mafia stiletto – take one
I recently photographed a group of Lima ladies who form the Mafia Stiletto. Not only do they dance, they get jiggy with it wearing heels higher than I can walk in. I went to check out one of the classes they teach, called Sexy Stiletto, for Somos a few weeks ago and made these images. (The story published last Saturday in the magazine.) Ale Molina – who is more of a hip hop dancer than a stiletto strutter – teaches the class to dozens of women every Tuesday and Thursday nights in La Molina. Some of the beginners arrive with shorter heels and cowboy boots but within a few weeks they graduate to a higher and thinner heel. Molina says it’s about more than dancing, it’s also about gaining confidence in being a woman.
salto del fraile
Fernando Jesús Canchari Vasquez has been jumping off the same cliff in Chorrillos for 26 years. It’s how he makes his living. Several times a day, when the water is high enough, he dons a brown or white monk’s robe and plunges into the sea below. Over the years others have come out to copycat the jump in similar robes, but Canchari says he has the best form. In his 40s, his feet stay together until the second his body hits the water.
huaca pucllana
A gorgeous afternoon with some ancient ruins, a freshly shaved llama, a trilingual tour guide (English, Japanese, Spanish) and visiting students from Medlife.
grimanesa’s anticuchos
I’ve been wanting to try Grimanesa’s anticuchos for more than a year. She used to sell them from a street corner in Miraflores and is known to make the best anticucho in Peru. When I went to Peru’s famous food fair the wait for a palito was a little more than an hour. She’s become a celebrity in Peru, and Lays even sells an anticucho flavored potato chip using her secret recipe. Her smiling face is printed on the bag.
Anticucho? What’s that and why is it so good? It’s Quechua for “cut stew meat”. It looks and tastes a lot like a kebab. The meat is beef heart – very tender and soaks up the seasoning.
About two months ago Grimanesa opened a hip little restaurant (Ignacio Merino 466, Miraflores). The menu is simple. You enter and order two palitos or three. Each comes with three chunks of meat. You can also get an order of choclo – giant corn on the cob but without the sweet flavor – and a soda. The anticuchos are served with potatoes and, if you are feeling spicy, a side of ají . You pay, get a number and go sit (or stand, depending on your luck) in a bar-like area. When your number pops up on what looks like a junior varsity scoreboard, your palitos are ready. For me, they were worth the year’s wait.
rafael
Last weekend I had the opportunity to photograph the bar at one of my favorite Lima restaurants – Rafael (San Martín 300, Miraflores). A similar picture was published Tuesday in Vamos (a supplement that comes with El Comercio every Tuesday). The assignment included photographing several of Lima’s top destinations. More photos to hit the blog soon of mouth-watering food and pretty places!
lima – cusco (in a car!)
I grew up a road-tripping kid. We piled into our tan suburban at least once a year and headed south to Kansas City, about 12 hours from home in North Dakota. Stepping out of the car in Kansas we were always greeted by the sweet scent of humid air and our grandparents. In my experience, a long road trip always ended in something great. So it’s no surprise in the United States I loved to get into my car and drive to visit friends and new places. I know most of the major highways in the U.S. and if I had a weekend with nothing to do, I’d usually find someone to visit a few hours away…Chicago, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Memphis.
But I haven’t sat behind the wheel of a car for more than a year now. Lima’s traffic isn’t the best playground to learn how to drive stick. And, well, that’s all we’ve got. One of my first goals in the new year will be learning to drive with a manual transmission. In the meantime, I’m lucky that Oscar drives like a pro, so when he suggested driving across the Andes via the Interoceánica to Cusco for New Year, I barely hesitated.
We did the drive in two days and found a few great stops along the way. I’d recommend a stop at Tacama winery near Ica, a night at Tampumayu near Chalhuanca, a stop at the Saywite stone near Abancay and plenty of time when passing through Pampa Galeras National Park. It’s home to about 80,000 vicuñas, Peru’s national animal. (I’ll post a few pics of them next!) The road is paved and well maintained, but you don’t get from the coast up to 4,400 meters without a few curves. The ride started very hot (no AC) but as we climbed we were welcomed by snow, rain, dense fog, falling rocks, pigs, donkeys, cows, vicuñas, dogs and three ponchoed, flute-playing, dancing figures with slingshots in the middle of the road (still not sure if they were bandits or kids playing chicken…) Good thing life in Peru isn’t boring!
We arrived safely in Cusco and welcomed the new year in one of our favorite places in Peru. And then we climbed back into the car, turned around and headed home. While I missed my automatic car, quick Starbucks pit stops, clean bathrooms with toilet paper and wide, straight Midwest highways, the scenery definitely made up for all that I didn’t have.
Andes near Puquio, Peru
Nativity in Cusco’s Plaza de Armas
Tacama winery in Ica, Peru
catholic in yelapa
Enjoyed the visual feast around this doorway in the Mexican village of Yelapa. One of the signs warns that the home is Catholic and that other sects are not welcome. I wonder how many non-Catholic visitors the town gets. No roads reach the village and the only traffic you see in town is donkeys, horses and mules. I also wonder if the parrot is Catholic. If not, I recommend he/she get on out of there!
voladores de veracruz
Walking through Mexico City’s enormous Chapultepec Park I noticed five men standing high in the air on what looked like a telephone pole. Minutes later four of them were hanging by their feet, upside down, and flying through the air. The fifth stood at the top, playing a simple tune on the flute. As the four circled the pole, they were slowly lowered until they could flip themselves over and plant their feet safely on the ground.
I later learned it’s a ritual dance from the Veracruz region of Mexico. It was originally performed to appease the gods and end a drought. And it was performed using a tree as opposed to the giant metal pole you see in the middle of Chapultepec Park. After seeing the voladores (flyers) I read more about the tradition and photographed this painting at the National Museum of Anthropology – incredible museum that I highly recommend.
After hanging by my feet and spinning in circles for several minutes, I think I’d be so dizzy I wouldn’t be able to stand up straight (or keep down my breakfast). Somehow the voladores landed without a hint of disorientation. And the man with the flute? Without a safety cable of any sort, he calmly climbed down the side of the pole to join his friends back on earth.
a little taste of d.f.
Two days in Mexico City…just enough time to photograph a few Mexican flags, virgins and some tacos al pastor.
