Alerta: Esto está en castellano

Varios amigos hispanohablantes me han escrito para reclamar la falta de entradas en castellano en mi blog. La verdad es que tenía todas las intenciones de escribir más en castellano pero como estoy atrasado en lo que debo estar escribiendo en inglés (acabo de publicar algo sobre Lima, por ejemplo, y dejé esa ciudad hace como 5 días) no estaba entre mis prioridades escribir en español hasta poder ponerme al día con el inglés. Pero, me encuentro con tiempo y ganas de repente, así que me lanzo. Téngase en cuenta que no he hablado en castellano mucho últimamente (salvo para decir cosas como "¿me puede traer otra cerveza, por favor?" y "pero ¿cómo va a estar tan atrasado el bus?") así que ojalá perdonen cualquier falta inevitable de ortografía y/o gramática.

Lo primero que quiero decir es que--y esto es para mis lectores chilenos--ustedes no saben lo bien que lo tienen en Chile. Mientras nosotros nos quejamos de Transantiago, hay combis en Lima que corren por las calles a altísima velocidad sin ningún recorrido fijo aparente, y los taxis en todo el Perú no tienen taxímetros, así que antes de subir a cualquiera tienes que negociar la tarifa. En Bolivia, apenas se ven los combis de La Paz a través de las nubes negras y espesas que emiten. De hecho con cueva paran cuando se lo pides. En Chile todos somos muy buenos para reclamar las cosas molestas, pero vivimos con un nivel envidiable de tranquilidad, incluso en las partes más caóticas de Santiago.

Segundo: Perú, sobre todo, está muy, muy pujante últimamente. Es un país muy power. La gente es muy creativa, y tienen un empuje turístico muy fuerte acá. Aprovechan muy bien de la diversidad geográfica del país (porque no sólo tienen playa, cordillera y desierto, sino también selva amazónica, ruinas majestuosas, y mar tibio), y su situación económica está mucho mejor que antes. Tienen mucho que ofrecerle al turista. Así que Chile tiene que seguir compitiendo mucho.

Mientras tanto, ustedes deben viajar al Perú ahora ya. Ahora que GOL va por $150 ida y vuelta, deben aprovechar de visitar Cusco y Máncora, en el norte (donde estoy ahora). Hay ceviche muy rico, buenísimo, por algo así como 1.500 pesos el platito. Acá se puede vivir como un rey por unas 10 lukas el día.

Tercero: estoy con mucho orgullo de la empresa chilena, que acá es muy visible. Hay Falabella y Ripley por doquier. Se vende Casillero del Diablo en incluso las licorerías de esquina de pueblo chico. Hay mucha capital chilena invertida acá. Además de esa sensación agradable de familiaridad (que me pasa doblemente, ya que Ripley y McDonalds también son como "de casa" para mí), es un orgullo ver que somos respetados y conocidos acá por las buenas empresas. Así que eso.

Yo he estado acá en el Perú por casi dos semanas ya. He ido desde Puno (donde el Lago Titicaca) a Cusco, Arequipa, Lima, Trujillo y ahora Máncora. Es un país lleno de buena gente, con una tranquilidad nueva que parece que todos disfrutan. Es más seguro y más próspero. Lo he estado pasando como el vino en caja (o sea, la raja).

Una amiga mía del colegio, Kaitlin, estuvo conmigo hasta Lima, y después se volvió a Londres. Ahora me voy a juntar en Guayaquil con un amigo de mi magíster--un ecuatoriano llamado Carlos Burgos. Pero por ahora he estado disfrutando estos días de playa. Hoy, por ejemplo, me senté en un puesto bajo un paraguas enorme en la playa principal de Máncora, y había una señora que me trajo Inca Kola en la mañana, un riquísimo ceviche para el almuerzo, acompañando por un litro de Pilsen (la cerveza del Callao), y otra Inca Kola en la tarde. Hasta vigilaba mis cosas cuando quería ir a nadar en el mar a ratos. Quién como yo, ¿cierto?

Me despido señalando lo chévere que es mi vida últimamente. Saludos, abrazos y cariños a tod@s.

