Lima Living and Lima Leaving

Jorge and I arrived in Lima on July 15th, 2014. The idea was to 'give it a whirl' -- find a trendy neighborhood (Barranco), establish ourselves in a new home (the Temporary Shoebox), Jorge finds a job at a salon (or five), and Shannon finishes a novel (done).

Four months later, we're still in Lima. We've given it the general consensus whirl (which, in backpacker world, is roughly 3 months of living in a place) and the verdict is in: TIME TO MOVE ON.

Don't get me wrong: Lima is a really cool city. Barranco is one of my favorite big city neighborhoods in perhaps all of Latin America. There are trendy boutiques, there are jaw-droppingly gorgeous gardens, there is NATURE, there is a sparkling coastline, there are varied and exciting restaurant options. Who wouldn't want to live here??

View from walking around Barranco.

A sunset we caught on Sunday. Spring means less cloudy days,

which means we can finally see actual sunsets!

Well, we don't. Lima is just too damn big. Jorge has it worse than I do -- he has to commute almost two hours each day to reach his job that is just in the next neighborhood over (Miraflores). Let me repeat that -- almost two hours each day to reach a "really close job". Jorge has some particular horror stories of having to go to any other part of Lima for work courses or other tasks, and it taking up to two hours one way sometimes to get to a place.

Forget about getting anywhere quickly. Forget 'just wandering over to a friend's house' in Lima -- if they live anywhere other than your same neighborhood, you're looking at a minimum 45 minute taxi ride.

Rush Hour traffic in Lima. 

[photo credit: www.worldbank.org]

Maybe for some people this is normal, or just an expected part of the landscape. But for us, it's taxing. It's time-consuming. It's draining.

Lima, we've had some good times here, and we've enjoyed our time in the tiny shoebox. But overall, Jorge and I are very ready to move on. We're ready for more community-based living, like we had in Valparaiso. We're ready for a house that isn't pure white walls, cement floors and sputtering hose sinks; I'm particularly ready for an oven again. There are a number of CASSEROLES I'd like to make. I'm ready for some soil, a view, less traffic-clogged and chaotic street experiences.

The perfect city is more than just having access to things you like. I thought Barranco would be perfect because it seemed the ideal blend of big city and unique neighborhood. But just as important for me, I've learned, is the ease of moving about, accessibility of community, and whether or not it takes a Bachelor's degree to understand the goddamn bus system.

So here's the news: We're moving to Cuzco in a week!! I'm very excited for this next chapter of Life in Peru, and I think the Sacred Valley will have plenty of surprises and experiences for us when we arrive in November.

Chau, Lima, and thanks for all the ceviche! Onward to Cuzco!

Another Jaunt to the USA

Folks! I apologize for the lengthy and unexplained disappearance. While there were no mysterious fogs that consumed me, nor an unintentional overdose on ceviche, there WAS another trip to the United States of America.

And boy, was that joyous and action-packed!

It started with a harrowing all-the-worst-things American Airlines flight (two delays, flight switching, late boarding, engine failure, flight cancellation, hundreds of angry passengers and no way out of Lima, an inexplicably *closed* Lima airport???, passport stamp cancellations, long lines, sleepless night, to name just a few) that somehow managed to deliver me not to Baltimore as I originally scheduled but to D.C.-Reagan. I made it to my family by the hair on my neck, and we attended my cousin's wedding as planned. A great time was had by all.

After a few lovely days in D.C. visiting family and the headquarters of my day job for the first time EVER, I flew back to Ohio, which began a whirlwind explosion of friends, family, and fall! 

There were dinner parties, shopping sprees, cleaning sprees, art nights, family visits...

...and road trips...

excellent time with soul mate friends...

good quality OHIO moments...

reunion of best friends...

this dog...

and best of all, a surprise 60th Birthday Party for my beloved father!! And he didn't even suspect it! 

The time was, as always, a desperately fun and fast-moving, delightful whirlwind. By the time I felt settled in the USA once more, it was time to leave. The only thing that made my departure easier to bear was that a certain Argentinian was waiting (VERY patiently, I might add!) for me in Lima.

Experiencing fall in the USA again was, as suspected, almost too much for my fair Midwestern heart to bear. When I arrived to Baltimore in early September it was basically high summer still, though within a week or so it firmly switched to fall. I was able to drink apple cider, sometimes spiked and sometimes not, touch pumpkins, crunch leaves, and witness gorgeous tree transitions. The crisp fall airs at night, too, were appreciated.

And as though Ohio was making sure I left the country completely satisfied...the day of my departure, it felt exactly like spring.

Thank you, friends, family and homeland, for yet another delightful, inspiring, and nourishing visit!

