Barbara
I am an American writer who lived in Lima for seven years (2007-2014), where I covered Andean traditions, melting glaciers and daily life in the capital for Miami Herald, MSNBC and Huffington Post. I now live and work in northern Florida where I champion climate change advocacy and compassionate, affordable eldercare.
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Photo of the Day: Ausangate Mountain Range
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Preparing to Visit Apu Ausangate
The local Quechua-speaking people consider Ausangate the mightiest apu or mountain lord of the region. Like all apus, Ausangate has a gender (male) and a personality (powerful, easily offended). Local customs dictate that we pay our respects to the apu prior to beginning our trek, to ensure a successful journey.
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Looking for Love, Doggie-style
The come-ons are written in Spanish and taped to a wooden counter by the cash register: ” I’m handsome, neat, and my name is Chester. I’m looking for a hot little bitch who’s crazy for me!” “I’m playful and loving, with a good character. Searching for a beautiful girlfriend to make a family. (Please call my owner’s cell phone number.)” Many include color photos of the machos, like this one for “Diego”: “Hi, my name is Diego and I’m a 4-year-old bombón Lab. I’m searching for a girlfriend. It’s already time to think about the future.” El Fotógrafo and I check out the signs each week when we…
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How Pitiful! Peru Spends 3 Soles per Peruvian on Sports
A recent article in El Comercio, summarized in English by reporter Israel Ruiz, exposes why Peru performs so abysmally in international sporting events like the Olympics. Here’s Ruiz’s complete story published today in Living in Peru: Peruvian sports are trapped in time, said reporters for El Comercio, explaining there were records in the Andean country that had not been broken in almost 40 years. Fernando Acevedo, one of Peru’s past athletes that has not had his records broken affirmed he was not proud of this or the difficult situation the country was facing. “The fact that no one has broken my records shows we have not progressed,” said Acevedo, explaining that without…
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How to (Maybe) Cure a Lima Chest Cold
El Fotografo can't kick this chest cold he's been suffering from for three weeks. Not even the schlep to Santa Eulalia last weekend could knock it out of his system. So I decided to try a home remedy on him that I read about in Suite 101. Now EF's lying in bed swathed in poultices and blankets, just four feet away from me, and the room reeks of Indian food.
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Peru Olympian Sixto Barrera Honored by United Nations
Sixto Barrera carries Peru’s flag during Opening Ceremonies, Beijing Summer Olympic Games, August 2008 Peruvian wrestler Sixto Barrera, who represented his country in the Beijing Summer Olympic Games of 2008, was honored on August 26 by the United Nations, reports RPP Noticias. The wrestler was decorated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for setting an inspirational example for young people. “I am very grateful for the people who supported me and made possible my participation in the 2008 Beijing Olympics,” said Barrera after receiving the distinction by the representative of UNESCO in Peru, Katherine Muller. Peru’s “first guitarist,” Oscar Aviles (now 83 years old) The athlete also was congratulated by the renowned Peruvian Criolla musician…
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Conversations in the Gym
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Moby Dick, Herman Melville & “Strange, Sad” Lima
“…like a Lima tower, cutting my boat in two” Rereading yesterday’s post on writers and Lima’s weather, I became curious about Herman Melville’s riff on Lima as “the strangest, saddest city thou can’st see.” When did Melville visit Lima? What prompted him to go into spasms of melancholy? A quick Google search revealed that the quote doesn’t belong to Melville, per se, but rather to Ishmael, the narrator of Moby Dick. The novel revolves around an embittered seaman, Captain Ahab, who is consumed with hunting down and killing the white albino whale who caused him to lose his leg. In Chapter 42, “The Whiteness of the Whale,” Ishamel begins: What the white whale was…
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Desperately Seeking Sunlight
Valley of Santa Eulalia, Peru, which has sun, big rocks and amazing avocado ice cream There is no sun in Lima during the South American winter. No shifting light. No shadows. No way to tell 8 a.m. from 5 p.m. Just a flat grey sky that stays put, like lint in the dryer basket. I wrote about this yesterday in “Panzo de Burro” and now I’m at it again. This week I’m writing about the weather in Lima because it defines the city. And like many elemental things, it goes unnoticed but influences nearly everything. The sunless Lima winter is strange, bordering on freakish. Surviving a Lima winter is like living on another…