Lima: La Horrible?

Lima, like most other Latin American capitals (like, for example, La Paz, ahem) is not an easy place to be a tourist. It's enormous, its public transportation apparatus is all but indescipherable, it doesn't have a ton of tourist attractions and it's kind of ugly in parts. Actually, most of the nice parts of Lima are hidden behind 10-foot high walls topped off with electric fenses, particularly in its most exclusive district, La Molina.

That being said, if you know where to go, you can have a really nice time. Lima is full of restaurants where new, amazing things are being done with food. Ceviche, for example, is at its peak here. For the uninitiated, ceviche is raw fish (it has to be fresh), which is chopped up and then "cooked" in lemon juice. Then you add in a slice of sweet potato, finely chopped red onions, a slice of pepper, some dried corn kernels and maybe (in some regions) some yucca, you have yourself a plate of heaven. Might sound gross, but it's not. This is a mix of the robust flavors of fish, the spices of the peppers and onions, and the tartness of the lemons that just can't be beat. The gourmet cachet of Peru lies in the fact that four cultures have been mixing in earnest there since colonial times--Chinese (who were brought over to South America as slave laborers on the railroads and plantations), Africans (ditto), Indigenous and Spanish (and other European countries as well). Ceviche incorporates influences from Europe, Africa the Americas and Asia.

So Kaitlin and I had a good time sampling the local cuisine, seeing as how Peruvians are really undergoing a renaissance in this area (judging by the number of new culinary academies sprouting up all over the place, anyway). And, since Lima is right on the coast, the fish is fresh. We also were able to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and this was last Thursday, before it was even out in the US.

We explored the center of Lima, including the Barrio Chino (where we ate at a chifa, which is what they call Chinese restaurants here), as well as the districts of Miraflores (where we stayed), San Isidro, La Molina and San Borja. One really cool attraction was the Larco Museum, which had quite a collection of Pre-Columbian erotic pottery. Here is a photo just of its storage area, which is open to the public: lots of pots.

The thing about Lima is that it concentrates such a large number of people from so many different economic and social backgrounds pretty close together. In a city that has grown from 1 million to over 8 million in the span of about 50 years ("¿En qué momento se había jodido el Perú?"), this means that the upper classes have been constantly trying to move further and further away from the lower classes that continue to filter in from Peru's mountainous and jungle areas. So on one end you have the aforementioned walls and electric fences, while on the other end you have the northern and southern "cones" of the city, full of "human settlements" (shantytowns, and sometimes just campsites) where migrants have literally just set down their stuff and said "Aquí me quedo."

But whereas 6 years ago on my first visit to the city it practically seemed like it was under a state of siege, with people afraid to even walk down the streets, there are signs of progress. Malls have been built in the cones (many with Chilean capital), because the "human settlers" have increasing adquisitive power and have proven themselves to be good credit customers, paying what they owe on time. There are really nice street cafés in the district of Miraflores, a sort-of upmarket suburb of Lima, where you can sit on the sidewalk without too much fear of having your stuff snatched. And any place selling shawls made out of baby alpaca for US$200 can't be too bad off.

The Republic of Arequipa

We then took a night bus and arrived early on the morning of the 21st (I think) in Arequipa, Peru's "white city." Its inhabitants are so fiercely proud of their city that there's a sign at the entrance to the city saying "Welcome to the Republic of Arequipa." Although I later found out that it was an ad for the newspaper La República, I think it was a good echo of people's sentiments. Lima, like Santiago, and Seoul, and Paris, and other important capitals in the world, is where the vast majority of the country's economic and political clout is concentrated. Arequipa wants to change all that. Its inhabitants once demanded that they be given their own passport and flag, to distinguish them from other Peruvians!

It's called the white city because its main buildings are made out of white volcanic rock. So all around its main plaza you can see a ton of gorgeous, shining white archways. Looming above everything is Misti, the local volcano and source of the rock. The cathedral is one of less than 100 in the world that is authorized to put the papal flag on the altar. It takes up one whole side of the square.

