Signs

For whatever reason, I am slightly obsessed with signs here.

I have a fixation with the various versions of the “reserved seat” signs on buses/combis etc. They are all different. Of the four images (pregnant woman, mother holding child, elderly person, handicapped/injured person), the pregnant woman and the injured person tend to have their heads bowed. Are they ashamed? Are they tired? Whatever they are, they need a seat… but they’ll have to speak up to get one, since it’s not very frequently that people move voluntarily out of reserved seats on full buses. 

Portly person crosswalk!

In the mountains of Huancayo, about 8 hours from Lima, their crosswalk signs seem to be a little out of proportion, or then again, perhaps they have extraterrestrials. 

Children in Argentina apparently like to go to school; instead of sprinting across the street like Peruvian children are supposed to do, they skip.

Their moms wait with them at the bus stop. 

Their dads walk them to school. (This is the first time I’ve seen a sign like this that is clearly a man, not a woman or person-of-indeterminate-sex, walking the child to school.) 

Barranco’s signs announcing parks seem so happy and joyful (even if covered with black soot). 

Miraflores’ sign for playgrounds makes me snicker: while this essentially says, “kids’ playground”, my brain immediately translates this as, “place for infantile activities”. I can think of some other places that need that sign. 

I just like the sign that announces an official mototaxi stop. I don't know this for sure, but my guess is that Miraflores and San Isidro, two of the most affluent districts in Lima, have banned mototaxis. They are almost everywhere else in the city, and a super cheap ride when you need one. Miraflores & San Isidro's loss!

I love the signs for “pick up after your dog and put the poop in this receptacle”. I am not sure that anyone else has ever noticed them, though; we are on the constant lookout for dog poop on the sidewalks and on the grass. Simon is pretty good about finding it and pointing it out to us… and then getting really close to it to show us that he is not, indeed, touching it.

This is obviously a cattle crossing sign, which we’ve seen while traversing the Peruvian countryside… and here it is, in the heart of Miraflores, where there is zero chance of seeing a cow cross the street. It was put up one day out of the blue, which I noticed on my walk to Spanish class last September, and it’s been there for months now. I suppose it’s a joke, since it’s in front of a grilled steak restaurant. 

This one is a little annoying – it’s for a new ice cream treat from D’Onofrio, the Nestle division here. It shows two flavors for this cone: the strawberry one, “for her”; the chocolate one, “for him”. Give me a break; sexist ice cream flavors? Yet another knock against Nestle! 

Painted across the crosswalk at this busy intersection is a sign that says,  “4 out of 5 deaths that occur in traffic are pedestrians.” I actually stopped to read it while crossing the street, which was stupid move #1. But as horrifying as that statistic is, it’s not surprising, given how crazily limeños drive and how little regard is given to pedestrians.

I think this is supposed to be a woman pushing a stroller… but doesn’t it look like a vacuum cleaner? Who knew that vacuum cleaners got reserved parking spaces at McDonald’s? They should market that: “Take a break from cleaning and get a free Inca Kola!”

Fixations

I keep a mental list of the things I find strange or funny or interestingly different here… and often I’m lucky enough to have my camera with me to document the action. 

Based on the number of photos I have, I am apparently fixated on different methods of transport, especially kids' ornate plastic bikes, especially with a tiny “child" seat at the rear so that a doll or stuffed animal can be strapped in. 

The water and gas delivery truck will also apparently deliver one of these types of bikes, too.

Bicycles are very much a part of the traffic here in Lima, mostly with these carts on the front. 

Sometimes people are lucky to have their friends drive them around. 

The carts usually have a small engine attached to them. The best, though, is when we see someone zooming through traffic on a mountain bike and realize that they have attached an engine to the bike. No picture yet of that; they move too fast for me and my camera.

People in Buenos Aires were so neat and orderly while they waited for the bus, waiting in line. The buses actually stopped to let people on and off, too, unlike Lima. What a radical concept!

We saw many motorcyclists in Argentina wearing their helmets half on their heads and half off (i.e. the part where normally they would look out of was on top of their head, and the chin guard was perched on their foreheads), or, like the guy below, were holding them while driving. I'm not sure if they were planning to put it on before they wrecked...? Then, to top that, we saw several examples of drivers holding babies as they steered their cars.

