It's been quite the journey, but I'm finally home and well-rested after an 8 day trip to the South American country of Peru. I'm going to quickly summarize the events of the last two days for you here.
You can also look at some of the pictures taken on the trip at https://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp. As of September 3, all of the photos that I plan on uploading should be there.
On Saturday morning, I woke up, after sleeping in, to my last morning in Peru. While we were taking care of all of our bags and getting ready to check out and prepare the rest of the day, my father had the idea of signing up for text alerts for the status of our flight to Miami. Since there was a hurricane churning off the coast of Florida, we thought it would be a good idea to know of any changes to our flight.
Our plan for the rest of the day was to explore the El Centro district in the center of the city, so we took a taxi to the Plaza San Martin, in the heart of the district. This huge square is surrounded by European-styled buildings on all sides and shows the influence that the Spanish had on the architecture of the city. We next walked down the street, "Jiron de la Union", which seemed to be a very commercial area, targeting the middle class, something not too prevalent in Peru. As we walked down this pedestrian-only street (something also rare in Peru), I admired the interesting architecture and also tried my first churro, a delicious donut-like pastry.
Our walk down Jurion de la Union led us to Peru's main square, Plaza de Armas de Lima. Here, an entire city block was transformed into large park with a fountain in the center, surrounded by various European-styled buildings, including a catholic cathedral and the Palace of the Government. Our arrival at the plaza was excellently timed because the changing of the guard at the main governmental palace was just beginning (it was about noon when we got there). This 15 minute celebratory military show was quite the sight. Guards in front of the palace juggled their rifles as military bands played majestic pieces and armored vehicles drove around the building. Although an interesting show, I knew it really just was a display of power by the Peruvian government. There is currently an active guerrilla terrorist group in Peru (The Shining Path), so if the government doesn't show its power, then general citizens will fear not only the group itself, but also that the group will feel like the government can't punish its actions.
We continued walking down Jiron de la Union, passing the Rimac river. The bridge over the river was not the prettiest sight. For the first half of the way over the bridge, there seemed to simply be a dirt ditch with some people working on some underground construction project. The next half was split into two sections. The first was a pretty small channel of brown-looking water flowing through heaps of trash. This, I learned later is actually the Rimac river (Lima's main one) that flows to the Pacific Ocean. The next, larger section was a two-way freeway that certainly doesn't help the city's pollution problem. Across the river, the atmosphere changed dramatically. We were no longer in the nice, middle-class district of El Centro. We were now in an area where Peru's status as a third-world country really showed itself. The buildings looked abandoned even though they were occupied by incredibly cheap food vendors and markets, dog feces littered the streets, and police motorcycles seemed to be patrolling the street. We didn't stay in the area for very long, but the visit to the area really highlighted Peru's income inequality problem. If the country really wants to emerge from the the third world, it needs not to build the ultra-modern, upper-class targeting districts like Miraflores, it needs to solve the underlying problems that are allowing these poor districts right across the river to become depressing slums.
Back across the river, we explored a fascinating open buffet on the streets that served all sorts of authentic Peruvian dishes, an indoor marketplace of Peruvian souvenirs, and a small museum about the history of Peruvian food. We also decided to go for a tour of the Covenant of Santo Domingo, a Dominican priory in the heart of the city center. Like most of the religious establishments we've visited on the trip, this large complex was full of church hypocrisy. The living area was practically a vacation home for the Dominican friars who once lived there. Courtyards were decorated with exotic plant-filled gardens, the walls were decorated with tiles built by Inca slave labor, and the altars and church areas were filled with gold-covered decorations. The paintings on the walls also seemed to show an alternate version of Gospel history, where Dominican friars were present at events like the birth, baptism, and crucifixion of Jesus. Overall, it was an interesting perspective on how Christianity developed in Peru.
For our late lunch, we dined at a somewhat fancy establishment near the Plaza de Armes. While my parents had some more Ceviche (raw fish), I had a dish full of these fried, breaded chicken slices, marinated in yellow chili. The food was quite delicious, but I think it's meant to be more of a fatty, filling snack than a diverse meal, because it filled me up very quickly and I was starting to get sick of the same taste for the whole meal. Almost immediately after we paid for the food, I got a text on my phone: "AA0918 25Aug 10:30P LIM to MIA is CANCELLED". Our flight home was cancelled because Tropical Storm Isaac was threatening the area around Miami. Immediately, we took a taxi back to our hotel where we got on the phone with an American Airlines representative for almost 90 minutes. Although the airline tried to put us on all sorts of ridiculous return trips, one through Los Angeles on Monday afternoon (two days later), we persisted continuously and were eventually granted four of the last few seats on a Delta flight to Atlanta that evening. We were incredibly lucky to get this deal because we later found out that all of the flights going to the US from Lima that night and the next night were completely full by the time we got to the airport. If it weren't for the text alerts that we signed up for in the morning, we may have been stuck in Peru for several days.
