The Lures of Lima

Today we ventured out into our Lima environs. We awoke to the cacophony of drilling, hammering and jack hammering from the construction project across the street from our hotel, but never mind; it was time for us to get up and they didn’t start working until well after daylight. David and I went downstairs to our hotel’s dining room for the included breakfast which consisted of a variety of cut fruit, ham slices, cheeses and Danish. Wonderful!

We took a walk and completed a few mundane activities such as changing money: we discovered that the official money changers in bright green vests who stand outside the banks and change money on the sidewalk give as good if not better rates than the banks. A few more business activities accomplished and it was definitely time to side at a sidewalk café and have a hot drink. We both chose hot chocolate. One of my ways of testing the quality of a place that serves hot drinks is how good their hot chocolate is: Do they make it properly or is it just chocolate syrup dumped into milk and stirred? (Much the way Mothers have served Nestle’s Quick or some other such instant concoction for years). Well this place gets a big “Yay!” as the chocolate was very good and had that deep rich earth flavor that I have only previously experienced in places that serve Mexican chocolate. (No high fructose corn syrup with chocolate fake flavoring here). If you see a hint of a smile on my face in my introduction photo, it is because that is where I was sitting when David took my picture.

Maybe it was the lure of the fabulous chocolate or maybe we were just a little goofy at the time, but while sitting there, we came up with a challenge for all you gentle readers out there: the challenge is this: Lima Peru: can you think of another capital city + country name in the world that has as few letters (8 total) as this combination? Please feel free to respond to this challenge by commenting to this blog entry…..

Back at our hotel, we met Chris Price (Vice President Field Support for World Neighbors) who went over our itinerary for the next part of our journey. We learned that tomorrow we will be flying to Andahuaylas which will be a rather large jump from sea level up to about 10,000 feet. We’ll be there for several days and this will be our base from which we will do day tours to see the World Neighbors projects in the area. Chris is going to be a wonderful guide to have with us. You will learn more about our itinerary as we live it so watch this space – it promises to be amazing and very educational.

The three of us were met by Carlos Medina of Wari Tours who will be our guide for the day. He has a plan which will introduce us to more of Lima’s Lures. We started off with lunch at the restaurant which has an expansive buffet of both Asian foods and Creole foods. This is also here David had his first Pisco Sour in Peru. Pisco Sour is the country’s national drink dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries. It is made with Pisco (grape brandy and grape must), lime juice, sugar syrup and egg white with Angostura bitters added at the end. This is Peru’s national drink and they are very proud of it. In fact there is a bitter argument between Chile and Peru as to who first invented Pisco (the brandy-must combination). Sadly, I am allergic to grapes so no Pisco Sour for me.

After our wonderful meal, Carlos took us to the Franciscan Monastery of San Francisco. This complex comprises a church, a convent, chapels and catacombs. There, we were guided by Victoria, who gave us a very informative tour. Unfortunately, gentle readers, I cannot provide you with photos here as we were not allowed to take any. I can only describe. One of the most striking pieces of information about this complex was that much of it was destroyed by the great earthquake of 1746. We were first shown an intricate wooden lattice ceiling that was an example of the Moorish influence that prevailed at the time. I had not expected to see a Moorish influence in Peru! As we passed under this magnificent ceiling, Victoria told us to watch our heads. Not sure as to why this would be as the ceiling was quite high above us, she then said “sometimes the bats drop guano on people”. It was then that I noticed that there was indeed a little squeeking going on high above us. We left the area with heads down.

From there, Victoria took us to the library which was breathtaking! I say this because what we first saw when we entered the room were two massive illuminated books of music open and displayed before us. I am talking about “illumination” in the medieval sense. My first thought was “How can these ancient books be displayed and open in front of us like this”? I then took in the rest of the room and saw a massive number of what must be ancient books just stacked in shelves like a regular library. We asked Victoria who might ever have access to these books and why they aren’t preserved? She said “visiting scholars” and then some very sad words: “no money”. There is no money to preserve these ancient texts.

We were also shown some of the other highlights of this site: one was a 1656 “Last Supper” painting done by a Flemish artist who was given a Peruvian name and though the painting looked to be very western, the supper foods included Peruvian fruits and Qui (guinea pig). But we were then taken down into the catacombs. It’s hard to even describe this experience. There were thousands of people buried in these catacombs and we saw the bones of many. As Victoria told us, Spanish, Franciscans and indigenous people are all buried there. What was also impressive was the structure of the catacombs. I have to admit that after being told about devastating earthquakes in the history of Lima, I was not exactly comfortable about going down into the catacombs (after all, I am from the other San Francisco that is in an earthquake zone), but then she pointed out the bricks that made up the structure of the catacombs and therefore also held up the church above us and more specifically, she pointed out the very special feature of the mortar between the bricks. This she called “calicanto” and she said it consisted of sand, water, limestone and the special added ingredient: the egg whites from seagull eggs. This, apparently, is what makes the mortar so strong - it has held up against other earthquakes!

So these were some of the highlights of the lures of this site of Lima. There are many more, but you may just have to come and see them for yourselves. Stay tuned for Part 2 of our Lima experience.