Wednesday, April 21, 2010

um. hello.

So I'm heading to Arequipa tomorrow. And I am DAMN glad. It's been a nutso week. A couple of nights ago we got hit with a 4.3 Richter earthquake whose epicenter was 4 km away. I woke up in a complete panic but before I could formulate a plan, it was over. Very scary. My heart rate didn't go back to normal for a while...had a hard time getting back to sleep.

Today, the taxi driver Javi had organized came on the wrong day and started an argument with me at 420 am, trying to convince me to go to the airport anyhow. When I was unmoved he told me he would wait outside, just in case.

And to cap it all off, today the airline called me for a fraud check. It's true that my credit card got stolen last year and I "bought" about $3k in lumber, so my credit card company freaks out every time I spend outside of the US. I already had my fraud check with them a couple of days ago when I bought the tickets. So when the airline called today, they too wanted to check my identity. How? I had to give them the first 4 digits of my credit card number, of course. I tried to explain to the hapless idiot on the other end of the phone that they were unlikely to find any credit card thieves who DIDN'T have the credit card number... but he didn't seem to understand.

Oh, peru. Occasionally extraordinarily frustrating. I'm excited to see a volcano, the white city, the deepest canyon in the world, some condors, and to eat amazing arequipeño food, to balance it all out.

Friday, April 16, 2010

in love

Hello fans,

I've falled back in love... with sarsa criolla. It's this amazing yummy relish that is served with almost anything here. Even though i'm not normally a raw onion fan, it turns out to be tangy and zingy and delicious (not to mention cheap to make). I'm going to teach myself how to make it this weekend.

Here's a good recipe I found. You really only need onion, salt, and limes. Great with any sandwiches, tamales, burgers, rice and insert-protein-here dishes. You can see it here atop arroz con pollo.

Till next time! Let me know how it went.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

bienvenidos

Welcome back, folks. It's been a long time. Sorry I've been so out of touch - it's been a rather crazy year that went sort of like this:

Boston-San Francisco - Boston - Lima - Boston - New York - Philly - New York - Boston - London - Nice - London - Boston - Baltimore - San Francisco - New York - Boston - Seattle - San Francisco - Boston - London - Boston - Lima.

phew! So yes, I've been struggling just to stay sane. Apologies. My luggage has also been struggling and I now have an awesome new green plaid bag. I know you're jealous.

So I'm now back in Lima, for a month, working to try to wrap up my project which is about 50% me working and about 50% pushing my collaborators to move forward on their pieces of the puzzle.

Not much has changed in Lima since I was last here. Fujimori is still in jail. Traffic still stinks, The food and people still rock. I still am the canary in the peruvian gastrointenstinal-illness mine. I'm still not a very good surfer. The sunshine here is still glorious, and strong.

What is different? They are building a municipal bus line, as well as a light-rail line. The bus line is slated to be done by (no coincidence) the upcoming municipal elections, and the rail line is being built privately by a Brazilian company. Perhaps next time I come traffic will be much improved!

Also, they are putting in "semaforos inteligentes ", timed crosswalk lights, around town. This has mildly reduced the number of places you have to suicidally run across the street trying not to get hit by traffic. A big step in the right direction, since I have it on good authority from Colin that Peru leads the world in traffic accidents. Which somehow made me realize that, being single, I am far more likely to get hit by a car this month than to wake up next to someone special. Awesome.

Chau chau