To spend the rest of the evening after we prevented a potentially nightmarish situation, we walked one last time through the posh Miraflores district of the city. From our hotel, we walked all the way to the heart of the district where we noticed a protest going on in front of a church in the middle of mass. Although the group of protesters was small (the onlookers outnumbered the ~30 protesters), the sight was something quite interesting and probably unlikely to be seen at all in the US. The crowd of protesters were bunched together at one end of the street, opposite the church, while a wall of riot-shield-holding police officers prevented them from getting any closer to the church. Although nothing interesting happened while we were looking at it from afar, when we tried to get a closer look, something must have happened and we could hear yelling, see police officers rushing to the area, and see a man getting arrested.
For dinner, we ate at another very famous meat-serving restaurant, Panchita. The moment I entered, I could feel how nice and fancy the atmosphere of the restaurant was. A large brick oven could be seen in the middle of the dining area, where various cooks and chefs prepared the meals being ordered. The restaurant wasn't too crowded, as we were dining quite early for Peruvian standards, but we could tell why this restaurant was so well-known. After ordering our food, we got a plate of absolutely delicious bread that enhanced my opinion of the restaurant even more. For my main course, I ordered a meal of two pork cutlets, served with some buttery mashed potatoes and a baked apple. Surprisingly, the baked apple complemented the scrumptiously juicy pork cutlets very well. Though the pork that I had was among some of the most delicious I've ever had, I didn't enjoy the meal as much as I should have. I must have caught a milder version of the bug that affected mother earlier in the week, because I felt full almost all day and simply had trouble stuffing myself with more of the delicious food.
The rest of the trip went quite smoothly. We got to the airport, checked in without a problem (we did see chaos at the American Airlines check-in booth where hundreds of people were dealing with the discovery of their flight being cancelled). At around 12:30AM, our flight departed and we were in Atlanta by 7AM. After clearing US customs and immigration and waiting two and half hours for the connection to Boston, we departed on our final flight to Boston. In Boston, all of our bags seemed to have made it (something that almost never happens when we check in our bags), and we thought our adventures were finished at last. The only problem that we encountered on our trip from Boston to our Rhode Island home was the fact that the battery for our car died because a light on the inside was never turned off. Luckily, the parking lot deals with this problem regularly, so they had a jump start tool that allowed to start our car without too much of a struggle. By 3:30PM, my family was home at last, ready to relax after a full week of exploration and adventure!
You can also look at some of the pictures taken on the trip at https://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp. As of September 3, all of the photos that I plan on uploading should be there.
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| Jiron de la Union |
Our plan for the rest of the day was to explore the El Centro district in the center of the city, so we took a taxi to the Plaza San Martin, in the heart of the district. This huge square is surrounded by European-styled buildings on all sides and shows the influence that the Spanish had on the architecture of the city. We next walked down the street, "Jiron de la Union", which seemed to be a very commercial area, targeting the middle class, something not too prevalent in Peru. As we walked down this pedestrian-only street (something also rare in Peru), I admired the interesting architecture and also tried my first churro, a delicious donut-like pastry.
Our walk down Jurion de la Union led us to Peru's main square, Plaza de Armas de Lima. Here, an entire city block was transformed into large park with a fountain in the center, surrounded by various European-styled buildings, including a catholic cathedral and the Palace of the Government. Our arrival at the plaza was excellently timed because the changing of the guard at the main governmental palace was just beginning (it was about noon when we got there). This 15 minute celebratory military show was quite the sight. Guards in front of the palace juggled their rifles as military bands played majestic pieces and armored vehicles drove around the building. Although an interesting show, I knew it really just was a display of power by the Peruvian government. There is currently an active guerrilla terrorist group in Peru (The Shining Path), so if the government doesn't show its power, then general citizens will fear not only the group itself, but also that the group will feel like the government can't punish its actions.
