Friday, October 10, 2008

Lima, Peru

Plethora of Potatoes

and the imminent sea lion detonation

It’s been a busy week here in Lima. As soon as the jet lag wore off, we began subjecting the kids to longer daily outings and have exhausted ourselves exploring the city. We’ve toured a half dozen museums and churches and are becoming pros at navigating the city bus system, sometimes crowding into a random micro (which is what they call minibuses) or combi (which are even mini-er busses) just to see where we’ll end up. We’ve also been making daily trips to the local open-air food market and are committed to sampling a new type of potato each day, along with all the crazy new fruits whose names we can never seem to remember. We haven’t yet endeavored to purchase one of the omnipresent pig heads (just waiting for a big enough pot), but there’s still time.

Yesterday, we visited South America’s largest Chinatown. They’ve got nothing on San Francisco, but the chicken feet in sweet and sour black bean sauce was surprisingly tasty. In fulfillment of the request made by my devout aunties back home, we hunted down the site where Saint Rose of Lima was born in the 1500’s and purchased a slew of holy paraphernalia to send home. Without a doubt, though, the highlight of the week has been visiting the catacombs in the bowels below the San Francisco Cathedral where we tiptoed amongst the bones, skulls and dusty remains of 40,000 souls buried in the crypts during centuries past. The experience left us all feeling a bit like Indiana Jones—no nightmares thus far.

Today we meandered the morning away through the streets of Barranco, the bohemian part of the city which attracts artists, writers, and hippies, along with the occasional gringo. We savored a leisurely lunch in the plaza—papas rellenas or stuffed potatoes, which have been our most delicious discovery of the week! Now, being a Kansas girl, I really believed that we Midwesterners (and especially those of us with a little Irish blood to go along with the Cherokee) had thoroughly exhausted all of the potato’s possibilities. After all, we’ve mastered everything from mashed potatoes to boiled potatoes, scalloped potatoes, potato dumplings, potato bread, fried potatoes, baked potatoes, twice-baked potatoes, canned potatoes, frozen potato-like thingies (for when you’re in a hurry; or busy watching soap operas), potato casserole, hashbrowns, potato soup, potato salad, potato pancakes, and of course, vodka. (OK, so we’ve mastered at least the drinking of it, if not the making.) Well, let me tell you, we’ve got nothing on Peru.

For starters, there must be a thousand different varieties of potatoes here. And apparently when you have a thousand varieties to choose from, plus a whole lot of time on your hands while you’re waiting for combis, you can come up with some crazy-ass potato ideas. With papas rellenas, the Peruvians have discovered a way to combine the effort involved in making boiled potatoes plus mashed potatoes plus fried potatoes plus twice-baked potatoes all in the same dish, which is then reformed to look like a simple baked potato. (Although, I can assure you there’s most certainly no actual baking involved since ovens don’t seem to exist here.) Anyway, I’m not exactly sure how they do it, but the results are to die for. And, since my husband’s culinary specialty has always been anything that takes an inordinate amount of time and leaves the kitchen a total disaster, he has, of course, already perfected the dish. He has just posted his version of the recipe so that you too can simultaneously satiate and infuriate your domestic wait staff.

Peruvian street vendors serve these babies piping-hot, split them open onto unsanitary napkins, and douse them with spicy mayo and shredded cabbage—delicioso! The first time we tucked into papas rellenas, I think I even detected Cyrus trying to stifle what may have been the closest thing to a grin that I’ve seen on his face since we left his best friend, Zacciah, behind in Santa Fe. When we were planning this harebrained adventure, I had wrongly supposed that the journey would be more difficult for little Cruz and Bella. But Cyrus is 11 years old and at an age when his friends are far more important than any ludicrous plan his parents may concoct. Still, he’s a bit like his Papa, and if there’s a sure way to his heart, it’s through savory eats. I’m counting on papas rellenas to soften him up a bit (in more ways than one).

I realize this won’t be an effective strategy with Bella, of course, who thus far has subsisted mainly on a diet of white foods, and who demands at the very least that all ingredients be dutifully separated into color groups. Luckily, it’s never hard to find a naked, boiled, solid-colored potato for her. Potatoes have made the transition easier for Bella (along with the ubiquitous Peruvian hairless dogs, which have found their ugly little ways into her heart).

Anyway, to make a short story long, after lunch we strolled back toward home along the trash-strewn Pacific coastline, marveling at all the homeschool-worthy sitings—fascinating shells, scurrying crabs, and even a decaying sea lion cadaver, bloated to a point nearing detonation (which, of course, inspired Jason to launch into a monologue praising the beauty of decomposition and leading, naturally, to a rather Darwinian meaning of life). As Murphy’s luck would have it, however, our familial bliss was shattered when we stumbled upon what must be Peru’s largest abomination—Larcomar—an imposing shopping mall perched majestically on the seashore, seemingly oblivious to the imminent sea lion detonation that had moments before captured the attention of our young audience. As soon as the kids laid eyes on the bling bling, all homeschool lessons were off, and we were obliged to stopover. For the next hour we were transported, along with some of the city’s more well-to-do children, from the urban filth and poverty into a fairytale land of shimmering plastic and carnival music. Funny, for a moment we almost felt like we were back in the land of the free (and half-priced). As Bella and Cruz giggled on the carousel, and Cyrus (far too mature, of course, to engage in such infantile pleasures) savored his lime and chile flavored ice cream in the video arcade, Jason and I couldn’t help but wonder how in the world we ended up in a mall in Peru when we would be loath to visit one in our own country. Chalk it up to the good old American folk cure dictating that there’s no form of melancholia (or in this case, homesickness) that a healthy spree of consumerism can’t dispel. Anyway, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

Tomorrow we set off on the real adventure—for the next two weeks we’ll be exploring the fringes of the Amazon Rainforest, various cloud forests, an eco-lodge, and lots of pre-Incan (and Incan) sites. For now, though, we’re off to enjoy our last night in Lima. Exploring the city has been an eye-opening experience thus far and has served as a nice base camp, allowing us to acclimate to our new habitat before setting off into the wild. With a bit of new-found confidence under our belts, we’re all excited to be embarking tomorrow into the unknown—ready to give up the horns and sirens of the city for the squawking and screeching of the jungle.