El Salto de Fraile

"You should go to El Salto de Fraile," I was told. "It's that restaurant in Chorrillos where the monks jump off the cliffs into the sea..."

Of course they do, I said, unbelieving. Well. They do. And it's every bit as brilliant as you would think. Now, not a day goes by when I don't want to see a monk jumping off a cliff into the sea. And not only that: I want to see monks doing extreme everything. If it sounds like Whoppi Goldberg would have made a film of it in the 80s, I wanna see it: Monks on the Run, Monk Bungee, Monks Fu, Monk Wrestling, Monks Go Surfing...  Anyway. Here's the real thing.   

Oh? Why do they do it. Tradition. Tradition and honour. Tradition, God and honour. And money. Yeah, they mostly do it for money. 

Monk-y business begins with a lot of hamming up. 

More hamming. Mostly in the direction of the main crowd,
dead ahead, parked by the main road. Monk salutes them. 

A final look down to the seas below...
The mantra: Monk-y sea, Monk'y do. 

One final Angels and Demons like sweep of the arm...

Wait for the wave, crouch, spring... 

... and we have a flying Monk. 

Proving he is not a witch, Monky falls... 

Monks on the Run! And Monk-y legs it back to the parking lot before
the tight fisted spectators make their escape with paying. 

Best of Lima - La Picanteria, Surquillo

A couple of blocks behind Surquillo market, in central Lima, you'll find La Picanteria. A magical restaurant that every guest here will be taken to - clearly still something of a well kept secret, that may change after Gaston Acurio (Peru's Jamie Oliver, kind of) gave it his blessing a couple of weeks ago. The bar is a great little Dickensian snug, and next time I go I'm leaving the kids, ignoring the food, and settling in there.

We wandered in unsuspecting, and wandered out an hour or so later stuffed with some of freshest seafood you could imagine. It ain't cheap, but one main course feeds four. The atmosphere is everything you could hope for, a mixture of great service, salsa playing in the background and plastic table top scruffiness. Oh, and no matter how many times your kids fall off the benches, the waiters will help them up again without obviously judging you.

The bar

Fish face. 

Bar

Menu

Browsing the menu

Bar again. I really liked the bar.

Worst of Lima - those helpful parking people

*Parking Law* As long as a man with a filthy cloth, gum boots, and the ability to whistle has
direct eye line with your car, you park anywhere in Latin America. In front of an embassy, in the middle of a cross roads. Hell, leave it in front of an A&E while you browse the newspaper headlines. As long as whistling rag man makes a series of indistinguishably complicated hand signals at you, you lock and leave.

Somehow communicated through this combinations of hand flapping, whistling and man-nods the following unspoken agreement has been signed and sealed:

Price Plan 1
I will park my car here. You will help me park by pointing out that there is a wall in front of me, and moving cars behind me. If it is still physically here when I return, I will pay you a sum of no less than S/.1 an hour (25p). If under any circumstances you scratch up my car by dragging that pebble strewn rag across its new paintwork, we will agree to call it quits. Ha! You will lose 25p, and it will only cost me around US$350 to fix the scratches. That'll learn you.

Price Plan 2a
I will park my car here. You will help me park by pointing out that there is a wall in front of me, moving cars behind me, and give me an enthusiastic thumbs up just as I scrape my front bumper and lights into the water hydrant that I indicated to you second ago, but you apparently ignored, so busy whistling and saying 'dale dale dale' (translation below) at me. I will pay you S/.2 an hour, plus scraping bonus. This will cost me only US$490 to fix scratches and lights. Costumer wins again.  

Price Plan 2b (see footnote)
I will inexplicably trust you to valet park my car at a location of your choice. After two terrifying hours of insecurity, I will return the same spot, upon which you will miraculously show me my car parked no more than three spaces away. This will call into question two things: firstly, why the need to valet park? Secondly, why did you not steal my car? Roles reversed, hand on heart, I would have stolen my car. But thanks. I will pay you S/.20 out of sheer relief that I still own a car, which rag man bizarrely insists is too much. I settle on S/.10 Seriously though, dude, we should talk. You should probably be stealing these cars.    

