Brushes with the surreal

In Arequipa, as the garbage trucks move through the streets each night, they play instrumental music at high volume from a speaker mounted on the truck roof. It’s not exactly the type of music you would expect from a garbage truck, if you would expect music at all. We were serenaded late one night with classical music. The next night featured a jazzy Caribbean version of Under the Sea from the Little Mermaid, followed by El Condor Pasa (Simon & Garfunkel’s song that starts out “I’d rather be a hammer than a nail...” The melody that they sing to is El Condor Pasa, a traditional Quechuan song). The music is a good reminder to get your trash outside if you haven’t done it yet, I suppose.

During our tour of the gorgeous Santa Catalina Monastery in Arequipa, we learned that the nuns chopped off their often-very-long-hair upon taking their vows. Their hair was then used to adorn religious statues big and small. I think those statues are pretty creepy to begin with, but seeing them with various shades of brown and black hair, curly or wavy, braided or straight, gave it a whole new level of creepiness.

Even the public bathrooms in Arequipa were interesting, featuring art and old skylights.

Our time in Colca Canyon inadvertently coincided with the biggest local celebration of the year, that of their patron saint, the Virgen del Carmen. While my nerves were a little shot since firecrackers were omnipresent and Simon was pretty scared every time they went off, it was also really cool to stumble upon various scenes amidst this celebration. In Yanque, we saw a small group of people getting their statue ready to be paraded around the tiny square, after affixing flowers and offerings of food to her sides. Later we saw around 20 people singing and dancing as the Virgen was held aloft and carried through town. 

Carrying a giant handmade candle to the church in Yanque to put alongside the statue of the Virgen

Getting the statue ready inside the church

Parading the Virgen around the square

In Cabanaconde, the brass band started marching around the square at 6 a.m., this after only stopping the music several hours before! It was definitely wild to see all the festively dressed women, especially drinking beers.

As previously mentioned, Simon was scared during these celebrations because of the loud and constant fireworks. Luckily, while we were walking around a local museum, he found a friend, Miski, who was also a little scared. They took their own tour while staying very close to each other, which was sweet to witness.

As the sun set in the middle of nowhere in Colca Canyon, we left the hot springs where Simon and Sam had enjoyed the warm water while I shivered on the side in the 40 degree temperature. We walked the 30-40 minutes back to our hotel, quickly winded by the high altitude. I had thought we were making good time until we were passed by slowly moving cows, burros, dogs, and the cowboys bringing them in for the night.

That wasn’t the only place where we were left in the dust. While we walked up a long hill in Cochas Chico, outside of Huancayo, I struggled to maintain a conversation with Sam while holding Simon and walking at the same time. I was panting in between words, such was the altitude effect. Then an older woman, maybe 60 years old, wearing a large load on her back, ran by us, uphill, pausing briefly to say hi. I was so tired just thinking about her running uphill that I had to stop to rest.

Once Simon and I stopped by Wong to buy coffee and were surprised by a parade of three beautiful Chinese dragons, complete with a gong section, dancing through the deli area. Later they blocked the exit, so we continued watching. It was apparently a promotion for a Fiestas Patrias parade, sponsored by Wong, through Miraflores the next day.

We went and it was pretty interesting. Thousands of people lined the streets, enormous screens were set up to broadcast parts of the show, the crowd began to get belligerent, and several times I got crowd-phobia before we retreated off the main drag. 

Having a huge supermarket chain sponsor the biggest non-military Fiestas Patrias parade made for some interesting sightings. Such as: a dozen Chinese dragons kicked off the parade, honoring Wong’s Chinese roots, Miss Wong waved, beauty-pageant style, to the crowd. The prepared foods section sponsored a float of mostly naked women dancing on a giant Inca head, flanked by a pastel butterfly. But my favorite was a giant puffy sugar bowl, pulled by a horse drawn carriage. 

I have learned to expect the unexpected in Peru, but it still doesn’t take away my fascination or surprise.

Jungle lite

Ever since Simon and I read a library book called Home for a Tiger, Home for a Bear last summer, I had been dreading seeing spiders in Peru. Wouldn’t you, after reading this description: Goliath bird-eating spiders are the largest spiders in the world - about the size of a small pizza! A type of tarantula, they live in the rainforests of South America.

