…for this little guy and his award-winning smile!
I’ll bet you thought I was talking about Jody and I……. Shame on you!
Truth be told, we would have had a “Pisco Sour”…..or maybe 2……for lunch on our first day in Lima. But, we are still advised by our tour guide to wait until closer to the end of the trip. The alcohol and the raw egg whites……either separately or together……could give us the “skitters”. If we aren’t careful, we could be dancing the “Aztec two-step” for the rest of the trip! No reason to temp fate so early in the trip. We’ll stick with water!
The little guy above is one of the many very impressive artifacts at the Museo Larco, where we spent a good chunk of our first afternoon in Lima.
Per the tour guide, this museum is the best one in all of Peru to get a good overview of Peruvian history and culture. He wasn’t kidding! The museum is chocked full of all kinds of examples of the fine artisan work of the ancient Peruvians.
The Peruvians were, and are still, known for their fine ceramic, textile, and metal work. Each area of the country focuses on one particular type of artistry. My happy little friend above was part of the extensive collection of ceramics in the museum.
It’s almost unbelievable that these fine pieces could have been produced with the primitive tools available to the Peruvians at the time. The detail on the design, color and finish of these pieces is incredible. To me, one of the most interesting thing about the creation of these pieces is that the ancient Peruvians did not have access to pottery wheels, which would have helped them to shape the vessels. Yet, they were all perfectly round and perfectly balanced. According to the guide, they had a very strong sense of proportion and an innate sense of symmetry.
We also looked at the textiles. We looked at 1 piece that had made the Guinness Book of World records. The cloth had something like 397 stitches in a linear inch. Of course the stitching was done without the aid of tools and modern equipment. It was stunning!
Take a look at this piece. What do you think it is?
We all had a lot of guesses to include a necklace, a belt, and a skirt. Wrong….wrong and wrong……It’s a type of Abacus that was devised by the ancient Peruvians. They had a very developed and strong sense of Mathematics, as well. There are only a few people in the world today that actually know how to use this little gem.
We also looked at a large variety of ancient jewelry pieces that were formed out of the gold and silver metals that were abundant in this area. Just beautiful!
The last section we visited was interesting……
This was filled with all kinds of ceramic couples in the act of….well…..coupling. The Peruvians were of the mind that life needs to continue. So, reproduction was an important part of their culture….both now and into the after-life. The collection of ceramics reflecting this was quite extensive…..and creative. I’m wondering if our little smiling, ceramic friend above had, perhaps, gotten a glimpse into this section of the museum. That could put a smile on his face. It did ours!
After our museum tour, we had a quick, down and dirty, tour of Lima. The city has kind of a chaotic feel about it. The traffic in the city seems somewhat unregulated and there were traffic jams everywhere. I give the tour bus driver a lot of credit for being able to negotiate the traffic without incident. Every now and then you would see people making money from the traffic jams by washing the windows of the cars that were stuck and then collecting money from the drivers. The economy is not great here, so people do whatever they can to make money.
The city square was very similar to many I have seen on my travels….nothing too new here…..
…..except for this cute lady dressed in traditional Peruvian garb! Cute!
We learned that Lima is one of the culinary capitals of the world boasting a very high number of Michelin rated restaurants and 2 of the best restaurants in the world. I am hoping to hook into a cooking class during my stay here. We’ll see. I will say that, so far, we have had excellent food to include Ceviche, potatoes cooked in all different ways and some of the best Chilean Sea Bass (my favorite) I have ever had. I am already looking forward to the next meal!
I need to sign off now. It’s almost time for dinner. Don’t want to miss that! But, I wanted to share this as a parting “jolly”. This is sure to put a smile on your face………
These little guys were used to identify the gender of the bathrooms at the museum. Check out the detail. No question about which is white here. So, for those of you who have followed the “bathroom tales” of my previous trips, this is the first of what I am sure will be a long line of fun bathroom signs and tales. We are drinking copious amounts of water in order to battle the current and upcoming high altitude conditions. I have seen every bathroom in every stop we have made…..some more than once. But, I’m going to keep on drinking…….water…..
So, signing off for now……..with an award winning smile on my face. Hope you have one, too!
Travel With Betsy 
September 12, 2016 at 2:21 pm |
Curious about the price of their Chilean seabass—as much as we pay here or alot less expensive??
September 12, 2016 at 7:18 pm |
Was included in the tour. No idea.