Beach scenes

It's nice living on the ocean.
Our apartment is not right on the water.
But it's an easy drive, or long walk, to the Lima beaches from our apartment.
The beach is a frequent weekend destination.
Britt and Addison like to surf.
Bacchus and I walk or run along the shore.
At the top of the dirt cliffs that line the ocean, there are pretty parks and boardwalks.
But down by the water the beaches are pretty funky.
They are nothing like the white sandy stretches you see in the Carribbean or Greek Islands.
Neither do they resemble the wide expanses of brown sand you see on the Atlantics coasts in Europe or the States.
These beaches are mostly covered in stones, made smooth by the water and displayed in lovely varieties of colors.
Or they have a sort of sand that is really more like dirt - the brown-gray variety that fills the cliffs and hills all around Lima.
There are some private clubs and big restaurants that offer nice views of the water. But otherwise, the public beaches are pretty junky. There's lots of graffitti and many remnants of beachside buildings of various types. It's not lovely to look at, but in the end develops a sort of charm of its own.
Here are some examples:

The beach is still pretty desolate this time of year, but the yellow flower is a reminder that warmer days and sun will return

Among the surf boards is a caballito de tortora, a boat made of reed bundles that Peruvians have used for centuries both on the coast and on Lake Titicaca

I'm not sure whether these buildings are abandonned or just closed for the season

This is how I feel after attempting to surf

This last photo is on the way to the beach from our place. It's the wall of a municipal sports complex.

reading material

One of the challenges, living as an expat who has not yet mastered the local language, is finding a source of regular reading material.

Thanks to the mighty information superhighway, we can stay more or less up to date on current events. I listen to NPR. We read the online versions of American and European newspapers. Though I have to say that some, like the Washington Post, remain very clumsy and not user friendly in their electronic versions. We look at the Peruvian media, and an on-line English-language site called The Peruvian Times (http://www.peruviantimes.com/).

Savvy expats use electronic media to keep up on their fiction and non-fiction reading. They buy gadgets, like the kindle, and download books that way. We have not yet graduated to this technology. Maybe it's a good Christmas gift idea.

So, in the meantime we buy and read the old fashioned paper-based version of books and magazines. This is a little tricky. You can find books in English in Peru, but the stock is limited and the cost is high. Maybe it's just that we've become accustomed in the States to the availability of cheap and plentiful reading material. Still, when you do find an English-language book here, it tends to cost twice the price you'd expect to pay at Borders or some such place in the States. And if you're not in the mood for Paul Coelho or John Grisham, you may well be out of luck.

This is why when we heard about an English used-book sale taking place yesterday, touted as the best in the city, we made a bee-line for this semi-annual event. It was sponsored by the local Anglican Church, which sits on a corner in Miraflores, looking (to my mind) very American. There's a green lawn in front and it just feels like a lot of the churches you see on corners in residential sections of DC or my hometown of Lawrence, KS.

Anyway, the book sale was in a large room, complete with folding tables covered in dusty books, organized by genre, and smelling unsurprisingly like a funky old used bookshop. There were little old lady church volunteers. There was a bake sale. It was charming. Just like home - except the price; 2 books for 4 soles (just over $1). Here's our pile:

I should say that we also acquire books each time one of us goes back to the States (not very often). Britt just returned from DC with a nice pile, collected from friends, and for which we are very grateful.

We also pick up magazines when we travel. And I find myself craving stuff I'd never look at in the States. Trashy things like People or Vanity Fair. Suddenly these take on a charm they lack when you could just pick them up in the supermarket checkout lane anytime you want. We even subscribe to a few favorites (New Yorker, Mad). But getting mail here is unpredictable, so we order them through Britt's work address - which means we get them in odd batches, and only when he's not on travel (they pile up at his office when he's away). Still, even old news is welcome when you're far from home.

last day of winter

It's the last day of winter. There was a moment in the mid afternoon when it almost seemed like the sun might emerge from the thick cloud covers. I may have actually seen a shadow, though I can't quite say with honesty that I saw the sun.

Anyway, I'm posting some photos in honor of the promise of a coming spring.