Arequipa is also the native city of Mario Vargas Llosa, arguably Peru's most famous author. Aside from his books, he was recently in the news because a photo was revealed of the black eye that he gave his Colombian literary contemporary Gabriel García Márquez about 30 years ago. A round of applause for the Arequipeños, everybody.

The coolest part of Arequipa, for me anyway, was the Santa Catalina Monastery, which was much more than a Monastery. It was basically a small city within Arequipa, with tons of rooms for colonial nuns from upper-class families (read: they included servants' and slaves' quarters!). Apparently it was more of a sorority house than a nunnery for a time, but then a new bishop or something came in and cracked down on things. (Dude, if you want a real, touristy explanation, you can look at the website...I don't have to be perfectly accurate here.) Kaitlin and I had fun quoting Shakespeare at the monastery. First, the obvious "Get thee to a nunnery." And then, "Out, out, damn spot" at the mass laundry area. Hope the nuns that still live there (cloistered, still, in 2007) weren't offended.

Peru: New and Improved

I will start off this entry with an apology (to all 3 of my readers) for the lack of entries in the past week or so. I just haven't had any decent time for updates, because in Kaitlin's and my efforts to cover so much ground in so little time, there wasn't a ton of time to sit down and write a decent blog entry. So here is my attempt to make up for that. Maybe even the first of several attempts.

From Copacabana, Bolivia, where we last let off, we took a bus across the border to Puno, Peru, and then to Cuzco. Cuzco is really Peru's showpiece town. It is dramatic and gorgeous: an amazing main plaza whose architecture combines Inca-era stonework (enormous stones--who knows how they carved them and moved them to where they are now--that interlock perfectly, without any need for mortar) and colonial Spanish cathedrals. The cathedrals themselves are a bit politically incorrect, with a ton of depictions of St. James (Santiago is St. James, right?) riding his horse roughshod over bloody (defiant) brown natives, but this can actually be overlooked if you focus on the elaborate stone carvings in the entryways of the buildings, and the bright Andean touches given to traditional Catholic iconogrpahy (ie, the Virgin Mary whose head is surrounded not by a halo but rather by a sun, a nod to Inti, the sun god of the Incas).

Cuzco's main plaza is also surrounded by restaurants on balconies where you can sit and have ají de gallina and a pisco sour (sorry Chileans, but the Peruvian one IS better than the Chilean one) and watch the Cuzqueños chase after the gringos trying to sell them tour packages and/or postcards, and watch the gringos' awkward responses (will they just ignore them? try to engage them in a clunky English-language conversation? run away? We saw all these, and other, variations). You can also dign into some cuy, or guinea pig--an Andean specialty. We didn't, though. I have too many memories of Wickers Berkeley, my fourth grade class's pet guinea pig. May he rest in peace.

Following our explorations of Cuzco proper, we took excursions out of town as well. First to the Sacred Valley, where we saw the Sunday markets in Pisac and Chinchero (pictured)
. There was cool stuff but I didn't get much. We also went to the lesser-known (in comparison to Machu Picchu, at least) Inca archaeological sites of Ollantaytambo and Pisac. Ollantaytambo is one of the few sites where the Spanish colonizers lost a battle to the Incas, so it's an extra special site. It's also lit up really beautifully at night. Here is a pic of the terraces of Ollantaytambo:

And then, of course, Machu Picchu. This was my third time there, and it was just as cool as ever. The sun was shining and we got some amazing photos. One thing I did differently this time was that we went and had lunch at the Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge, a 5-star hotel located right next to the ruins. We paid something like $30 each for it, which has to be close to a week's minimum wage in Peru. It was good food, and a look into a whole different approach to tourism in the third world, which basically involves protecting yourself in an uppity little bubble that manages to block you off from all the ugly poverty surrounding you.

Peru has really developed since I first went there in 2001. The changes are really evident. There is much better road infrastructure, nicer green areas, more tourist facilities, and a general feeling of stability and safety. We had a really nice time in Cuzco.

From there, we headed to Arequipa.

To be continued...