A Treatise on Temporary Spaces

My partner and I have a pretty non-traditional lifestyle at the moment, as most of you are aware. In our passive vagabonding, the plan is to be transients in each new locale. Conceptually speaking, we aren't planting roots anywhere.

What this literally means is I can't plant flowers, or vegetables, or buy appliances, or get a rug for this hideous floor.

And this adaptation to the actual temporary nature of each place is a bit hard.

Jorge and me, we're nesters. Maybe me more than him. Though we're travelers, we like to make each little space our own. And we like to be comfortable.

Most Latin American countries are really well-equipped for people like us. There has always been a very large population of travelers, long stay-ers, students, and visiting artists. So there is no shortage of completely outfitted apartments for rent on a short-term basis, or even just bedrooms available in a shared house.

We saw many of these in Lima, prior to selecting our shoe box. In Valparaiso and even Puerto Varas, it was the same. A wide variety of furnished and unfurnished complete apartments and single rooms. Some owners are lenient about who they let live there. Others demand proper visas and a long-term commitment. But there's always someone out there who will work with you, depending on what you're doing.

This is how it normally goes...signs posted informally in the street.

"I rent rooms." This was taken in Valpo during my first apartment hunt.

Jorge and I lucked out here in Lima. Our apartment is sort of like, the after-thought attic of this family's apartment. They have a sprawling place, really -- as big as a regular one-story house -- with an upstairs patio and bathroom. They added on to this with three individual mini-apartments I.E. shoe boxes.

Ours is one of these. On a quiet night, you can hear the neighbor peeing.

But the owners are awesome -- they agreed to a 3-month lease, no problem, can extend for longer if we want, moderate price, super safe neighborhood, and two blocks from the ocean. Fine.

They have two youngish daughters, and the whole family is really laidback and approachable. Their 12 year old daughter is fascinated by me, and always volunteers to be the message bearer when the owners want to call our attention. All huge pluses for landlordship.

But our mini?

Our mini is a brand new venture on their part. And as more time wears on, it feels more and more like Tom Hanks in The Money Pit.

Though nobody has fallen through any holes in the floor, we find new and baffling issues on a regular basis. I think it started with the lack of a kitchen and just snowballed from there.

Since that time, we've found and dealt with a leaking sink, which in turn saturated 24 rolls of toilet paper that were in the cabinet beneath the sink. ("Dealing with it", in this case, is no longer using the cabinet, which comprises like, 40% of the storage space in our kitchen.)

A nice view for the drying toilet paper...before it sees our butts, anyway.

Then we had the Great Shower Debacle, which was that every time you took a shower, the bathroom turned into a tiny pool, due to the location of the shower head. They fixed that after about 3 weeks. Thank god, because every shower required a 15-minute clean-up session immediately afterward.

The sink in the kitchen, for some reason, still refuses to function without splashing everything in a five foot vicinity, even though the landlord put on this sexy hose meant to curb exactly that.

It's like an elephant snout that constantly sneezes.

Please note the perpetually moist wall beyond. 

My desk, which is a plank of wood somehow attached to the wall, is now falling out of the wall, which makes me afraid to leave my laptop on it or, you know, touch it.

The landlords, at the beginning of our stay, exchanged the double bed for a queen size bed, and in doing so provided us with a new bed frame. It was brand new, recently stained wood. We were really grateful, but it to this day still smells like a combination of farm and wet dog.

The water in Lima is...strange. We don't drink it -- there's plenty of bottled water, so no worries about the intestinal infections, family -- but it smells. Some days worse than others. I know on the grand scale it's better than some areas, and I shouldn't complain. But it was another blip on the radar as we adjusted to life in Lima.

And just a personal note: White tiled floors anywhere (be it bathroom, like here in Lima, or in my old kitchen in Valparaiso) is always a bad idea. Add a very hairy Argentinian partner to the mix and it's just a never-ending sweeping struggle.

That said, we love our little shoebox, and love that we have a temporary home that is safe and serves all of our needs (those that don't include baking, that is).

And it will do just fine until we hop to the next temporary space, which I'm sure will bring it's own set of fascinating and baffling intricacies...which I will then immortalize forever in my blog.

Scant News

Hello, everyone!

I just noticed it's been a helluvalongtime since I last posted. This if, of course, entirely my fault.

Since we got to Lima, I've been what you could technically call a recluse. If I were a crab, I would be the hermit variety. If there were a crazy dreadlocked cat lady without any cats because she's allergic, that would be me.

I wonder if the family whose house we live in think that I am just in here all day, sleeping. I might think that.