These two photos (above and below) show the cliffs of Lima, with the beach below and boardwalk/park area, known as a Malecone, that follows the coast above the cliff. In the top picture you see the neighborhood of Miraflores. If ou click on it and enlarge the image you can see some paragliders. There were plenty of surfers out as well, but they are too small to see.

This is another park along the Malecone, in the neighborhood of Barranco. The sign reminds people to pick up after their dogs. Some do. Many don't.

This lovely old railing is part of a delipidated but surely formerly glorious old mansion in Barranco. Mostly built in the early 20th century, they were the country houses of Lima's elite, who came here to enjoy the beach and escape the bustle of the central parts of the city. Today, Barranca still feels like a village. It combines fancy modern apartment buildings, with old mansions, and artists' studios/galleries. There are some iffy sections, too. But it's very charming and remains one of my favorite Lima neighborhoods.

This photos just provides another example of the constant interesting combination of colors that one encounters strolling through any number of Lima neighborhoods. It's a nice contrast to a gray day.

Friends Dan and Amy introduced us to this section of the Malecone, where dogs can run off leash (a rare treat in Lima, unless we're talking about street dogs). Bacchus encountered this friendly husky. It looks here like they are sharing a good joke.

I'm not sure what this sign means. "Buzzard zone"? "Watch out for low flying buzzards"? There are certainly lots of buzzards around the Malecone, and other parts of Lima. They flew alongside us when we went paragliding, sharing thermals and currents. They are majestic in some ways, but still ugly.

This is a detail of a wall mural in Barranco.

This is a photos of a construction zone wall, made of recycled pieces of wood, obviously. I liked the haphazard patterns from the mishmash of plywood pieces.

Lunch

In Peru, lunch is the main meal of the day.
With our North American habits, we find it hard to adapt to the idea of a big lunch and light dinner - at least during the week. Britt and I tend to go for light lunches (salad) eaten at our desks.
Because of this habit, I've become known to the workers at my office cafeteria as a special case. There, the lunch menu consists of a first course, followed by a large main course (generally involving potatoes and/or rice), and a choice of desserts. All this costs the equivalent of about US$2. There is also a sort of salad bar, which costs even less. It's small but consists of several salad like offerings that you can mix and match. When the cafeteria workers see me coming, they know that I always opt for the salad, and they make a point of ensuring that I get my greens. If it looks like the offerings are running low (often the case, because I tend to get there on the late side), they make a point of making up a plate just for me. It's incredibly nice. But it's also a sign of how seriously they take this midday meal. They wouldn't dream of sending me back to my office hungry.
At Britt's office, there are staff who will go out and pick up lunch for him if he is too busy to get it himself. Again, lunch is taken seriously, here. His office is located in a part of San Isidro (our neighborhood) that is particularly well served restaurant-wise. There are some lovely sit down places, and good light lunch options, including sandwicherias, and a wraps/fruit drinks take-out place that is another invention of Gaston Acurio, Lima's great chef/restauranteur.
Even Addison gets a pretty good choice of lunch food at school. They don't have a formal cafeteria. Instead, there are kiosks that sell fresh sandwiches and other offerings - even sushi and Peruvian specialties. There are outdoor tables (again, no cafeteria), and an assortment of short walls and places where the kids sit to eat.
Now, when it comes to the weekends, we are more likely to go native. Saturday or Sunday lunch is a real treat here in Peru. It's a slow, late affair generally surrounded by friends and family and filled with good humor and excellent food. If you have people over for lunch or are invited to their home, the expected start time is not before 2 pm. And don't expect to be done before 5. Many of Lima's best restaurants are only open for lunch (meaning that they close around 5 pm) - especially the ones specializing in ceviche and fresh seafood. Beyond 3 or 4 pm, the fish is no longer fresh enough to meet the refined standards of the typical Limena. If you show up at noon, you are likely to eat alone. But show up after 2 pm, and you'll wait in line and be part of a jolly, multi-generational crowd of people ready to enjoy life and the pleasure of good company.
This weekend, Britt was out of town. But Jeremy was visiting from Pisco, so the boys and I enjoyed a late Sunday lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Francesco, an excellent place that overlooks the malecone (boardwalk on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific coast) and serves wonderful fish dishes.

In front of Francesco

This light fish soup was just a starter that they served up, just

to get us warmed up for the fun to follow.

