Thanks to all of you who commented so positively on my last post. I’m going to offer a few more views before my teaching starts to eat up my whole life. Yesterday was my free day and today was my very first day with my class, and so far everything is going extremely well. Knock wood.

In terms of showing more of Lima, I find myself in my typical challenge in a developing country. That challenge is….how to photograph sensitively. Much of wealthy Lima is walled, guarded, heavily camera-ed. One or more slightly bored security guard/s might take my actions amiss. And much of unwealthy Lima isn’t scenic at all, and people might not take kindly to me shooting pictures of things…that just aren’t much to write home about. So I am proceeding with caution, and hopefully the following will give you a good idea.

So, here’s a typical street scene in my hotel’s neighborhood:

High buildings, low buildings, not much street life, trees here and there. There’s a lot of this. An interesting unguarded house gives you an idea of the (ahem) range of architectural styles:

So instead of street walking, I set out to explore some of the archeological ruins that dot the city. Here’s one (closed Sundays, of course) that’s quite near my hotel:

This is Huaca Huallamarca, originally located near one of the main settlements of the Pinazo peoples dating from about 200 BCE. It appears to have been a cemetery of sorts, with nearly 50 funerary bundles of human remains having been extracted. Both cool and slightly creepy to have this just sitting there, surrounded by urban sprawl.

So, since the quick, close, and easy option was out of the question yesterday, I continued my quest and strolled down to the Huaca Pucllana Site Museum, which is supposed to look something like this:

This is another adobe and clay pyramid structure located a few kilometers from the first one. It is constructed of seven staggered platforms and, according to Wiki, served as an important ceremonial and administrative center for the advancements of the Lima Culture, flourishing between 200 AD and 700 AD.

Alas, all I could see, since it was too hot for me to enter and be unshaded long enough to tour the site, was a bit of the dirt. Still pretty cool.

By now I was just plain hot and tired, and on my way back to my air conditioned expat heaven, I ran into this lovely urban green space, known as Parque El Oliver de San Isidro.

The story here is that a Spanish colonialist in the 16th century brought several olive trees from Seville to Peru, but only three of them survived the voyage. He planted them in this area, at that point far outside the small settlement of Lima. Those three grew to an orchard of over 3000, and the grandaddy of them all is this bad boy:

By this time I was well and truly done in, with only one clear path of action: dinner. Here’s proof positive that I have actually now finally had a pisco sour, and a fine fine beverage it is indeed, here served with some damn tasty tacos:

As I was heading back to my hotel, I saw the most interesting sign on the wall of another local restaurant:

…which crudely translated into the vernacular of my peeps states:

“It is prohibited to carry out physical or verbal behavior of a sexual nature or connotation that offends any personnel who is and/or transits through this district.”

Hmmm. One truly wonders what must have been the provocation for this posted sign. Any and all cultural insights welcome.

So by now you’ve completely forgotten that I have actually come here *to work.* But today the adventure began – I met a group of smart young Peruvian government employees facing a huge task. We got off to a good start and I hope I can continue to deliver the support they need. Here we are in some group exercise or other, enjoying a lovely ceremonial room in a lovely historical building in downtown Lima:

More soonish, inshallah. Enjoying every moment of this wild ride.