Really, what I'm doing in here all day is a lot of writing, a lot of reading, and a lot of working. And I'm having a great time! Also, a lot of great eating, as referenced in the last post. Also a lot of great yoga (seriously, my practice has gone through the roof. It's awesome.).

I knew it might look suspicious to anyone who doesn't really know what I do, though. A lot of people don't understand what it is to 'work from home'; half the time, I can barely believe it. So I explained to the landlords here from day one that I "work for a non-profit" and "am a writer". Both true things. Both offered in hopes that they will excuse any odd reclusivity.

That being said, I'm still alive, despite the lack of updates. I will publish something more inherently interesting in the near future.

In the meantime, I signed up at Bloglovin, and it would be GREAT if you could follow me there! Check it out: Follow my blog with Bloglovin. It's part of my plan for world domination. I mean, greater blog recognition.

*clears throat*

Right.

The Greatest Tastes from the Smallest of Spaces

Jorge and I live in a mini-apartment.

We have a camping stove -- two burners. Count 'em. Two. Plus a makeshift sink/counter area, a half-fridge (like the ones people keep in their kid's room, or rec rooms? Yeah. That's our tiny box of heaven), and a plank of wood they attached to the wall that can serve as a dining room table/plank, or be lowered for 'more room'.

Proof of camper burners.

Because, you know, this is a really mini apartment.

I think that this chapter is yet another test of Jorge's and my relationship. We went from Insta-Routine (living together two weeks into the relationship) to Long-Term Living in Valparaiso to Uprooting Everything to Backpacking Together (almost 2.5 months on the road) to Settling in a New City. All the most infamous stressors to a relationship (difficulties of routine; moving to a new city; traveling together; language barriers) we have faced.

Yet somehow, we seek more stressors. In the settling process, we have approximately 5 square feet to ourselves should we choose not to live inside the butt of the other.

God forbid we get into a fight, because the hanging crinkle door doesn't slam well. Plus, our neighbors will hear everything and that's embarrassing.

All that aside, we've been managing well. It makes me think of those Eco-Friendly Houses, where people essentially move into a shoebox to save energy and reduce the amount of crap they own. We're just doing it in Lima. I mean, hey, there's energy-saving lightbulbs here. Sorta counts.

Despite the lack of space and proper kitchen, Jorge and I have been conjuring some really freaking tasty meals. I'm talking, tastier than anything we've ever produced before.

Our stir-frys? Legendary. His torrejas de acelga (chard patties)? Insanely good, and vaguely gourmet. All the Argentinian soups, stews and more that we've thrown together on a budget and with, need I remind you, only two burners? FANTASTIC.

Jorge's basil-chard patties--a gourmet touch that 

created a flavor I literally couldn't stop eating.

I don't know what it is -- maybe the ingredients are tastier here. Or maybe our tight quarters are squeezing something new out of our concoctions. Maybe Jorge's been unemployed for so long that he has turned to culinary innovation as a way to pass the time. Who knows.

Jorge's chicken-beef-black bean taco mixture was a big hit for our Taco Night.

Please take note of the Plank O'Wood Dining Room Table/Countertop.

Has anyone else noticed the common thread here? It's mostly Jorge's culinary prowess that's taken a flying leap. Let's be real, he's been doing all the cooking! Seriously, what a great stay-at-home Dad he'd be. *strokes chin* Hmmm...

Aside from the tasty adventures we've had in our Two Cubic Feet of Kitchen, Jorge has spent some time innovating household items from trash. We're big up-cyclers (well, okay, JORGE is, I lack the creativity to do this), and he's come up with some ingenious solutions to the lack of certain items in the shoebox...I mean...mini.

This old water bottle serves as a silverware storage space after washing.

This is a dustpan made from a wine bottle and cardboard.

It works like a charm!

Sometimes, temporary living situations can bring out the best -- and most creative -- in a person. 

Not all people, though, because let's be real, I've been mostly reveling in his great ideas, eating his awesome food, and catching up on all the work I missed from almost 3 months on the road!

Bottom line is, folks: you don't need a lot of space to have a home. We miss our place in Valpo, deeply and severely -- but we've settled in just fine to our new 2 Cubic Feet of Kitchen, and it'll do until we hit the next mark on the map.

Just Call Me Resourceful Rhonda

For those of you that know me, you'll know that I frequently talk about how when the apocalypse comes, I'll be the first to die.

Despite a couple years of being in Brownies, I just don't have a terribly impressive amount of survival skills (though I CAN sew a mean sit-upon). This isn't something I necessarily am looking to change -- I'm just aware of it.

