When we last left off, we were about to tour the Catedral
San Francisco in Lima. After waiting ten minutes for
an English-speaking guide, she finally arrived and led us
upstairs, where there was an incredible domed ceiling that
looked like a honeycomb from the inside. The guide
informed us that it was constructed using the dovetail technique,
which meant that the pieces of wood are fit together precisely
and are held together by pressure and gravity, without the
use of nails, screws, or glue.
We
next went up to the library, the second largest in South
America. The library was very impressive and the books
were very old. The guide noted that when it was built,
there wasn’t an abundant supply of wood, so the walls were
hand-painted to look like they were made of wood.
We then saw several rooms with paintings, mostly of monks
who had lived there, but there was also a large painting
of The Last Supper. The guide made sure to
point out that the main course was the Peruvian delicacy
“Cuy” (guinea pig).
The
last notable room we visited before heading down to the
catacombs was the Choir Room, where the monks would sing
during services, overlooking the congregation. The
pipe organ looked very old, and we learned that it required
two people to operate. One would play the keys and
the other was inside the organ, riding a bicycle-like contraption
that powered the organ. It was straight out of Gilligan’s
Island. Another notable feature of the choir
room were the stalls where the monks stood during mass.
Their seats could be converted to taller, but smaller, seats
that the monks used to rest on while giving the appearance
that they were still standing. Those sneaky monks!
We
then went under the church to explore the catacombs.
This was by far the best part of the tour. We saw
several mass graves where the bones of previously exhumed
bodies rested. The bones were sorted by type:
femur, ulna, etc. By doing this, the archaeological
research showed that there were approximately 25,000 people
buried there.
We
concluded our tour and met a friendly tourist police officer
in the courtyard outside. He was very courteous and
helpful, suggesting that we wear our backpacks on our chests
whenever we walk around in crowded areas, as thieves are
known to walk behind tourists and slowly unzip their bags
in order to steal their contents. He also confirmed
our suspicion that we had been paying too much for taxis.
Just after we had walked away to find a taxi, he stopped
us and asked if we liked jokes. He then told us a
few, and luckily his English was good enough that we could
understand them:
Joke
#1: A family was on a sea voyage on a large
ship when their child fell overboard. The parents
panicked, asking one of the crew members to save their
child. He said that he couldn’t do it. They
then rushed to beg the captain for help, and his reply
was the same. Then, they heard a big splash—it
was a priest who was also traveling on the ship, and he
was saving their child. When they managed to get
back aboard the ship, the parents thanked the priest profusely.
They offered the priest a million dollars for saving their
child, but he declined. They asked him if he wanted
two million dollars, but again he refused. So they
asked him, “What do you want?!?” The priest replied,
“I want to know who pushed me off the ship!!!”
Joke
#2:
A young Peruvian man moved to New York City. After
settling into his apartment, he found an authentic New
York restaurant, but since his English wasn’t very good,
he could only tell the waiter, “I hungry.” The waiter
asked him what he would like to eat, but the man knew
nothing about American cuisine, so he just replied, “Anything.”
The waiter told him that he would serve him one of the
restaurant’s specialties. A short while later, the
waiter brought the meal and told the man that it was a
hot dog. The man asked the waiter, “What is a hot
dog?” Struggling, the waiter told him that it was
a “perro caliente.” The man then stared at his meal
for a minute, and then asked the waiter, “Can I have another
part of the dog?”
I
didn’t say that they were funny.
We
headed back to the hostel and relaxed for a few hours before
heading out for food and drinks in nearby Barranco with
Bridge and Mel (the two Canadian girls). The five
of us piled into a taxi that resembled a ’88 Hyundai Excel—not
the roomiest back seat for four adults. The driver
tried to find the restaurant we had selected, and after
asking several pedestrians to guide us to the correct street,
we found it. Unfortunately, it was closed, and it
was located in what looked like a back alley. Across
the street were several young men hanging around, not really
doing anything, so, not feeling entirely safe, we asked
the driver to take us closer to the center of Barranco,
which has some of the best nightlife in the Greater Lima
Metro area. He drove about half a block, where we
found a busy street with a lot of people and restaurants.
We felt a little silly, but I guess we were better off being
safe than sorry.
