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!”

Monument worthy

In the town square in Urubamba, in the middle of the Sacred Valley, the anchor for the main plaza was not a huge statue of a Peruvian revolutionary or military hero. It was a monument of a giant corncob. Now that is my kind of monument, one dedicated to food!

I wondered out loud to Sam what my monument would be to, were I to build one. Garlic? Guacamole? I started listing off all the foods I have missed and am excited to eat within  days or hours of returning to Indianapolis.

Sam looked at me as if I were crazy. “You don’t know? Think!” He gave me a minute to remember. “Your monument would be to ice cream!” Of course!

Accordingly, for my birthday, we went to my favorite ice cream place here and ate lots and lots of ice cream. From the presentation to the tiny spoons, it was wonderful.

Now this is my kind of bowl of ice cream - huge!

Punctuating the experience was Simon cheerfully chirping his birthday wishes: “Happy Mommy! Happy Mommy!” With a huge bowl of delicious ice cream and a lovely family, I am definitely a happy mommy.

Even Simon is wowed by the size of our bowl!

Helado happiness

We had to schedule a trip outside of Peru to extend our tourist visas. We had been planning to take a couple of out-of-country trips later in the year, and simply go to the Peruvian immigration office downtown in the meantime to extend our visas for a couple of months, but through a long and complicated process, we found out that Peru no longer offers extensions to tourist visas if you want to stay longer. You either leave the country and return to get another 1-6 months, depending on the mood of the immigration officer, or you overstay your visa and pay a $1 fine per person, per day overstayed. 


We did both – once we realized we needed to leave Peru, we scheduled a trip to Argentina as soon as was practical and we overstayed several weeks until the trip date arrived. 

One of the things I was most excited about with Argentina was the ice cream. I read somewhere a phrase like, “Argentinians take their ice cream seriously and it’s some of the best in the world.” Count me in! 

We rented an apartment in Buenos Aires and we were pleasantly surprised that it had not one but two heladerías on the corner. Granted, one was closed for the month for vacation. But the other one was the best I had during our trip.

The ice cream in Buenos Aires was decadent. Contrary to any heladería I’ve been in, in any country in the world, the flavors are categorized by the chocolate options, the creams, the dulce de leche choices, and the sorbet-like fruit flavors. 

When we were in Cafayate, the heart of wine country, they trumpeted an additional flavor category on their signs: wine. Helado de malbec, torrontés, and cabernet were everywhere.

In many places throughout the country, heladerías even had little signs indicating which flavors were gluten-free. It certainly made it easier to figure out what to try out, and I was surprised by some that were not gluten-free (some of the fruit flavors, for example).

All the heladerías we visited were open until at least midnight, if not later, and many offered delivery, with a free magnet with their phone number (and sometimes their flavor options too). I loved knowing that if I had an ice cream emergency, help was only a phone call away. And, being a magnet freak, I love my new stash of Argentina helado magnets!

Of mangos and the mercado

I love chocolate. Milk chocolate, preferably, without distracting extras (although toffee or salted caramel chunks are occasionally welcome). I also love ice cream, make a ton of it in the summertime, and rarely, if ever, choose to purchase flavors other than coffee or chocolate. Generally, I like fruit in desserts when it is chocolate covered or encrusted. But otherwise, I agree with my friend Megan who says, “don’t spoil my dessert with fruit!” 

Somehow, perhaps because we’re in South America, there are many things here that are completely opposite the way they are at home. Such as: I drink multiple cups of coffee in the morning now, while Sam has actually forgotten to consume it on several occasions. Sam is always cold, while I’m walking around in short-sleeved shirts. And whenever we have the opportunity to have ice cream, I always get a fruit flavor like maracuyá (passionfruit) or lúcuma (not sure there is an English equivalent). The coffee and chocolate don’t appeal to me at all. And the fruit flavors are amazing!

And what’s more, even when we’ve had fabulous chocolate in our apartment for the taking, I keep opting for a mango (or two!) for dessert. What’s going on?!?

We buy several kilos of mangos every time we go to the mercado near our apartment. The price has been steadily dropping over the last two months and right now I can buy them for 3 soles per kilo. That is less than 50 cents a pound! I’m not sure what they would go for in the States at present, but somehow I think I’d pay far more for the quantity and quality of fruit we’re buying.

I like going to the market, for the most part. 

The panadería just outside the mercado is open twice a day, for about an hour and a half each; perfectly timed to the start and end of the nearby school’s day. Even now, during summer vacation, a line starts forming about a half hour before it opens! Sam says that not only are they good, they are the cheapest he’s found. That might be because of the sign outside that says, “thank you for bringing your own bags.” 

Finally, open for business!

I had been hoping to get a photo of people waiting in line and one day, luck struck! So I grabbed my camera and took the photo. I happened to also be wearing Simon in the sling and was carrying three giant, heavy bags of fruit and produce at the same time. So everyone was watching me juggle the bags, the boy, and the camera. You can see some of the people in the photo staring at me as if to say, you're taking a photo of us? You are the weird one!  

