Day 75 23.09.15
Only in the evening did I find out yesterday, that my next tour was an early start. I quickly packed, got ready, skipped breakfast and took a taxi to the next hotel.
Here I met my new guide who was going to take me around Lima.
We first headed by taxi to the district of Chorillos.
Here the fishermen bring in their freshly caught fish, sell it straight at the market, go fix their fishing nets and come for a quick ceviche to the adjacent restaurants and bars.
We walked along the pier where the little fisher boats were anchored and I found out that there is no real industrial fishing going on in the bay, mainly just these little boats making ends meet in the traditional way.
The pier was lined by little seagulls and other birds, and only on our way back did we notice that we were passing through an aerial mine field, as there were so many birds on top, all ready to directly aim their poo onto your head. Luckily we stayed clean and made sure to walk back in the centre of the pier.
In the far distance you can see a large cross made from metal. This metal was taken from electricity poles as a symbol of love and peace. Back in the days when terrorism ruled Lima, the terrorists used to attack these electricity poles as cruel targets for the general public. The terrorist group was called the Shining path, and caused nothing but fear in Lima. Here is a little information on the whole topic.
Anyway, from these broken telephone masts, a new sign of hope was built, just in time for the visit of the pope. Since then it shines at night brightly over the bay.
We headed back and I enjoyed watching the fishermen go about their business.
We stopped over at a little cevicheria where the cook showed me how she prepared the ceviche. The ingredients she used was apart from the raw fish, some garlic, some salt, some home made aji, a special condiment called Ajinomoto (which I will purchase before I leave J ), and a lot of special limes from Lima. (They have a more intense limey flavour – of course! They are from Lima!). To the dish you then add the onions and voilà your ready to go.
We had some especially roasted type of corn, which was a nice little hearty snack.
After the ceviche we also had some Chicharrón, which is pretty much deep fried whatever. In this case it was deep fried fish, which was still very tender.
After brunch (I was happy to not have had breakfast, as this was a full meal at 09:30) we headed towards a metro station to drive into town. These metro stations are quite special, as they have only been constructed recently. It isn’t an actual metro either, but more of a bus with its own lane and functioning service, not affected by traffic. At first the Peruvians were all against this metro, but have now grown to accept it and love it. As long as you understand what the different buses are, which one is express, where they pick up people, where they don’t, you are fine and the service is helpful to you.
On our way to one of these buses we saw a little flycatcher sitting in one of the plants, with his characteristically red chest.
We got into the old town of Lima, where we could see several beautiful old balconies right from the start. These balconies were the defining piece of architecture during the days of good ole Lima, and are now being restored to their former glory. Peruvians can even adopt these balconies, and be proud of their heritage, knowing they have given money for such a monumental piece for the district to have been renovated.
We moved on to the building that contained the stock market and the funny thing is that it is situated right opposite where the people have to pay their taxes. So they gain money on the one side of the street and have to give it away on the other side of the street. How ironic :).
The street names here are kept in the old style of being tiled to the walls.
We then moved on to the square of arms that contains Lima’s cathedral. This cathedral was built on top of an Incan temple, showing the power of the Incans colonial suppressors – the Spanish. (Sorry that this photo is so blurry…)
Here you can see the presidential palace, where once Pizarro used to live. The president nowadays can choose whether he wants to live here or not, but the building itself has other charms too. It is guarded by the national guards, and is home to a small marching band. The marching band comes and plays everyday at a specific time, and we were lucky to actually get to hear it play. It is a very random building in the square, very European, quite unlike the other buildings around.
The others again sported several beautiful balconies, especially one, which was made of wood with intricate carvings. Very beautiful! The elite class of women back in the days used to cover up completely with veils that would only show one eye. Therefore these closed off balconies it is said, were made especially for them, so that they could sit behind them, gossip and not be seen by the public.
This is just a little shop where you can have shoes tailor made for you.
We moved on to the old railway station, which is no longer in use. It is called the estacion desambarados, which means pretty much the station of the homeless. It gained its name when several homeless used to come to this place to sleep at night. Nowadays it is a Peruvian library sporting different exhibitions.
The actual building is very intricate, for example the statue at the top even carries a little railway train in its arms.
We then passed on through a little street to this beautiful church. It is called the church of San Francisco.
It was made for the Franciscan monks, housing at some point around 200 monks inside its walls. Apart from the church, there is also a place where the monks sang, a large choral space, beautifully decorated, with loads of little ornaments and a rotating songbook stand.
Speaking of songbooks; the Franciscan monk’s library was quite impressive. Apparently the second most important in Peru, they housed thousands of books in all different languages and about all different types of topics, obviously those with theological background outweighing the others in number. We walked around and got to see where the monks would eat, a large dining room with seats all along the walls. Nowadays the kitchen at the back of the dining room is still used to provide food for the very poor. The tour continued to the place where the monks got dressed into their precious garments and got ready to present them out in the church and to hold their services.
