From Limón to Lima to Limón once again

A good blog post must always begin with a play on words in the title, right? Since it's my first attempt at a blog (long overdue, I know), I'm grateful to have at hand all the exotic twists of Spanish to impress you gringos reading back home with my clever and catchy names. So here's a phrase for all of you to learn: ¿Qué te crees, eres la última chupada del mango? It's the equivalent of saying, What, do you think you're all that and a bag of chips? Literally, it means, What, do you think you're the last lick (or suck) of the mango? And I must say, Peru really is all that - the last lick of the mango, as it were.

I've successfully survived, and in my humble opinion, thrived in my first week here in Lima, and I'm about as happy as a claxon on a cúster (more on that to come). This place is lively, colorful and just flat-out fun. The food is absolutely incredible - a true hidden gem among world cuisines (and it doesn't hurt that you can get a full three-course meal for lunch - appetizer, entreé, drink and dessert - at a reasonably quality restaurant for only 12 soles, about $5). Indeed, so far I've had famous Peruvian dishes such as ceviche (raw fish marinated in lime juice - delicious), lomo saltado (sirloin with onions, tomatoes, fried potatoes over rice), cow heart, chicha morada (a beverage made from purple corn and cinnamon), and several fruits and juices that I had never heard of before - maracuya, lúcuma, chirimoya, and dozens more yet to be had. Everything is served with aji, which is a spicy and muy saboroso sauce made from chili peppers.

Drivers are absolutely crazy. There are no traffic laws, yet nobody ever gets in an accident (at least not that I've seen), because they're all hyper-aware of their surroundings at all times. I live in a swanky apartment on the 11th floor of a high rise right on the busiest street in San Isidro, the main business district of Lima. At any given time, day or night, I can look out my window and see at least 5-10 taxis and another 5 or 6 buses, which honk their horns (claxones) at every passerby they see if they're trying to pick someone up. There are three types of buses - large omnibuses, like those we have in the States; mid-sized custers (no, I have no idea why they're called custers) ;and tiny li'l thangs called micros or combis.

The people are incredibly friendly and helpful and patient with my broken Spanish, which has indeed improved rapidly over the course of the week, and we've been having good success teaching the Taller de Autoempleo (Self-Employment Workshop) so far. But I will explain more on this in a future post. This is only a beginning, and I'm excited for all that the next 12 weeks has in store! Thanks for reading!

-Your humble adventurero

By the way, the title of this post comes from the fact that during my training for teaching the Self Employment Workshop in Salt Lake City before I came, we created lemonade stands as a simulated small business, and that of my group was called Limón (meaning lime, not lemon). Then we arrived in Lima (Lemon), and on our first Monday here we went to a restaurant with Napoleón, our boss, that was called El Limón. It was there that we first tried ceviche. Both Robert and I found some kind of strange ironic karma in it. I was hoping to explain more about this (and a whole lot else) during this post, but it's about that time, so I'll have to continue later. Chao! Cuidense!