I quietly decided I would avoid any trip to the rainforests in Peru. Any spider whose size is compared to a meal that would feed an entire family is about a thousand times too big, in my book.

Sam, unfortunately, had no similar reservations. So when he said he really, really wanted to go to the jungle, I resigned myself to scary sightings and sleepless nights. We planned to go to La Merced, the closest jungle to Lima.

I am happy to report that I had zero goliath bird-eating spider sightings. In fact, I had no fear-inducing spider sightings at all. We only really saw one live giant spider during our Peruvian adventures: at our hotel in Aguas Calientes, at the base of Machu Picchu, I found this in our bathroom... 

Check out those pincers!

… and requested that Sam deal with it. He carefully maneuvered it into the trash can, walked it over to the open window, and threw it out onto the sidewalk below. While I was grateful to have the spider out of our room, it made me cringe to walk down streets after that, wondering if I’d have a giant spider with pincers flung onto me as I walked beneath open windows. “I made sure there weren’t any pedestrians before I threw it out!” Sam said. Not everyone would be so careful!

The spider escapade left a big impression on Simon. He started requesting edits when we’d sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”: he wanted us to sing “The Very Giant Spider” and recount the story of Sam flinging it out the window.

And the other "spider" we encountered was on a creatively designed playground - I heartily approve of these spiders!

So, no spiders in our jungle, thankfully. What we did find was beautiful green jungle that didn’t appear to be much different from other green, wooded areas we’ve been in before. There was wonderfully warm, occasionally hot sun, in contrast to chilly Lima, and gorgeous night skies. And there were strange conversations.

We hadn’t seen stars since staying at a beach near the Ecuatorian border in October. One night we were stargazing when Gloria, on an extended vacation from the US, walked by. “This is a great place to see UFOs!” she said. “You mean shooting stars?” asked Sam. “No, UFOs,” she corrected him. “They go like this,” she drew a zigzag pattern across the sky. “It’s really easy to see them. We see them all the time. It’s a little too overcast to see them tonight, but look tomorrow.” “Okay,” Sam said. I am sorry to report that we saw no UFOs, but we did see lots of activity nearby at the air force base. Connection, anyone?

On our coffee tour day, Simon fell asleep as we were en route to lunch. When we arrived, our tour guide/driver told me to just let Simon sleep in the backseat of the taxi while we all left and ate in the restaurant. Hmmm.... no. When he later saw Sam holding Simon, still sleeping, at the table, he asked me why I didn’t leave him in the car. I said, “He’d wake up in a strange place and not know where we were. It would scare him.” He nodded. “You need to get him cured of that. Kids shouldn’t be scared of things like that. You could just take him to the curandera, the healer, and she would get rid of it.” 

While I had zero intention of taking Simon to the curandera, I was intrigued. He told me that the woman who ran our guesthouse had taken her 6-year-old daughter to the curandera for her fear of large dogs. “The curandera passes metal all over your body, then puts it into water, where it assumes the shape of your fear. Then based on what the fear is, different things like eggs and leaves are applied to your body.” He said his fear of snakes was cured that way when he was a little boy. Somehow I think Simon would be more fearful of the cure than the original issue.

We’ve been calling this trip “jungle lite” since, given that it was the entrance to the jungle region, we didn’t see the type of animals or arachnids we’d see deeper in. This means that Sam’s desire to see the jungle was not quenched by this trip, unfortunately. He says, “Next time, we are going deep, deep into the jungle.” I will figure out how to avoid that trip when it becomes a reality. For me, though, this trip was one time when I was thoroughly satisfied with the lite version.

Patriotism or Pay Up

Fiestas Patrias, Peru’s Independence Day holidays, was two weekends ago, July 28-29. Being in another country for their independence day celebrations was fun and yet another cultural experience to participate in.

At the beginning of July, the city put up eight enormous Peruvian flags at the óvalo a block from our apartment.



After that, Peruvian flags popped up on buildings everywhere. The supermercado Wong wrapped up its large building in a giant red and white ribbon, and the unfortunate male baggers who work there had to wear a ridiculous straw cowboy hat/white poncho getup for the week leading up to the party.

On one of my near-daily trips to our mercado in mid-July, I checked out one of the puestos. This particular vendor changes her puesto’s look constantly, depending on what special occasion is coming up. When I bought yellow underwear from her for New Year’s, her stand was 100% yellow. For July, it was a sea of red and white.

