The origin of the Panama, marketing, and Jean Claude van Damme (?)

Maia, looking so cute in a Panama Cuencan hat. 

"Did you know, my friend," said nearly anyone we fell into conversation with, "that it is Cuenca in Ecuador that is the home of the so-called 'Panama' hat?" I shake my head, trying to look impressed by this in no way new information again. "Let me guess," our resident Nostradamus patronises, rolling his eyes, "you thought it was Panama, didn't you?"

Yes I did, I don't tell him. Of course I did. Everyone does. But this mis-information clearly pisses off your average Panamanian Cuencan, who believes that we've been wearing Panamas Cuencans for years. Only the material comes from Panama, or something. My point is, it's a battle that was lost a long, long time ago. No one is going to start calling them Cuencans.

This was something of a theme of our trip. Marketing is clearly still not a strength of Ecuador. Whether it was the inability to match a sign with what was on offer, Ecuador clearly still can't market its way out of a wet paper bag (plastic):

Pacha Cafe: coming soon to street near you

We've loving chalked in today's specials. Man, I could murder an empanada right now.
Looks like I am just minutes away from... 

... from bugger all. That's what. And definitely not empanadas. Not for another year or so... 

When you think of stationary, you think of... 

You run a stationary store. You need an eye catching sign, something that Joe public associated with stationary. I've got it! Let's hand paint an image of long forgotten Belgian born 90s action movie star and fully certifiable nutjob Jean Claude Van Damme. If JCVD doesn't shift staplers, what's going to?

Kickboxer, AWOL, Universal Soldier, Hard Target. Not once do I
recall Jean Claude doing any paperwork in these films.    

Who ate all the pays?

"I'd like some lemon pie (pay de limon!) please, as advertised outside."
*Leave empty-handed, hungry and confused*

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.

Chorrillos

Chorrillos, the wonderfully scruffy barrio full of hidden gems just south of Barranco, introduced to us by Ned and Amy, where seemingly all summer the mist cuts off Miraflores like a mark of respect, removing the Lima that is desperately trying to be the first world, and leaving the far more enjoyable reality.

The fish market is a cracker. Fish are piled up on tables and vaguely arranged into species, and a local hawker in a shirt covered in fish gut barks prices at you. As a gringo, this is interspersed with offers of boat rides, offers of restaurant deals and, inexplicably, the chance to take a photo of your child with an inflatable dolphin. 

Jurassic Park

Best of all for the kids is the chance to feed the pterodactyls pelicans:

    

Playa de pescadores

The beach is rammed, and in no way luxurious, but you can't help but enjoy the proximity of the local families who'll watch your stuff for you, play with your kids or point out that a man dressed as a giant chicken is handing out candies on the seafront. The uber-exclusive Regatta's club is on the next door beach, and whilst they have a floating trampoline and a giant slide, I'd rather be here any day. Well, that and the lifelong waiting list of people willing to $65,000 to join. 

Boat trip

... was lame as toast, and even Leah was complaining that there was no danger of capsizing. But Maia had a good chat with the captain, after resting on his chest while he was trying to nap, and an 11 year-old steered us in to a series of boats.

El Sabor del Exito

Finished off in style with lunch and beers at El Sabor del Exito, which is splendid. Cracking food, great service, a bucket with water so you can wash our feet after the beach, cheap cold beer and fresh fried fish.

 

Plus, they let your kids dance around the drunk... er... itchy... regulars.

  

Can't wait for a lot more of this in the future. 

What I have learned about Peruvians, Part 1

What I have learned about Peruvians so far. Now, I have little doubt that I will look back at this and it will be little more than, well, frankly, racist stereotyping. But hopefully in the well-meaning Bill-Bryson-aren't-Germans-humorless-but-efficient way, rather than in the comments-heard-off-air-by-a-football-commentator way. Anyway, here goes:

- No means, or looks like it means, yes. A strange, downward intonation ya replaces the expected si, often with a companying shake of the head.

- Poker faces, the lot of them. Don't give nothin' away.

- When drunk, poker face drops. Significantly. Very Scottish, in this respect, but without the aggression.

- They're not a huge fan of Chileans.

- They're not huge fans of Argentines.

- Distinction. They hate Chileans. I was being way too light before.

- They are huge fans of running red lights.

- They like a firework or two.

- A Peruvian can nap like no other. Never is this more true of your taxi driver, where, if he were to deign to stop at a red light (which he wouldn't), he might even catch 17 seconds worth of winks (which he could).

- They're surprising up front about money. I've been asked often in conversation how much I earn, what I get paid, what I pay for rent and so on. Financially speaking, what am I doing in Peru? I don't find this invasive, save for the fact that financially speaking, I don't know what the crap I am doing on the planet, so it's hard to think of a sensible response.

- Nice house. How much are you playing for it? What did your car cost? You pay for those shoes in quotas?

- They know their food.

- In spite of knowing their food, they're mad for the double carb: rice and chips, not either/or.

- Many many of their standard supermarket food stuffs have comedy rude names: Tosh biscuits, BattiMix yoghurts, Wanka fruit, Fanny, Bimbo, Hornyman tea...   

- Traffic = British weather. So bad it requires to be constantly remarked on. One cannot, cannot, resign oneself to the fact that THIS.IS.HOW.IT.IS

- They like a moderate climate: and by moderate I mean 23 degrees, slightly overcast. Any less and it might as well be 3 degree (lowest, about 16?), any more and you'd think you were living on the sun (que calor, no puedo, simplemente no se puede..).

- Above rules do not apply on a beach. They love a beach. Any old type of shitty, pebbly, strong current carrying crap... beaches rock.

- Every single Peruvian male I have met so far was there - actually there! - at the 1978 World Cup, Peru v Scotland, in Argentina, for Peru's famous victory. Even if they are in their 20s, they were there.

- They're tough as old boots. I guess they would be, when you look at the forging-a-living-out-of-the-desert, resisting-the-Spanish, braving-the-16-degree-winters history of the country, but they're nails. Playing football against Argentines was humiliating, but never painful: skillful but soft. Against Peruvians, the opposite.

- They hate Chileans. Did I mention that? Well, if its good enough for them to mention every couple of minutes, it's enough for me. Frikkin' Chilenos.