And for those of you that also know about Jorge, you'll remember that I frequently tout him as my key to survival for when the apocalypse comes. The guy grew up in rural farmland, knows how to light fires, spent most of his childhood barefoot and pooping in the wild, and can ride a horse bareback. Furthermore, he has uncanny and ingenious solutions to common household problems. Whenever I need to fix something, I hand it to him -- work your crazy magic, I tell him. And he does. 

Well, it appears Jorge's resourcefulness has rubbed off in our 1.5 years together. Let me explain.

We recently moved into a new (mini)apartment in Lima. Though our landlord provided some basics, like a bed, and plates, and a toilet, there weren't important things like knives or French Press coffee makers. 

Being that I am an American Coffee Drinker with a pound of hazelnut coffee burning a hole in my backpack, I had to remedy this situation quickly. However, the nearest supermarket only sells food -- no household products, no sprawling aisles of coffee makers, not even cheese cloth, for god's sake.

So, one our first morning in the new place arrived, I had a brilliant idea. 

I wear a lot of leggings (ahem, actually maybe only leggings), and some of my current pairs in rotation are about to die. On our way back to Lima, Jorge pointed out in the middle of the Miami airport that I was essentially walking around naked since my leggings had grown so threadbare. Oops. 

Time to throw them out -- or is it? I decided to use these very same leggings for a couple different purposes. 

Purpose #1: CHEESECLOTH FOR COFFEE.

Purpose #2: Cloths for the sink area/cleaning the bathroom.

Okay, okay, hold your horses, you might be thinking. How can a self-respecting human being use leggings to make coffee? I'll explain.

Step One: Snip off the bottom fourth of one of the legs.

Step Two: Sew the bottom of the snipped-leg-portion shut. 

Step Three: USE THIS AS A COLANDER FOR SEPARATING COFFEE GROUNDS FROM COFFEE.

Freaking. Genius.

However, our (mini) apartment, as I explained, came equipped with only the bare minimum of kitchen necessities. So on our first morning, this is what happened.

I sprinkled an appropriate amount of coffee grounds into a bowl (re: one of two bowls available in the house). Once my water was boiling, I poured this into the bowl. I let it sit for about five minutes. Then, having fastened my legging-colander to a mason jar ring using a hairband, we poured the coffee out of the bowl into the coffee cup via homemade colander.

Jorge pours bowlofcoffee into cup.

Coffee grounds remain securely in the homemade colander.

Final product: cup of coffee.

Over time, my coffee-making methods have varied. I went from strictly French Press/Keurig/locally bought to drip filter, to colander method...and now, to bowls. Some people might find this method unseemly or gross; I, however, pride myself on my big city survival skills. 

Let's be honest, I might not be able to live very long once the apocalypse hits...but dangit, I know I'll be able to fashion myself a good cup'a'joe when the time comes! Provided I can figure out how to boil some water, that is. 

A New Chapter Begins: Lima, Peru

We haven't been here long, but man, have we gotten the ball rolling fast!

Here's how our time in Lima has been spent so far:

Day One: Arrive to Lima at 5:30am after multiple delays stateside; notice that luggage doesn't arrive; begin house hunting project; visit 5 possible rentals.

Day Two: Drink ample Starbucks; get one of two missing backpacks; confirm tiny apartment rental with landlords; visit their house and review terms and conditions; drink a juice made of purple corn; like it.

Day Three: Receive last piece of lost luggage; move into tiny apartment; sign contract; pay rent; begin arranging things on shelves and figuring out how to cover up the obscene white of the walls.

From Day Four and onward, it's been a pretty rhythmic domestic process: figuring out how to make coffee without a coffee maker (more on this later), filling drawers, buying necessities (like the broom we bought and then promptly left at the store), etc. Jorge has set up appointments with several top salons to prove his prowess, I.E. get hired, and we've also papered the neighborhood with announcements about his services. 

I MADE THIS!

One of the notable thing about Lima so far is that, while in full winter, the temperature rarely drops below 66 F. Their winter is very gray, however -- but for an average temperature of 70 degrees and never having to wear four layers, I'll TAKE IT.

Lima at night -- the lefthand side of this picture is OCEAN. 

Our apartment is actually a mini-apartment, which means that's its smaller than a studio apartment in NYC and there's no oven. We're paying roughly 30% more than we did in Valparaiso, for about one-fifth of the space. *sigh* Big city living.

However, we're in the coolest neighborhood (Barranco), in an extremely safe zone, one block from the ocean, and there is a Starbucks nearby and all sorts of trendy boutiques and gorgeous houses so like, I guess I'll live.

Barranco...our neighborhood in Lima! I.E. could be a 

stand-alone city on its own. 

Here's to a new, fun, and totally different chapter in Lima, Peru!