First, let me apologize for taking so long to get this post up.

We returned to Cusco on Monday after having spent 16 days traveling. We went first to Lima, then to Iquitos, down the Amazon to the jungle, back to Iquitos, and finally back to Cusco. It was, among all else, a lesson in sensory overload and mental digestion of three completely distinct places that, save the common Peruvian flag, are seemingly different countries. But, if there is one thing I’ve observed about Peru since I’ve been here is that it’s a country of contradictions and seemingly random juxtapositions; the landscape almost demands it, with three completely separate climates in the Andes, on the Pacific coast and in the Amazon jungle. Luckily, in the past three weeks, I’ve been able to see a major city in each climate region.

I. Lima

We arrived in Lima three weeks ago, on Saturday, March 21 to beautiful sun and humidity. After the rainy season, Cusco begins to dry and cool off, and since I get cold when the mercury plunges below about 65 degrees I was glad to get to Lima where it was a comfortable 80. We met the director of the Lima portion of the program Gonzalo, in the airport and he took us to our hostel. We were staying in Mira Flores, which is, from what I’ve gathered by talking to my Cusqueñan mother, one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city. It is right on the beach, filled with manicured lawns, gated apartment buildings and fancy cars and has a main street that runs through the middle that could—by a relatively small stretch of the imagination—be mistaken for a city in the US. (Perhaps somewhere in Las Vegas, as Larco—the name of the street—is lined with large casinos that have water cascading down big stone sculptures in front of them.) It is also one of the safest areas of the city that, by all accounts, is quite dangerous and not the kind of place where you’d want to be out along at night. Our Academic Director told us that when you get into a taxi at night you are supposed to take down the license place number and call someone to let them know it. Then you are supposed to call them when you get home, just to assure them that you got home safely. Yes, perhaps it’s a bit over cautious and compulsive, but I’d venture to guess that there is a reason she told us to keep that in mind when coming home at night. But Mira Flores, I suppose a bit like the Plaza de Armas in Cusco, is a suspension of that reality, and shrouds the dangerous face of Lima with bright lights, a 24 hour grocery store that is remarkably like whole Foods, and an outdoor mall complete with Starbucks, Chili’s and Tony Roma’s.
After dropping our bags at the hostel we were led about four blocks away, to a cevicheria called Punto Azul. I should mention that it is a pretty hard and fast Gringo rule that one does not eat ceviche in Cusco and saves their fish fix for Lima, where the seafood is so fresh you can almost see it still moving. (Why would you make a point to have sushi in Nebraska, when you could go to New York and literally trace the two-hour journey of salmon from boat to plate?) But, of course the Cusqueñans don’t see it that way (I’m sure Lincoln, Nebraska is chock full of sushi restaurants), and so for my last meal in Cusco my family took me out for ceviche. It was very good and tasted fresh; I was also able to avoid any stomach or digestion issues, so it must have been okay. In any event, I was excited to taste the difference between this ceviche and what I’d had the day before. I’ve learned, from cookbooks and talking to people, that ceviche is just a broad term for seafood that is marinated in lemon or lime juice. I hope I will be able to tell you more about it after May 10, when I will have completed my Independent Study Project on typical and “new-Andean” Peruvian food, but for now all I can say is that all the ceviche I have eaten is just fish—usually light colored, like kingfish—and sometimes scallops, shrimp, calamari or octopus, with onions and sometimes hot pepper marinated in acidic juice and served over a bed of lettuce with a side of sweet potato and choclo, which is like a waxier version of corn on the cob. It is divine, and though not a substitute for sushi luncheon (really nothing is a substitute for that) it is certainly is a delicious variation on the same ingredient. We also ordered arroz con mariscos—rice with shellfish—which tasted a bit like paella without meat, and tacu tacu, which was a base of rice and lentils with shellfish mixed in. Everything was absolutely delicious, and by the time I left Punto Azul I was convinced that this week would be one of the best I’d spent in Peru.
The next few days proved my initial assumption correct, and exploring the area of Lima around my hostel in Mira Flores was interesting and a nice change from Cusco. We had class in the mornings, but after 1:30 we were free. The first few days we spent wandering around Mira Flores, in large part trying to find our way down to the beach. The neighborhood abuts the ocean, but the residential area is built high up on tall bluffs, which, although providing beautiful views of the beach, prove difficult to navigate for Americans trying to find a beach to lie on. Eventually we found our way to one with crystal blue water and a small sandy area where we could put our towels. It almost didn’t seem real: Monday afternoon with nothing to do except lie on the beach and watch the surfers crisscross on top of the rough surface and try to avoid the rip tide. Welcome to Lima!
By Tuesday Lima was feeling like home, and Gonzalo graciously offered up his beach house—situated about an hour and a half outside Lima—to the 15 of us, to give us a little taste of Spring Break Peru ’09. It is the closest thing to an oasis that I’ve ever seen. After you get outside the outskirts of Lima, driving north up the coast, the buildings and houses start to melt into the sand, and you quickly realize that you’re in a desert. Climbing up from the ground are political ads painted on half finished buildings and billboards advertising Coke and D’Anafria Ice Cream. (These are no ordinary billboards, either. Many of them are 3-dimensinal and all of them have some figure springing off the rectangular confines of the billboard and trying to jump into your car.) We drove for about an hour through the desert, half expecting to see a camel or at the very least a cactus, but there was just reddish brown sand stretching as far as the eye could see. Finally, around kilometer 135, the driver made a right turn and we drove for along a dirt road lined with white rocks for about 3 minutes until we pulled up in front of a big cement house. Gonzalo lives in a gated beach community, apparently a very popular thing for middle class Limanians, which has a stretch of private beach about 500 years long. The houses are all built up on bluffs that surround the small cove of ocean, and so when you stand on the patio you can see about 15 other houses also built up on the bluffs and then just ocean forever. At night the stars come out and since there is nothing around to swallow them up they are vibrant and sharp and alive.
We arrived back in Lima the next day, and still had three days there before leaving for Iquitos. We did some more exploring and getting a feel for the city; I also did some apartment hunting because I’ll be living in Lima from April 14-May 7, working on my independent study project. 5 of my friends will be living with me, and we found a beautiful apartment one in a very safe and family-friendly part of Mira Flores, about a 30-minute walk or 10-minute cab ride from the central plaza, John F Kennedy Plaza.

Part of me wonders if I liked Lima so much because it’s a big city with English bookstores, American restaurants and upscale grocery stores that carry organic fruit and 30 kinds of cheese. (In Cusco they only sell about 5 types, but they all taste very similar and the most popular kind squeaks in your mouth when you chew it. Hence the name, squeaky cheese.) In any event, it is a big city and even though it doesn’t have all the amenities of New York or Boston or Los Angeles, it is relatively easy to simulate an American style of life there. Part of me feels like I’m taking the easy way out: spending my last month here living with 5 American friends, cooking my own meals, reading English books. Am I getting the most out of this experience if I live like that? And I suppose that’s really the challenge of the next month: to take it upon myself to make my experience as real as possible. (And what does that mean—making an experience real? What is “real” Peruvian, anyway? If anyone has suggestions about answering this, please let me know. That’s a big part of what my independent study project is about: trying to decipher what is “authentic Peruvian food” versus food that has been so changed by globalization that it’s not really “authentic” anymore.) I can, and probably will, live in America for the rest of my life; I may as well take advantage of this incredible good fortune I have to be visiting Peru on this program. So, I suppose, at the end of this rambling and indulgent paragraph, I will say: stay tuned for my (hopefully) authentic Peruvian experience in Lima. First, though, down the Amazon, to the jungle and back.

And now, to bed.