Tacked up in the corner of her puesto was a news article announcing that any building not flying the Peruvian flag for Fiestas Patrias was subject to a fine of S/1800 (about $700). She had the sign up to encourage sales: since you have to buy one somewhere, buy it here!

That explained why Christina and Roberto had hung one on the top of our building, and why Manos Amigas had one flying too. It also explained the flags on construction sites, tiny newspaper stands, even the snack carts on wheels.

I asked Christina about it and she nodded, surprised that I was surprised. “It’s the law for the country. It used to be that you had to paint your house for Fiestas Patrias.” “You had to paint the flag on your house?” I asked, shocked. “No, no, you just had to put a fresh coat of paint on it so it would look nice for Fiestas Patrias.”

Flag waving in the US makes me uneasy, as the flag is a very loaded symbol and I have baggage accompanying it. Here in Peru, I have no similar baggage. So we showed our Peruvian spirit by wearing our Peru shirts and waving our little (free) Peruvian flag during the Fiestas Patrias parade.

I even tacked onto my backpack the Peruvian flag pin that the puesto vendor gave me when she heard we were leaving the country soon. None of those things - wearing a USA shirt, waving a US flag, or wearing a flag pin - am I prone to do at home. I suppose the more you know your country, the more you are apt to have conflicting feelings about it.

Still, I do think it’s kind of nuts to mandate the flag display. I appreciate that, back home, I have a choice whether or not I fly the flag on July 4, and that choice won’t cause me to break the law or my bank account.

A music man in the making

Like any two year old, Simon likes to say "no". A LOT. At first, I joked with him that maybe his name was really No-mon instead of Sí-mon (As in “yes”-mon, except that in Spanish, his name gets an accent later: Simón). He thought that was funny and called himself that on occasions, with a big smile.

And then we graduated to "No, Mommy! No, Mommy!" That gets tiring after awhile, so I started singing “No Mommy” back to him as the refrain of El Debarge’s 80s hit “Who’s Johnny”, with some edits to make the song relevant to our circumstances. Simon liked it and would suggest variations for me to sing: No Daddy, No Dieuwe, No Bow-Wow, etc. Watch the video for Who's Johnny on YouTube for a blast from the past; it is hilarious. And then follow that up with Rhythm of the Night; it's even better! El Debarge's hair there reminds me of a certain track coach back in high school...

While I haven’t heard “Who’s Johnny” while in Peru, I should have: 80s music is super prevalent here! I’ve heard more UB40 in the last two months than I have in the last 20 years. 80s music is on the buses, the radio, the streets. I had been hoping to learn more about Peruvian musicians just by soaking up the ambient music, but instead I’m reliving parts of my adolescence as I sing along with Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Depeche Mode, Michael Jackson, Men at Work, The Police, a-ha, and Duran Duran, to name but a few. 

We eventually expanded our musical repertoire by singing “No Mommy” to the tune of Dona Nobis Pacem. We have since brought the tune of Frere Jacques into the fold as well. Simon’s even finally branched out to Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes and the Itsy Bitsy Spider, and really dances his heart out when Sam sings variations on "The Twist".

It’s fun seeing Simon sing his own music, dance with zero inhibitions, bang on the drum, pluck on Sam’s guitar strings, or just groove to music in his head, always with the words "No Mommy!" I can live with that.

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!”

Follow that fish!

One of my favorite things about living in Lima is that I have no clue what I’ll see when we are out and about.


Perhaps we’ll see parrots flying around the park. Or at the running track in Barranco. Or in apartment windows. Or at artisans’ workshops.


I know we will see dressed-up dogs. To what extent they are dressed up - and for what purpose (a doggie birthday party? doggie expo? out for a walk?) - are the surprise elements. Once I saw a woman on the bus reading the paper, and the important news about how to “protect him from the cold” caught my eye.

We will most likely see women or groups of girls posing for what we call "glamour shots" against any type of background: the ocean, gym equipment, the wall in the pool's changing room.


Perhaps we will see a giant blood drop, dancing and doing tai chi with a group of women in the park, to promote a blood drive. Or wheelchairs converted into motorized tricycles to ride along the bike lane on the malecón. Toddlers "driving" their own giant battery-operated cars through the park with the car radio going full blast. 