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Deadly Negligence: Peru’s Red Cross & Cold Deaths in Andes
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“Panza de Burro”: The Donkey-grey Sky of Lima
The sun disappears almost completely. The sky is the same dead grey color, from 8 in the morning to 6 at night. A strange weather condition called garua invades the city. Garua is a damp, cold mist that hangs in the air like a cobweb and turns the sidewalks into slippery deathtraps. It never truly rains, however, so the dirt and soot don't wash away. Buildings, plants, cars, street signs – everything is covered in layers of dust (polvo) made moist by the garua. Humidity levels climb during winter, intensifying the cold. As the months wear on, the chilly humidity creeps into the marrow of your bones, until you feel…
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Deadly Negligence: Peru’s Red Cross & Cold Deaths in Andes
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Extreme Bird Love, That
Here in Lima, the trees and rooftops are overrun with cuculis — plumpish grey morning doves who coo mournfully, mate in treetops, and shit absolutely everywhere. With all this cuculi mess around, it’s easy for a Limena to forget that Peru itself is considered a birder’s paradise. I certainly forgot. Then I read an article in last Sunday’s El Comercio about “the four types of foreign tourists” in Peru and what they like to spend their money on, and of the four prototypical turistas, one of them was The Birdlover. Otherwise known as Wads ‘o Cash. Birdlovers, the article claimed, spend more than other visitors to Peru — more than Archaeology/Cultural Tourists,…
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Peru’s Porters Win Ausangate Gold Medal for Weightlifting
The Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics are officially over, the winners have scurried home with their medals, and the losing athletes are either chastised, pitied or forgotten by most of the world. No laurel wreath, no glory, the Olympic equation goes. Not on this blog, however. In the same spirit of honoring athletic excellence that inspired the first Olympic Games, An American in Lima introduces the Ausangate Awards for High-Altitude Athletic Achievement. Just as the Olympic Games are named after Greece’s highest mountain, Mount Olympus (2,919 meters above sea level), the Ausangate Awards take as their namesake the tallest peak in the Cordillera Vilcanota, Mount Ausangate (6,384 meters / 20,945 feet above…
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Lessons Learned Writing about Peru’s Olympians
Seventeen days ago I wrote a short post on “The Big Olympics and Little Peru,” about my shifting perspective, as an American expat in Lima, on the Olympic Games. I thought that one post would be it on the Olympics. Instead, as I dug for background material on Peru’s thirteen Olympians, I discovered that little was being written about the athletes in English. Not only that, Peru’s Spanish-language media outlets gave scant coverage to the Games. Newspapers in Lima were more focused on South American fútbol matches than track & field or gymnastics in Beijing. Faced with an information gap, I decided to fill in as best I could. I’m…
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Peru Olympic Wrap-up: Week 2 in Review
As I’m writing this post, Peru’s long-distance runner Constantino León is racing the last five kilometers of the Men’s Marathon (42.15 km), in Beijing’s National Stadium. Out of the 95 runners who began the race, only 82 remain, and León is 63rd at the 35-km mark. The first-, second- and third-place winners have just crossed the finish line: Kenya’s Samuel Wansiru wins the gold with the impressive time of 2:06:32, setting a new Olympic Record. At 44 seconds behind Wansiru, Jaouad Gharib of Morocco grabs the silver with 2:07:16 (he also breaks the previous OR), and Deriba Merga, of Ethiopia, wins the bronze with 2:10:00. It’s an African sweep. I…
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Peruvian Food “Next Big Thing,” Predicts Todd English, Bon Appetit
Forget Machu Picchu. Ceviche, tiradito and gourmet roast guinea pig are the real reasons to visit Peru, tastemakers are saying this month. In an interview with Guest of a Guest, restauranteur Todd English let it slip that he predicts Peruvian Food Is the Next Big Thing, and foodies are rushing to weigh in on his opinion. The new “Bon Appetit” blog agrees with English, reports Grub Street, with chef Gaston Acurio seen as a leading light in the Peruvian culinary movement. The Grinder notes that some traditional Peruvian fare (lomo saltado, roasted cuy) may be too ordinary to rate as a trend, as some blog commenters have pointed out, but innovative chefs like Acurio may have…
