this time of year, but that's just our biased perspective.
This is our putti. He's a permanent feature of the apartment, located by the entrance. We can't move him, so we decorate him to suit the seasons.
Here is the first fake tree we've ever had. And I guess we'll be using it for the years to come. We all groused about it initially, but it's nice to have a tree and hang it with the ornaments we've collected over decades. It even drops fake needles...
A sign of Christmas in Peru. The weather is warmer and beaches more crowded. Britt and Addison celebrated the early morning sun by going surfing - though the clouds rolled in by the time they hit the water. They don't seem to mind.
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Sunday, December 13, 2009

Cows on parade in Lima

Some years ago, fiberglass cows started showing up in cities around the world. The first ones were developed by a Swiss fellow interested in promoting the dairy industry. The concept moved to the US in 1999, where a Chicago businessman acquired the rights and used the cow sculptures as a big fund-raising activity. The cows are painted and named by local artists or groups, then sold at auction with the proceeds going to designated charities.

In DC, we never had the cows, but we had our own versions: first, the party animals, which were decorated donkeys and elephants, followed by the painted pandas.

I think it would have been really fun if for the Peruvian version of this perfectly wonderful activity they'd come up with colorful "cuy" (guinea pigs) or painted camelids (taking their pick of alpaca, llama, or even the wild little vicuna). But no one asked me.

I've read that there are about 80 of the Cows on Parade scattered around Lima. I've seen only a fraction of them. Here are a few:



These cows are all from the Plaza Bolivar in the Pueblo Libre neighborhood of Lima. The National Museum of Anthropology and Archeology is located on this square, as is the house in which Simon Bolivar lived.


This cow is made up of small photos of people holding up glasses of milk. Interestingly, you can't buy much fresh milk here in Lima. It's primarily available in the long-term-conservation format, packaged in rectangular cartons.

The blue skies, green hills, and smiling people depicted on this cow are a bit utopian. Peru is not really cow-raising country. Most of the land is not suitable for it, unlike those vast expanses of grassland in Argentina or Uruguay. Along the desert coast, you mainly see people raising chickens (they taste a bit fishy because they are fed fish meal). In the highlands, there are some cows and cattle, but they can be pretty scrawny. And its not an animal you see in the Amazon (which covers 2/3 of the country). There are big dairy farms in the northern part of the country, evidently. Otherwise, the livestock of choice are fish (ocean varieties, river trout, and exotic ones from the Amazon), alpaca, chicken, and guinea pigs.




In the background, behind this cow sculpture, there was a pair of young men with 2 afghan dogs plus another lap dog. They were sitting in front of Simon Bolivar's bust and gave the scene an unusually NYC-ish feel.
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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Thanksgiving in Jauja - Part II

These are photos from our hike to the Nevada de Huaytapallana. To get there, we drove from Jauja down to Huancayo, through the pretty Mantaro Valley, then turned and headed uphill.

Jauja is situated at an altitude of 3,400 meters. Our destination, which included several glacier lakes and glacier-topped peaks, was at more than 4,500 meters.

Luckily we'd had a few days to acclimate. Though even then, it still feels like you are top of the world.



Eating in Huancayo after our hike
The weather was not promising when we started out.

At this point, we were very cold and wet, but the views were still splendid.



The clouds eventually lifted and we could see the clear blue water of the glacial lakes and tops of the glacier-covered peaks.
The glacier emerges

Three lakes empty into each other, then into a valley that turns to jungle and joins the Amazon River.


Rainbow


alpaca

sheep

alpaca and Andes peak


Llama and sheep traffic jam on our way back toward Huancayo

Vicuna, the wild version or ancestor of the llama. Their wool is considered the finest. It's more rare and considerably more expensive than alpaca. The wild ones are rounded up annually to be shorn and tagged.

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Monday, November 30, 2009

Thanksgiving in Jauja - Part I

Though Thanksgiving isn't really celebrated in Peru, the date served as a good excuse for us to get out of Lima and head for the mountains for good food and great company with our friends, Bruno and Merideth. Bruno has a charming B&B in the central Andes of Peru, in a town called Jauja. If you are ever anywhere near Jauja, Tarma, or Huancayo, Hostal Manco Capac is where you'll want to stay. You won't find better hospitality anywhere.
Driving from Lima to Jauja takes about 5-6 hours depending on traffic, and especially on how many trucks and buses you encounter on the 2-lane highway that is the Carretera Central. The road winds through spectacular scenery and gorges. Coming from Lima, in the first 2.5 hours you rise from sea level to a 4,800 meter pass (that's more than 15,000 feet). There are also very austere scenes, as you go through large mining areas and very poor villages.
Still, the region around Jauja is quite beautiful. There are wonderful hikes and sites all around. Above, you see the gang ready for action, including Bruno's 4-wheel drive, 4-door pickup truck. Believe it or not, this qualifies as one of our dream machines at this point. Very handy for exploring the back roads (which is nearly all of the roads) of Peru. You need 4-wheel drive, because most of the roads are unpaved, and this being the rainy season, they are deep with mud.
Here, you see Britt stuffing the turkey with a delicious mix created by Bruno that included sausage and nuts and bread crumbs and cognac, or something like that, plus other wonderful things. It was only a part of what would be a delicious meal.