Price Plan 3

Price Plan 3: Trustworthy dudes. 

I will park my car in a space of your recommendation. You will clean my car with your filthy rag. As I return, you will jump up onto the wheel and make a huge show of cleaning even the hardest-to-reach-parts, and jump down with your finest just-finished-this-second-m'laud smile. This is the car cleaners' equivalent of the well known office scam: minimizing the Last Minute Dot Com screen whilst expanding Excel the second before the boss passes your workspace before sealing the rouse by out loud in a stage whisper exhale - "and print!" - safe in the knowledge that our superiors where promoted purely on the basis of their gullibility.    

Footnote: 
Price Plan 2b: I believe this option is only taken once, by embarrassed/hungover foreigners who believe they are parking somewhere safer than they are. Said embarrassed/hungover foreigner, let's call this person Dougal Brian, might for no reason assume one of the hand signals means 'There's not much space here. I will park your car somewhere safer.' Being middle class and not wanting to appear racist and untrusting Dougal Brian will hand over the keys. Bemused, the local chap, let's call him Miguel, tries to save Brian's blushes by driving round the block until Brian has walked away. Miguel then spends several terrified hours wondering if Brian has shopped him to the police, under the belief that he was forced to give up his car. Equally relieved to see each other, Miguel and Brian silently agree to never speak of this issue, settling eventually over a bond of S/.10

Glossary: dale - (literally) go on, but a better translation of 'dale, dale, dale' would be as follows 'Go on, I'm not watching, I couldn't give a fuck you new-car-driving-ponce that you are, go on wreck your precious paint work you tool, go on, there it is, a little more - how can you not see that fire hydrant... (crunch) OK, stop there. Done another one. Get in there.' 

Best of Lima - Your local precio fijo

Not my local, but illustrates the point. Plus, I would
feel like a berk taking a photo in the local...  

Fixed price restaurants. All over Peru you'll find a line of little eateries, chalkboards out the front offering more or less the same thing. Fortunately, the same thing is cerviche, chicken broth, tamales, humitas, lomo saltado, roast chicken, with drinks, for about $2. Best of the best is, fortunately, about half a block from where I work, and I'll add a real photo when I don't feel like a ponce for producing a camera-phone.

These are strictly working men's places, but as a gringo, I've found that the transition from stared-at-novelty to totally-ignored-local is about five minutes. Men's worlds they may be, but they are strictly the domain of la madrina - the Godmother. Like a good landlady in your local pub, a decent madrina will shift her clientele with efficient ruthlessness from table to table in order to pack in the next hungry customer, but without a hint of commercialism. People need to eat, her body language states. You're 2 people and here's space for 4. This might well be the third time you've moved in four mouthfuls, but you are now sitting here. Where I've moved your bag. The regulars are used to this, and have perfected a technique of moving without disrupting the fork to mouth rhythm that lesser men should not try lest they lose an eye.

Entertainment comes in various forms. Guaranteed is a TV blaring Peruvian telenovelas: soap operas so dripping in cliches that it's impossible not to get dragged in to the melo-oh-so-much-drama. The lead ladies routinely get shot or slapped by ponytailed men whose biceps prevent them from buttoning their shirts. Presumably the layer cake of make up makes these made up maids on the make bullet proof. They're always there the next week.

Seamlessly transforming into a place to get some cervezas down your neck as soon as the main courses have finished. The telenovela gives way to football, either a violent game in a half empty stadium or a replay of a superclasico from the 80s, flickery screen, bad goal celebrations and tickets strewn across the pitch.

Take the best of your working man's cafe in the UK, add food that's better that it has any right to be, then magically turn it into a pub as soon as you've finished your lunch without even moving your arse. Well, unless madrina tells you so.

All that. For about a quid fifty.