A Week in Lima, Peru

I landed in Lima into the welcoming arms of a friend´s family, allowing me to stay in an otherwise unnavigable city for any blue-eyeds venturing outside the central plaza. El Centro´s colonial architecture suggests there still may be a coquettish dame peering from behind the intricately carved enclosed balconies and belies the reality of a sprawling capital of this third world nation.

Certainly I wouldn´t have ventured on many of the micros, combis or collectivos with their innumberable routes distinguished, yes, by color, letter and number... though really the only sure way to know where you´re going is to listen to what the man hanging out the door is shouting. They´re cramped and crazy. Avoiding eye-contact is the surest way to say no thanks to the candy or sandwiches or keychain staplers or books on childern´s psychology being offered by vendors--ranging from demure to Tommy Boy with a hankering for hotcakes--that crisscross a square mile a day, getting on and off every few blocks.

¨Sure some care about Fujimori´s human rights violations, but 40% of the population votes to wipe the hunger from their children´s eyes and who can blame them?¨ True. And they vote.

But get out of the streets and feel the warmth of life lived with more deliberate care. Sit, talk, forget about the time. Oh yeah, and eat. I thank Peru for every pound I gained there. In the family I stayed with, the daily ritual consists of weaving through the neighborhood market that sells fresh everything--fruits, meats, breads, sweets--plus gifts and toys, all your necessities including the latest in American sweatsuits ranging every imaginable color. (No wait--as we waited for a parade of children dressed in traditional peruvian costumes, I grasped what must have been a mind-blowing revelation to those aspiring Picassos born in the 8 to 64 Crayola box upgrade generation. A rainbow in an American closet doesn´t have all the colors in a hat from Cusco.) Mmm.. back to the food. I could spend an hour getting lost in flavors I can´t describe and names of fruits I still don´t know. But instead I´ll tell you that my perplexion since that first morning when my friend would´t stop apologizing for not having fresh fruit to make juice, as he sliced and squeezed 12 oranges, waned in the following week when every morning he blended a typical peruvian juice of papaya, apple, watermelon, strawberries, pineapple and kiwi. To call it a juice is to call a Frosty ¨milk¨.

When I wasn´t eating 3 course lunches for $4, I was walking so slowly around their historical museums that I could read all the placards in Spanish and eavesdrop on tours. I went to markets, fairs, a university, the zoo, museums, galleries, an incredible piano concert by Russian Alexander Paley, the plazas, some catacombs, some ruins, the huge, glowing cross overlooking the city, tipped my favorite street musicians and built up the confidence to cross a street, order from a menu and haggle with a taxi driver. I listened as much as possible and learned about their history, economy, weather, geography, sports, shows, jokes. But I missed the sun, hot water and blending into a crowd.