Mate de coca, chicha morada y mas in Lima, Peru

South America is huge.  We flew 2 1/2 hours to Santiago and then another 4 up to Lima, arriving just an hour before Karen landed.  Miguel was waiting for us and soon we whisked away back to their home in Lima.  Miguel and Balvi are the parents of Mark's brother's wife Amarilis who lives in Berlin with Frank and their three children.  On our first day, we had a delightful breakfast with them before tackling the historic center of Lima.  Lima is a bustling capital of about 9 million people.  It experienced a massive population influx in the 1900's (only 630,000 people lived in the city 70 years ago) and a turbulent past at times but now seems to be thriving.  We started at Plaza San Martin where the central monument pays homage to Juan de San Martin, the Argentine who liberated Peru from the Spanish in 1821.  Under San Martin is a special statue of Madre Patria.  It was commissioned in Spain under instructions to sculpt 'a women of liberty with a crown of flames'.  Turns out one of the words for 'flames' also means llama and so sits a cute little llama on top her head.  I think someone may have lost their day job over this mistake.

We strolled along the old aristocratic pedestrian street to the Plaza de Armas.  We've seen a few on our travels but this plaza is by far the most attractive!  The central bronze fountain was erected in 1650 and it is surrounded by the Cathedral, Archbishop's Palace and Palacio de Gobierno (the presidential home).

A young girl was possibly taking photos for her fiesta de quince

We toured the Cathedral which was actually quite interesting and contained artwork and massive woodwork pieces dating back centuries.  It also includes the crypt of Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish conquistador who conquered the Inca empire in the early 1500's.  He died in battle but his remains were lost for centuries and only found in 1977 in a lead box beneath the cathedral.  Not surprisingly, he is not viewed favorably by indigenous populations.  

Lunch was a long-standing (since 1905) cafeteria next to the President's house that claims to be the favorite eatery of every president.  We drank chicha morada, the corn juice made from blue corn, and ate a side of tacu tacu (fried rice and bean cake).

We returned to la casa for a descansar (rest) before treating Miguel and Balvi to dinner nearby.  It's been fun to see their old photo albums of their three children (Amarilis, Vanessa and Irasema) and their six grandchildren who all live in Germany.

Learning the intricacies of pisco

Our second day was a culinary delight!  But first, we returned to the plaza to view the changing of the guards ceremony in front of the presidential palace.  It was quite a show with music and dozens of guards marching.  

Karen and I also explored the Monastery of San Francisco which dates back to the 1600's and includes a library with 25,000 historical texts (many of which were just sitting on a shelf in disrepair unfortunately) and catacombs where over 70,000 bones (but only the long bones and skulls just to keep it extra creepy) are stacked in symmetrical patterns in deep wells.

School kids lined up all in a row

Yup creepy.  But so many were buried here because they thought being buried below/near the church would be a straight ticket to heaven.

We returned for a delicious lunch of pisco sours, palta relleno (stuffed avocado), lomo saltado (steak and vegetable stir-fry) and lemcru (a local fruit that tastes like maple and sweet potato) ice cream.

Miguel presenting the pisco sours!  Delicious!

 After a few hours of wonderful conversation, we meandered to the ritzier Miraflores and Barranco neighborhoods to walk off our great meal.  Lima is situated on these big cliffs overlooking the Pacific and it's quite a dramatic view, even at night.  We eventually shared a dessert of picadores (pumpkin fried bread and syrup) before returning home.  What a lovely day!

Buenos Aires Part 1!

Lonely Planet describes Buenos Aires (BA) as an electrifying city but one that "acknowledges the city's riches coupled with the despair of not realizing its full potential."  We heard to "be careful" but were mostly just eager and ready to settle in and get to know this city for the next 10 days.  We stayed a few nights in San Telmo, the historical heart of the city, which is lined with cobblestone streets, cafes and plazas and is really close to the microcentro (downtown). To understand the city's history better, we toured an interesting archaeological site close to our hostel called El Zanjon de Granados.  The site was a rich Spanish family's mansion until 1870 when yellow fever hit the neighborhood and the rich moved to Recoleta.  It was then an immigrant tenement house for over 100 people for the next 75 years and then completely abandoned and fell in to disrepair.  A man bought it in the 1980's and during the repairs, discovered old tunnels, sewers and water wells dating back to 1730 which he meticulously reconstructed.  Historians now believe this was the site of some of the earliest settlement of BA dating back to 1536.  