Dressed up dogs are ominpresent on walks in the parks along the malecón, and I find them kind of horrifying. However, they had mostly lost their impact due to the frequency of a dolled-up-dog sighting. I've seen dogs wearing shirt and short (or skirt) sets, knitted sweaters, barrettes and hair clips. Dogs of all sizes, not just the tiny ones pictured here. And then I saw a dog wearing a sequined tutu. 

In Buenos Aires, we didn’t see dressed up dogs, thankfully. But when we saw dogs, they were often in packs of five or six, being walked by someone talking on a cellphone. 

On to other fixations... I had read that for one town in the mountains, it was a big tradition to wear yellow for New Year’s – especially yellow underwear. That sounds fun, I thought. Too bad we aren’t going to travel near there for the holiday. Then, just before New Year’s, I was walking to the mercado and saw one of the little shops completely transformed by yellow. I stopped and looked closer. The sales counter was piled high with yellow cloth… could it be? Yes! Yellow underwear! How much? “S/2.50 to S/3.50, depending on the size.” I asked if they had it in toddler sizes too. “Of course!” What about boxers? “Here!” 

I thought that it was hilarious that the brand on the boxers, sewn prominently onto the waistband, was STRIPPER. So I bought us all yellow underwear to ring in the New Year in festive Peruvian style. Simon looks the cutest in his, of course.

 

Simon and I went to watch his friend Dieuwe’s swim class one morning and I thought it funny that everyone, even babies without hair, had to wear a swim cap. 

This ad for altitude sickness warranted a double take as we walked by. 

Speaking of sickness, I wonder who the target consumer is for this brand of hamburger. 

I love this example of multi-tasking. I can barely knit and carry on a conversation at the same time, let alone knit, walk and care for a toddler! 

And sometimes, multi-tasking means taking a nap while waiting to make the next delivery.

Argentina's finest, according to Simon

We loved Argentina. I would return there anytime. In fact, since we had to pay an expensive entrance fee for each of us, good for 10 years, I have a special interest in returning soon! 

Sam and I loved the steak (I don’t even like steak!). We loved the espressos, especially at Nuestra Señora del Café (you know it has to be good when they have the 10 commandments for making good coffee). We loved the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, and our funky neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Palermo Soho. 

The 10 Commandments for making a good cup of coffee, per Nuestra Señora del Café

Even though we all did the same activities over the same period of time, Simon probably had a completely different experience than Sam or I did. Here’s my interpretation of his top 10 list, in no particular order.


1. Watching himself in the elevator and playing on the couch in our apartment in Buenos Aires.

2. Seeing animals – dogs everywhere, monkeys at Iguazú and the horses/cows/goats en route to Bodega Colomé. As soon as he saw an animal, he’d start signing that he wanted “more!”

3. Storytelling about traveling in a plane. Just like when we were packing up in Indianapolis to come to Peru, we started telling him in advance that Mama and Daddy and Simon were going to get on a plane and go to Argentina. This time, he started chanting it himself, “Mama Daddy Mama Daddy”, prompting us to tell him about our trip again. He enjoyed hearing this over… and over… and over.


4. Finding friends everywhere – from buses to airports to playgrounds to restaurants to plazas. It’s fun to see him becoming more outgoing.

Making faces with a sweet friend, coming back from Iguazu Falls. Note the cooler. 

5. Helado. It is safe to say that the days when he was ok with having a couple of bites of each of our helados are over. Simon gets his own helado now.


6. Riding… escalators and wearing his backpack.

7. Riding… the train at Iguazú. We were about to skip our last train ride and walk the 20-25 minutes to the main visitor center when Simon let us know, in no uncertain terms, that this was unacceptable. So we took the train.

8. Riding… bicycles. This was the first time he’s ridden a bike on the same level as us, which he loved, rather than in the safe, low-to-the-ground carrier back in Indianapolis, which he mostly hated.

9. He’s reversed his water bottle trend and now likes drinking water, preferably cold water, out of the tiniest receptacle possible, his current favorite being the cap to the water bottle.

10. Eating fresh grapes off of the vine in the courtyard of our hotel in Cafayate. What a cool perk that was. We could cut down as many grapes as we wanted to eat. So fresh and delicious! His capacity for grapes there was quadruple what he would normally eat.

Now that we are home, Simon asks to watch videos of the monkeys and waterfalls. He reminds us to put on our backpack if it seems like we will leave the apartment without one. And he requests that his water be served cold. What a lovely kid.