This was a mixed ceviche

A seafood soup with lots of basil, and a fair amount of aji (local hot pepper). Enough to make Addison sweat, I mean perspire.

Dessert and the rest of a pisco sour. Note that the pisco sour was originally bigger than the desserts. The dessert on the left is a suspiro limena, a local favorite with dulce de leche (sort of like a thick caramel) and a meringue topping that tastes remarkably like marshmellow fluff. On the right is a lucuma mousse with a brownie in the bottom. Lucuma is a local fruit that looks like an avocado, except that the fruit flesh is orange. It is less sour than passion fruit but more tangy than an apple, with a hint of sweet potato thrown in. As for the pisco sour - well, that involves lots of tangy Peruvian lime, pisco (a sort of brandy) egg white, and a hint of bitters. Goes down easily but delivers quite a kick. Best followed by a nap.

looking for color on a gray day

No trips, adventures, or earthshattering events this week. Just work, and errands, and a few social occasions. And a walk through Barranco, one of our favorite neighborhoods here.

Pisco Sin Fronteras

This past weekend we drove down the Panamerican Highway to the town of Pisco, located about 3 hours south of Lima.

Pisco has long been a poor town. It gets its name from the fact that it is a shipping port for pisco, an alcohol made from grapes that is the basis of the wonderful Peruvian invention, the pisco sour. In August 2007, Pisco and surrounding towns were devasted by a huge earthquake, measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale that lasted several minutes. Much of the town, ranging from the cathedral to schools and homes was flattened. Many people died, including those gathered in the cathedral for evening mass. Following the earthquake, there was a huge Tsunami (Pisco is on the coast) which covered parts of the town in 1-2 meters of water.

Like New Orleans and the Mississippi Coast in the US following Hurricane Katrina, there was an initial outpouring of money, attention, and volunteer help in Pisco. But the political and bureaucratic conditions are such that very little progress has been made. Two years later, women still recover from childbirth in big tents, that serve as a hospital. Children go to school only half the day, and some use shelters that were built as temporary units because the schools have not been rebuilt.

Many of the nonprofit organizations have left. But a group called Pisco Sin Fronteras remains. This is where Jeremy is doing volunteer work for a few months, laying bricks, pouring cement, and making friends with fellow volunteers. It is a good organization, which manages to do much with very few resources. Their's is an interesting story and I invite you to look them up: http://www.piscosinfronteras.org/

Here is Jeremy with two fellow volunteers. They are on the Plaza del Armas (central square) in front of the cathedral, which was heavily damaged during the quake.

I've tried to load this photo twice. For some reason it's loading sideways, though the original is in the right direction. So you'll just have to tilt your head, I guess. Anyway, we caught up with each other for lunch in Paracas on Sunday. Jeremy had spent the night camping with fellow volunteers in the Paracas natural reserve. Britt, Addison, and I splurged and stayed at our favorite plush getaway, the Paracas Hilton - a world away from the scene in Pisco.

This is the garden/courtyard (such as it is) in the Pisco Sin Fronteras building. The t-shirts say a lot about the feelings and good will of the people who pass through to help.

Another Pisco Sin Fronteras still life. They do much with little. The truck's lights don't work. To go uphill the passengers have to jump out of the back and push. But it gets them to the worksites.

Here is the entrance to one of the Pisco Sin Fronteras buildings. It's mainly composed of rooms with bunkbeds for volunteers. They can house up to 50 volunteers at a time. The building was previously a day care center and primary school.

Here is a street in Pisco with houses that have been repaired. The streets were originally all paved, but the pavement was destroyed by the tidal wave that followed the quake. Most rebuilt houses are one story and have rebar sticking out the roof, in the hope that some day there will be bricks and mortar to add a second story. Many people have not been able to rebuild their homes. So they live with relatives or in vast shantytowns of shacks made of sticks and recycled junk. The government has built walls in front of the shantytowns so that they are less obvious from main roads. The director of Pisco Sin Fronteras equates his work with the story of the Three Little Pigs - saying his goal is to help people move from the houses of straw and sticks to the ones made of bricks. Plumbing and electricity may come later. It's about as uncertain as the rebar sticking out from the first floors.