We continued walking down Jiron de la Union, passing the Rimac river. The bridge over the river was not the prettiest sight. For the first half of the way over the bridge, there seemed to simply be a dirt ditch with some people working on some underground construction project. The next half was split into two sections. The first was a pretty small channel of brown-looking water flowing through heaps of trash. This, I learned later is actually the Rimac river (Lima's main one) that flows to the Pacific Ocean. The next, larger section was a two-way freeway that certainly doesn't help the city's pollution problem. Across the river, the atmosphere changed dramatically. We were no longer in the nice, middle-class district of El Centro. We were now in an area where Peru's status as a third-world country really showed itself. The buildings looked abandoned even though they were occupied by incredibly cheap food vendors and markets, dog feces littered the streets, and police motorcycles seemed to be patrolling the street. We didn't stay in the area for very long, but the visit to the area really highlighted Peru's income inequality problem. If the country really wants to emerge from the the third world, it needs not to build the ultra-modern, upper-class targeting districts like Miraflores, it needs to solve the underlying problems that are allowing these poor districts right across the river to become depressing slums.
Back across the river, we explored a fascinating open buffet on the streets that served all sorts of authentic Peruvian dishes, an indoor marketplace of Peruvian souvenirs, and a small museum about the history of Peruvian food. We also decided to go for a tour of the Covenant of Santo Domingo, a Dominican priory in the heart of the city center. Like most of the religious establishments we've visited on the trip, this large complex was full of church hypocrisy. The living area was practically a vacation home for the Dominican friars who once lived there. Courtyards were decorated with exotic plant-filled gardens, the walls were decorated with tiles built by Inca slave labor, and the altars and church areas were filled with gold-covered decorations. The paintings on the walls also seemed to show an alternate version of Gospel history, where Dominican friars were present at events like the birth, baptism, and crucifixion of Jesus. Overall, it was an interesting perspective on how Christianity developed in Peru.
For our late lunch, we dined at a somewhat fancy establishment near the Plaza de Armes. While my parents had some more Ceviche (raw fish), I had a dish full of these fried, breaded chicken slices, marinated in yellow chili. The food was quite delicious, but I think it's meant to be more of a fatty, filling snack than a diverse meal, because it filled me up very quickly and I was starting to get sick of the same taste for the whole meal. Almost immediately after we paid for the food, I got a text on my phone: "AA0918 25Aug 10:30P LIM to MIA is CANCELLED". Our flight home was cancelled because Tropical Storm Isaac was threatening the area around Miami. Immediately, we took a taxi back to our hotel where we got on the phone with an American Airlines representative for almost 90 minutes. Although the airline tried to put us on all sorts of ridiculous return trips, one through Los Angeles on Monday afternoon (two days later), we persisted continuously and were eventually granted four of the last few seats on a Delta flight to Atlanta that evening. We were incredibly lucky to get this deal because we later found out that all of the flights going to the US from Lima that night and the next night were completely full by the time we got to the airport. If it weren't for the text alerts that we signed up for in the morning, we may have been stuck in Peru for several days.
To spend the rest of the evening after we prevented a potentially nightmarish situation, we walked one last time through the posh Miraflores district of the city. From our hotel, we walked all the way to the heart of the district where we noticed a protest going on in front of a church in the middle of mass. Although the group of protesters was small (the onlookers outnumbered the ~30 protesters), the sight was something quite interesting and probably unlikely to be seen at all in the US. The crowd of protesters were bunched together at one end of the street, opposite the church, while a wall of riot-shield-holding police officers prevented them from getting any closer to the church. Although nothing interesting happened while we were looking at it from afar, when we tried to get a closer look, something must have happened and we could hear yelling, see police officers rushing to the area, and see a man getting arrested.
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| The pork cutlet meal at Panchita |
The rest of the trip went quite smoothly. We got to the airport, checked in without a problem (we did see chaos at the American Airlines check-in booth where hundreds of people were dealing with the discovery of their flight being cancelled). At around 12:30AM, our flight departed and we were in Atlanta by 7AM. After clearing US customs and immigration and waiting two and half hours for the connection to Boston, we departed on our final flight to Boston. In Boston, all of our bags seemed to have made it (something that almost never happens when we check in our bags), and we thought our adventures were finished at last. The only problem that we encountered on our trip from Boston to our Rhode Island home was the fact that the battery for our car died because a light on the inside was never turned off. Luckily, the parking lot deals with this problem regularly, so they had a jump start tool that allowed to start our car without too much of a struggle. By 3:30PM, my family was home at last, ready to relax after a full week of exploration and adventure!
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