Maybe the guy who makes keys in his tiny kiosk on the sidewalk will pause to play chess with the car repair guy next door. Or surfers will ride by on bikes with special racks above their heads for their boards. Maybe we’ll be squeezed in, on the bus, next to a surfer with his board.


Stopping at the skate park on the malecón is a normal part of a walk. Once we got to see an adorable little kid getting a lesson while wearing a Batman cape. A cape for Simon was in the back of my mind beforehand and seeing that little kid fly around moved it front and center.


Another bonus of the skate park is when there are little kids who can’t climb out of the skate bowl on their own and need help to get out. These three boys were posted at the side of the bowl to pull everyone out during a lesson.

Skateboards in traffic isn’t necessarily strange anymore, it’s now just another mode of transport. And then I saw a 30-ish dad pushing his daughter’s stroller while on his skateboard (on the sidewalk, thankfully). Nice!


That was later topped by a 20-ish guy riding down the sidewalk in his adult-sized, custom-made Big Wheel. At least he didn't have his 6-month-old child balanced on a little "seat" on the handlebars as many other adults do.

Maybe we’ll see marathon runners sprinting through the middle of an all-night open air art exhibition.

Or ceramic body parts coming out of walls as we walk down a side street.

Doors that don’t lead anywhere.

Mannequins dressed, or undressed, in interesting garb.

People using the bicycle carts to transport incredibly large loads down busy streets...

… and small trucks with incredibly large loads driving off of the sidewalk.

Sunday mornings seem to be the day for competitive runs down our street or down the malecón just behind us. So seeing large groups of people dressed in running attire, accompanied by chanting and drumming, isn’t exactly strange anymore. But one Saturday afternoon as we walked back from the malecón, we saw a large group of people, a seemingly endless flow, walking slowly down our street. As we got closer we realized they were zombies. We stopped and watched and eventually figured out that they were walking to the stadium several blocks past our apartment. A guy walked by, taking pictures. “Why is everyone dressed like zombies?” I asked him. “Why not?” he smiled. Good answer.


When we travel to the eastern edge of town, we see a fake soldier “guarding” a sand dune. Apparently this is a holdover from the Sendero Luminoso terrorist violence in the 80s-90s; once they poisoned Lima’s water supply and so now there is a very fake guard posted near the water station to deter any subsequent actions.

When we visited Huancayo, we noticed that the traditional dress for the indigenous mountain people we see sporadically in Lima (and saw more frequently in and around Cuzco) was still in full force there. Women wear their hair in two long braids and covered with a top hat, a full skirt, and warm leggings when cold. The bus stops in Huancayo celebrate this in their design: the roof is a top hat, the sides are two giant braids connected to the ground.

We went to the zoo and saw tigers, lions, zebras, giraffes, owls, monkeys, and many parrots. We saw people FEEDING AND PETTING (!!!!) animals. And we saw a ferocious kitty hanging out in someone else’s habitat.

At Parque Kennedy, it is a given that we will see dozens of cats. Sometimes they are in trees. Once we saw a kitty rescue operation, complete with a tall ladder, security guards, dozens of people gathered, calling out to the cat, and one brave soul who stood on his tiptoes on the top of the ladder and finally grabbed the cat around its neck. He brought the cat down, onlookers cheered, some people petted the cat. They finally let the cat go. It darted away from the crowd.... and promptly ran up another tree.


Mototaxis can fit three people, squeezed into the backseat.  I’ve also seen two mototaxis completely laden with mattresses on the top and on the back, with the backseat filled to the brim with pillows. Or they can transport gigantic loads of lumber, complete with protruding nails.

Vendors sell unsurprising things while walking in between cars and buses at stoplights: soda pops, snacks, newspapers. But they also sell car decals and Q-tips. Who knows when you’ll need an emergency ear cleaning?


And finally, my favorite so far... We were taking a taxi to the airport verrrrry early one morning. Ahead of us was something large that appeared to be falling out of the back of a taxi. We craned our heads to look. It was a fish. A fish!

I thought I must be too sleepy yet, since this seemed a little improbable – a fish being dragged along the highway – but our taxi driver knew what we were exclaiming at and quickly darted through traffic, positioning ourselves right behind the car so we could see it up close. Someone's ceviche special for the day? Yum... I think.