Dining, Driving & Decompressing in Lima

Peru is enjoying it's moment in the sun. Or Lima is, anyway. That's easy to see in the wealthy neighbourhoods of Miraflores, San Isidro or Barranco. One part Miami, one part LA, two parts Pisco Sour.... There's an air of prosperity that makes the transition from the poverty of the hills that much more abrupt. Sunny, easy-going place. 

Lima, like BsAs, gives us the chance to pay a visit to the laundromat, the post office, the bank. And to meet expat locals. We spend time talking about the politics of fish reproduction in the Amazon basin with Fabrice, marine biologist, and his wife Carine while Jas and Iris throw a fashion show with their daughters Oxana and Talia, with an improvised poolside catwalk. The parents take their turn dancing rock & roll. A recurring worry is that Fabrice is away on a field trip on the Amazon when a big one, or perhaps THE big one, hits Lima. We get a lesson in earthquake response tactics. 

On another occasion we're mesmerized by the beautiful house that Christian and Marta have built for their family, in the shade of the very olive trees where only a couple days ago we had a modelling clay contest.  It has to be one of the prime corners of real estate in Lima. But then real estate is Christian's stock in trade as an architect, and he battled for years to secure it. Marta left the world of London finance to return with her family to her native Peru, where she works in private equity. The country is alive with opportunity, but all the usual political disclaimers apply. Their children Max and Clio are excellent hosts to the Girls while the parents hit the restaurant scene. 

People speak about how much the Seguridad Ciudadana has improved. And so it should, with all the cops and private security types about. Gated communities and barbed wire suggest a degree of urban unease, but it all feels less paranoid than Buenos Aires sometimes did. 

Thanks one and all for the warm hospitality and the travel tips!  We register a friendly vibe, like something you might glimpse in Mario Testino's photographic homage. The locals speak to us of the traffic jams and the provincialism behind the cosmopolitan veneer. But we're here just long enough to skate over it's golden surface. 

And to take in a few exceptionally good meals. I recover my appetite just in time to take advantage, finally, of this Capital of Cuisine. And I have my own walking, talking, little black book. Flo has an amazing compendium of eats, sleeps and drinks that she's built up over the years, supplemented regularly by friends we meet along the way. The paella at La Gloria and the crisp starched shirts of the waiters remind me of Da Giaccomo in Milan. At Central, the pistachio crust makes the paiche,  an Amazonian bass, taste like rich, flaking cake. We love the open-kitchen buzz at El Mercado, the Chicha Morena at Pescados Capitales.

Hotel room Cabaret

After the dark and deranged church imagery of Cuzco, the religious architecture here is all sweetness and light, and a higher register of kitsch than what we'd seen in, for example, Salta. Inevitably, there's a hint of the macabre, the skull relics of Lima's patron saints for example. 

Lima's patron saints, and their skulls...

There have been roadside shrines and saints watching over us throughout our trip. Here in Lima they really come alive. I'm reminded of "Saint Behind the Glass", a song by Los Lobos, a favourite band of mine in the 80's. And coincidentally, a line from "One Hundred Years of Solitude" leaps off the page: "They used them to build an altar of life-sized saints in the children's bedroom, saints with glass eyes that gave them a disquietingly lifelike look, whose artistically embroidered robes were richer and finer than any worn by the inhabitants of Macondo". 


There's something about the many martyred saints that must have lent itself so well, I imagine, to adoption by indigenous people, perhaps accustomed to arcane and cruel blood rites. At one point, perhaps the iconography, and the pantheon of Catholic saints and Inca demi-gods became almost interchangeable. Anyway, check out the psychedelia of these church interiors! 

And if you can find it, check out the indescribable and delicious Inca Kola...!