Here are some views around Jauja. Above gives an idea of the countryside. When we came last April, it was full of colors from the patchwork of crops that were in bloom. This time of year, the landscape looks like a sepia photograph, because we are following the dry season and only just getting into the rainy one.
Above is a typical street scene in Jauja. Note the dog. There are feral dogs everywhere.

Just another random dog, only this one stopped in front of a red door, and I liked the contrasting colors.
This is a scene right next to the Jauja airport. There are 2 flights per day from Lima; both are in the morning and leave within 30 minutes of each other.

To work up an appetite for the Thanksgiving meal, we took a hike in the hills above Jauja to some pre-Columbian ruins that feature dozens of walls and circular storehouses. You can see the rain in the background of the photo, above, making its way toward us.
View from the ruins - down into the valley and its patchwork of fields.
The rain caught up with us as we were climbing around the ruins, and we were soaked.

Some of the fields are tilled with tractors, but others are worked by hand, or with hand-held plows pulled by oxen or donkeys.

People here are very poor. And this time of year, there's mud everywhere.

Here we are back at Hostal Manco Capac, ready to enjoy a terrific meal.
The next day, we headed down to Huancayo and then up into the mountains for a spectacular hike. Here's a preview. I'll load more photos tomorrow.


Sheep in the high Andes.

Alpaca in the Andes. The mountains are steep, high, and very beautiful.
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Monday, November 23, 2009

food update

The food in Lima remains one of the city's greatest attributes.
The products are fresh, especially the fish and produce.
In addition, Peruvian cuisine, especially the rich variety you get in Lima, is a fusion of different styles and cultures and agro-ecosystems. You have fresh fish from the ocean, thriving in the cold waters of the Humboldt Current. There are mangos, olives, asparagus, and big artichokes from the coast and low altitudes. In the Andes you get quinoa, potatoes, llama, trout, and guinea pig. From the jungle you get pineapple, heart of palm, and all sorts of exotic nuts and fruits. There are all kinds of beans, including lima beans. There are 4 colors of cauliflower. There are interesting looking things I don't know the names of.
A friend in the States asked me recently if I'd learned to make Peruvian recipes. I really haven't, but Addison did for a school project. He cooked up a range of traditional recipes.
I haven't tried very many recipes, but I do like to try out odd things that I find at the grocery store. Often I buy some new food just because I like the look of it or find it intriguing. Then I do what I can with it. The results can be mixed, though are more often positive than not.

Here are some examples of typical Peruvian (Limenian) dishes presented as they should be - in this case at one of our favorite restaurants, called Francesco's. The photo above is a mixed ceviche. In its purist form, ceviche is presented in lime juice with red peppers, aji (hot pepper), big fat corn kernels called choclo, and a slice or two of sweet potato to balance the acidity of the lime juice. The one here involves some mayonaise. For some odd reason, Peruvians love to put mayonaise in dishes.


Above is a taster's sampling of causitas. Causa is a traditional dish that starts with mashed/riced potato, which is mixed with oil or other things to give it a smooth texture but also help it stick together. The potato is generally rolled around a filling that usually includes avocado, mayonaise, and chicken, fish, or seafood. There's often a sauce dribbled on top, as well. The version above is the mini-causa, or causita, presented in more of a sushi form, with the fish and seafood mixture on top of the potato.

This is a sampling of ingredients from our kitchen. The potatoes are from my workplace. Recently, as happens from time to time, the staff was offered a 6 kilo bag containing several varieties of potatoes - all of them picked from the fields by my office. The long green vegetable looks and tastes a bit like a cucumber. But it is hollow inside (more like a sweet pepper) and can be eaten raw (in salad, for example) or cooked (stuffed, for example). The package on the bottom right contains a fruit from the jungle that has a rough exterior and liquidy interior. It's used mainly for juice and doesn't have much taste, frankly. On the bottom left is orange cauliflower. I've taken to buying and trying much more cauliflower than ever before, because it comes in all these beautiful colors. The purple, shown below, remains our favorite. They all taste much the same, but actually contain different amounts of vitamins and such. My favorite method is to briefly steam then grill them in the oven, with goat cheese melted on top.

I couldn't resist this green cauliflower. It looks like something out of Dr. Seuss to me.

One of the dishes Addison chose to prepare as part of a school project on Peruvian food was papas Huancayna. It involves steamed potatoes covered in a creamy sauce made in the blender from a combination of aji sauce (hot sauce), milk, garlic, olive oil, and a softish white cheese that looks like feta only has far less flavor.

The potato aisle at the local supermarket is well stocked. Potatoes are from Peru originally, and there are more than 3,000 different varieties of them. But the range in Lima is far more limited than in the mountains, and people from the mountains will tell you that the ones we get here have no flavor. I have colleagues who are very involved in helping to preserve the biodiversity of native potatoes in Peru, and helping to find markets for them with Andean farmers. They've had good success with products such as gourmet potato chips. But all this is a subject for another day.

Above is a ceviche prepared by Addison and based on fresh scallops. Delicious.
This is papa Huancayno in its finished form a la Addison.

Above is a lomo saltado, another typical dish. Like many main dishes here it contains both potatoes and rice. There also are slices of beef, sweet pepper, onion, and french fries. The seasoning contains soy sauce, which is a reflection of the Asian influence of the many Chinese workers who came to Peru in the 19th century to work on railroads and the Japanese ones who worked in the sugar cane fields.
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