The rich look funny but they're drinking their mate from a bombilla, just like all the locals do now!

Hard to imagine big BA this small!

This was where the famous river once was tunneled.  Now the museum owns this property from underneath their neighbors. 

On Saturday, we joined a free walking tour.  We started at the Congress building which was modeled after the US Congress Building and completed in 1906. In is across from the Plaza del Congreso which was filled with beautiful sculptures and pigeons.

The Congress building (L) and a famous old cafe (R) which is now boarded up (but houses homeless).  Demonstrates the proximity of wealth and poverty in this country. 

Cotton candy seller. Everyone's just trying to make a living

An original 'The Thinker' sculpture by Rodin. 

We walked through the widest avenue in the world, Av. 9 de Julio (the date of independence), which is not actually the widest (Brazil has one twice as wide) but Argentineans will tell you the one in Brazil is a highway and thus, it is still the widest avenue in the world.  

Indigenous protesters live under those blue tents and have been protesting to the government for months. 

Palacio Barolo (1923) was designed in accordance with the cosmology of Dante's Divine Comedy.

The beautiful historic apartments (like Palacio Barolo) of the 1900's line Av. de Mayo which also was hosting a special market and dance show, right in the middle of the street.  I loved the colors of the vendors and these young girls about to perform folklore dances.

Soon we were at Plaza de Mayo, the heart and soul of BA. Casa Rosada is the presidential office building on the east side and the Catedral Metropolitana is on the opposite side.  This is where Pope Francis served as Cardinal for decades.  I included an old photo of the Catedral from 1887 as well.

More protesters outside the fences surrounding Casa Rosada. 

The Capildo was a government house back in the 1600's.

We left the tour here to tour Casa Rosada which offers free tours on the weekends.  Christina Kirchner is the current President and from what we've gathered, she isn't very popular (elections are in October so I expect a new President will be elected).  Demonstrations frequently take place outside the Casa Rosada too.

The rose hue is due to original paint mixtures that contained cows blood but also could symbolize historical respect between two past political groups: the reds and the whites (= pink). 

Casa Rosada in 1900

Still it was interesting to walk around and see the different rooms.  We even were filed through Kirchner's actual office (and saw little kid drawings on the wall behind it, etc).  I highly doubt any free tour will EVER go through the US President's actual office!

The guard in the main meeting room.

The Women's Room highlights women's contributions in politics (note Evita's photo) and is used for press conferences.

This room is used for swearing-in and official musical presentations. 

I liked hearing more about Eva Peron, the wife and First Lady of President Juan Peron back in the 1940's and early 50's.  She worked tirelessly for social issues like education and voting (women were only finally able to vote in Argentina in 1947!) and the entire country was devastated when she died of cervical cancer in 1952 (she was the first Argentine to ever receive chemotherapy, which was still in its infancy as a treatment method).  More on her later when we tour her tomb in Recoleta.

The famous balcony overlooking Plaza de Mayo where Eva "Evita" Peron, the beloved First Lady from the 1940's, would give her speeches.  We tried to sing like Madonna from the movie (also filmed here) but it didn't go over well. 

After the tour, we ventured back to the famous Cafe Tortoni, the oldest coffee shop in the country.  Opened in 1858, it has hosted intellectuals, politicians and artists to relax and enjoy their famous coffees.  We tried the Submarino which was a hot glass of milk and a piece of chocolate, shaped like a submarine, that you drop in the milk.  Soon, it's delicious hot chocolate.

I loved the historic photos they displayed in the back like this one showing the Cafe in 1901. 

That evening, we moved to our airbnb in Palermo, a newer part of the city, and met up with Ravina, our Canadian friend from our Mendoza airbnb for dinner in the fashionable Palermo Soho district. After a great dinner, we ventured to Frank's Bar, a trendy speakeasy where we needed a code and a special number to enter the bar through an old (and working!) telephone booth.  

On Sunday, we found yoga in the local park and a local flea market where Mark found a functioning Remington Portable typewriter from the 1920's for a great deal.  Sunday is also the big San Telmo Market which runs for many blocks and includes thousands of unique art, jewelry and gifts.

After the vendors break down their stalls, Plaza Doreggo turns in to a molanga where tango music and a makeshift dance floor allows anyone who wants to partake.  We let the experts do their thing and just enjoyed from the sidelines.