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Encounters on the Miraflores Malecon
Lola had an eventful morning. El Fotografo and I took her for a long stroll along the Malecón in Miraflores, overlooking the ocean, and in the course of one and a half hours she met: her longlost mother her longlost father author Mario Vargas Llosa. We had been walking for an hour when we ran into Pepa. The eerie thing about Lola’s mother is she looks exactly like Lola — a slim, low-slung black European Lab with a delicately shaped head. EF has spotted Pepa several times by the Malecón lighthouse in the last year, but this was my first time meeting maman since we adopted Lola in late 2007. Pepa was carrying a tennis ball…
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Es Hembrita? Owning a Girl Dog in Peru
This post originally appeared on August 9, 2008. I like the piece so I’m running it again while I’m on vacation. Es hembrita? That’s the first question Peruvians ask me when I’m out walking Lola. It doesn’t matter if the person is male or female, young or old, with dog or without. Nine times out of ten, a Peruvian seeing my dog for the first time wants to know if she’s a bitch (hembra). Sometimes, they want to know if she’s a little bitch (hembrita). In contrast, back in the United States the first question people ask is, “What’s your dog’s name?” From the answer, they usually can infer the…
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Lab in a Cab (photo of the day)
Lola in the front seat, Miraflores We took Lola on an hour-and-a-half walk along the Malecon in Miraflores last week. By the end we all were pooped, so we hailed a cab and convinced the driver to take the four of us back home to San Antonio. Lola sat in the front with El Fotografo, squeezed into the tiny floorspace, her tongue lolling. She appeared to enjoy the ride.