At our market, the newspaper stand is at the main entrance. People stop at the puestos and read the headlines. Once in a while, a paper is actually purchased. What I find funny is that the TV news programs also show each of the newspapers’ front pages during their broadcast: they slowly scan down the page so that you can get the gist of everyone’s news even if you don’t watch more of the broadcast or buy the paper. 

Reading the headlines

Puestos with newspapers and candy are on every other corner, it seems. There appear to be about 15 different papers, although some are more akin to a mix between the National Enquirer and Us magazine, than, say, the New York Times. You can usually buy candy there too. 

While this puesto is not at our mercado, I'm including it here as the best example of the newspaper puestos around. It is PACKED with papers!

Note the effective use of all the available surface area... and then some, hanging even more papers from the top of the roof/lid/door

The back view... I am impressed by this vendor's display, although I would quickly develop claustrophobia if I had to sit inside of this puesto each day, all day!

A slightly more representative newspaper puesto, still claustrophobia-inducing

There are two fruit stalls on the outside of the market with excellent prices, and the women who run the stalls can’t stand one another. They fiercely compete for each other’s business. I slightly dread having to choose one although I admit that I also exploit their competition. I usually ask about the price of mangos per kilo as I’m walking by and the other one will gesture or call her price out to me. The one I favor most of the time flashes me the price she’ll give me with her fingers against her chest, as if it were a gang sign: 3 soles per kilo, señora.

I choose her more often for several reasons. She is friendlier; gives me a slightly better price, most of the time; doesn’t switch the price on me and pretend I’ve just misunderstood (although she always loads more into my bag than I’ve ordered,3.5 kilos instead of 3 kilos, for example); and gives me tiny bananas, free, “for the baby”. Sometimes she just hands them to me as she’s handing me my bags; other times she gives me a bunch as I’m walking by but not buying anything. This is definitely an effective way to keep my business!

However, she’s also told me that she is giving me an excellent price, since inside the mercado, mangos cost 6 soles per kilo. I thanked her profusely for giving me such a great deal, then promptly went inside and asked several vendors for their mango prices. Everyone was consistent at 4 soles per kilo. Thus I take her comments with a grain of salt.

This is one of the fruit stands where I comparison-shop for mangos.

Here's another. On my to-do list is to try the jugos at the stand on the right.

Down the middle of a corridor

I’m still getting the hang of what products are purchased from which type of vendor. The limes, which are called limones, you buy at the vegetable vendors. The lemons, which are called limas, are purchased at the fruit vendors. Same with palta, avocado. That all – the names as well as the place you purchase each – seems backwards to me! The spice lady also sells queso fresco, fresh cheese. Almost every non-fruit and vegetable vendor sells fresh olives. Something fabulous is that depending on what I’m buying (avocado and chirimoya are the two that come to mind), the vendor will ask if I want it for today or tomorrow and then select the fruit accordingly. 

Somehow I’ve fallen into a routine of buying my items from specific vendors: fruit vendor, vegetable vendor, egg-and-paper-products vendor, rice-and-dried-fruit-and-nearly-everything-else-under-the-sun vendor. There are probably 50 more stalls that I really haven’t checked out yet. I haven’t yet had the guts (no pun intended) to buy meat yet.

This vendor sells everything you need for several different soups, including all of the salsas

Two puestos with identical products, from toilet paper to chifles (fried plantain chips)

This vendor is my catch-all shop in the mercado and has incredible dried pears, apricots, roasted & salted peanuts.... and black olives, of course

Fresh fish

Grab some toilet paper to go along with your red meat...

I'm not sure what that is! I'll just keep walking along...

This is my favorite vegetable vendor. Half the time she has to stand on the stool pictured to get something down from the top shelves... and then she hacks it down to the desired size with her machete

The egg lady... with a zillion other miscellaneous products

While you buy from each vendor individually, there is a lot of trading that goes on. The first time I went to the market, I went to a woman who had giant bags of rice out and asked her if she sold brown rice. Yes! How much did I want? A kilo, I guessed. She stepped out from behind her bags, scurried down the hallway and disappeared around the corner. She came back with a 1-kilo bag of brown rice. Another time I asked a different vendor whether he had raw kiwicha, amaranth. Of course! he said, and excused himself for a moment while he bought it from the stand next to his. 

I’m not sure why they don’t simply direct me to the vendor who currently possesses the product; they aren’t marking up the price at all (I’ve checked!). Between vendors who get along, there is also a lot of borrowing and lending of change to give to clients. It is incredible how everyone can keep straight how much they are owed and how much they owe; I barely can keep up with how much I should be paying at each puesto!

I am slowly realizing that I can get almost all of the things at the mercado that I thought I had to schlep to the supermarket, a 25 minute walk, to buy. The plusses of the supermarket are that I can pay with a credit card and don’t have to haggle over prices. Two plusses of the mercado are that it is two blocks from my house and everything is fresh and high-quality.

While the mangos are delicious, flavorful, and huge, there is still room in my heart – and stomach – for chocolate with some frequency. The best chocolate, however, is not available at the mercado or the supermarket. It is found in elusive care packages from our moms that occasionally arrive when the Peruvian postal service decides to let one through!