Now to the interesting part about this church and monastery: the catacombs. The cellar of this church and monastery complex was remodelled in order to house an underground cemetery, providing a last resting place for the elite of Lima, as well as important monks and priests. The idea was to be closer to god by being buried underneath a church. Over time these catacombs grew and grew in size and soon poorer people were buried in large wells too. Nowadays these bones are neatly aligned more for the “show aspect” for the tourist, but back then the bodies were just thrown into these underground wells with just thousands of bones in them.
You cannot see any mummies in here, but enough bones and skulls instead.
After the walk around I joined back again with my guide and our little tour continued.
We walked to the local market, where I obviously had to stop at the different vegetable stands, in order to comprehend a little the new names of fruits I had heard and to be able to associate them with fruit and fruit’s names I knew.
First of all, something quite special, especially for us Europeans, is the red corn. I don’t know yet what sort of food you make from it, but I am sure I will find out.
On along we moved to different types of corn.
In the front row, the third from the right is the corn that is used for palomitas – popcorn. Next to it, on the left side, there is corn that is normally steamed and placed in delicious sauces. After the lentils there is another corn type, only smaller and used for a different purpose. I am intrigued to see what there will be on offer in Cusco.
In this left bag, you can see dried potatoes, used to make a special dried potato soup.
These potatoes are very special too. They are called chuño, and are freeze-dried potatoes.
They are kept for as long people want, perhaps even 15 years, and then by adding some water they are rehydrated and can be safely eaten.
I also found the condiment that we had seen this morning at the cevicheria – the ajinuamoto (or something like this…)
Here are dried mussels that can then be used in seafood soups or any other dish.
Heading on to the fruit section we passed the meat section, which too was fascinating to see which meat and parts of the animal we had at home too and which ones we didn’t.
At the top right we see the granadilla. It tastes like passion fruit, or at least the one I had had.
This is what it looks like when peeled. It looks like “monkey brains”. :) It tastes delicious though!
Here are some red bananas…
Here is the passion fruit and the red banana unpeeled.
There were some more fruits that looked interesting.
Here is the noni. This is the stink fruit. After having said that to the two vendors, they were like, nooo the noni doesn’t smell of cheese. I held it to their nose and then they changed their answer.
Loooove avocados…. Which are called paltas here instead of aguacates.
We headed onwards towards Lima’s Chinatown. Along one of the major walkways, little cobblestones had been placed celebrating different life events of the inhabitants. Birthday, anniversaries, weddings and so on, all displayed on little cobblestones.
Also we saw the different animals of the Chinese years, represented on the street. I found mine – a goat :).
We walked on, but I thought that even though there were massive amounts of Chinese restaurants (called Chifa’s here in Lima), the district itself wasn’t as distinguishably Chinese as I had expected.
We walked on and eventually got back to the colonial styled place of town. Again an array of beautifully decorated balconies welcomed us.
As well as lovely facades with intricate architecture.
We moved on to another church that is dedicated to the Magdalena. Look at this impressive wooden door!
After this stroll around town we headed back to the hotel where I had some time to relax until it was time for dinner.
We headed out to a district called El Barranco, where the bridge of the sighs is located. Unlike other bridges of sighs, this one is dedicated to the sighs lovers make when they declare their love to each other, propose or other romantic things :) (Not quite like the one in Venice…)
We were expecting some women to be vending little snacks and typical deserts on the other side of this bridge, but unfortunately there weren’t any. Oh and don’t worry, this wasn’t snow, it was just my camera not being able to cope with slight mist or little rain…
On this little square, where normally the women sell from little carts, there was a cute little illuminated church.
We walked onwards to a little lookout point, where due to the light rain you couldn’t see much. We did however see the illuminated cross again from the other side of the bay. What an impressive sign of peace.
We walked back over the bridge of the sighs, heading up the local square of arms. Apparently all main squares are called square of arms as during the revolution, the soldiers would gather up on all main squares, flaunting their guns and arms, ready to protect each part of the city and just showing their presence.
Here we eventually did find one last lady selling traditional deserts. She said that the other women have left as the new major didn’t issue them permits to be selling nearby the church, and so they only return for special events and festive days.
We had some milk rice with hot gooey strawberry jam. Delicious!
However, just having desert didn’t quite cut it for me and my hunger was flaring. Since the ceviche I hadn’t had food. So onwards I went venturing into more Peruvian cuisine. I had some antichufas. These are marinated beef hearts in a lovely sauce directly from the grill. It was served with some corn, some potatoes (yes double starch again) and I also had some lemonade. It was surprisingly delicious.
After that of course, I got to try some Peruvian donuts with honey. They taste similar to Buñyoles (a type of dough ball fried and covered in sugar that I know from Mallorca).
After dinner I was ready to go home and sleep, as tomorrow would be another exciting day.