We
agreed on a restaurant and took our seats. The guys
all order different dinners, and the girls, who already
ate dinner, ordered gelatos, or so they thought. It
turned out to be Jell-o, but there’s always room for Jell-o,
right Mel? We let the girls try a bit of each of our
meals—we’re getting much better at ordering, except
for Tesh, who ordered the “Tacu Tacu,” a dish the guidebook
recommended trying before leaving Peru. It wasn’t
great, but it came with some seafood, and that was very
good. In fact, each of us ordered different seafood
dishes, and they all exceeded our expectations.
After
dinner, we walked a block to the central plaza, where there
were many vendors selling their wares. There was even
the guy we’ve all seen in Westwood or Berkeley who makes
fantastic paintings using only a few cans of spray paint
and some random scraps of paper. We walk to the other
side of the plaza, where we recognize the bar that we went
to our first night in town. The whole plaza looks
entirely different now—on Saturday at 10:30pm—than
it did our first time there—3:00am on a Friday morning.
The
five of us then go through a ritual that has already become
habit among Tesh, Rocky and myself: “Where do you
want to go?” “What do you want to do?” No one
ever wants to be responsible for picking a place that ends
up being horrible. So, I point to Mel and tell her
to pick a place. Every good leader knows when to pass
the buck...I mean, “delegate authority.”
She
decides that we should check out Déjà Vu.
The guys find it somewhat humorous because we’re reminded
of yesterday’s “Nightclub” conversation with the taxi driver.
In the States, there is a chain of strip clubs that go by
this name. However, this Déjà Vu is
a discoteca. We go inside and order a few pitchers
of beer, trying to ignore the amorous couple in the corner.
It’s still early by Peru standards, so we didn’t have any
trouble finding a table and could have the dance floor to
ourselves if we had wanted.
Since
it’s pretty dead, we discuss whether we should leave, but
decide to stay when we learn that they start charging a
cover at midnight. How crazy is that? The party
definitely gets started late in Peru. People gradually
fill the bar and things pick up after the staff sings “Happy
Birthday” to a girl at a table near us.
Then
the bartender and a waitress start line dancing on the bar.
Laughing, we start talking about the movie Coyote Ugly,
reflecting on how fun it would be to dance on the bar.
A few seconds later, we see a few patrons get up on the
bar and start dancing with the staff. Without thinking,
I grab Bridge, who enthusiastically joins me for a dance
on the bar. I tried to persuade the rest of our group
to join us, but they decided not to follow, so I decided
to lead by example. At least Rocky took some good
pictures and video.
Bridge
and I danced a few more times that evening (but now it was
on the actual dance floor)—once to a salsa song, where
I pretty much followed her lead (though I do know the basic
step, I’m a little slow at improvising), and once to a regular
club song. Actually, it was more like half a club
song because she passed me off to some random chick that
had been making flirty eyes at me...hmmm...or maybe it was
I who ditched her. Funny how we remember things the
way we want to.
Our
dancing was interspersed with more beer and a lot of conversation.
Bridge and I spoke mostly Spanish to each other because
we wanted to practice—that and the topic of one conversation
was me trying to convince her to kiss me, and I knew that
the others wouldn’t be able to follow what we were saying.
I seem to have this habit of trying to kiss girls I’ve just
met after I’ve had a few drinks. She politely declined,
stroking my ego by telling me that she would love to kiss
me but that she just broke up with her boyfriend to take
her yearlong trip to South America and that it was her FIRST
night here. She said she wished that she had met me
a few months into the trip, as she would surely feel different.
How sweet of her.
When
we left the club, Bridge wanted to take a picture in front
of the Domino’s Pizza next door (she had recently worked
at a Domino’s back home), but was confronted by an angry
employee who didn’t want her to photograph the restaurant.
Copyright infringement, perhaps? We quickly took the
picture anyway. Bridge was on her first night of a
yearlong trip, and already she had danced on a bar and pissed
off a local, not to mention the fact that she poured too
much foam when she refilled my beer! What would her
mother think?
We
headed back to the hostel and wished the girls a good night.
We needed to get up in only a few hours to catch our flight
to Cusco in the morning. I go to sleep thinking about
how much I hate to fly.
Oliver
can be reached at oliver@babblog.com. |
