Barranco may be a wild place in the evening but it is extremely quiet and serene on a Monday afternoon. We walked down a pedestrian street lined with closed restaurants and then down a cobblestone, tree shaded path under the Punto de los Suspiros (The Bridge of Sighs). Along the path were more closed restaurants and cafes. It was quaint and quiet. We walked down to the beach then back up the path and across the bridge to an old cathedral. The front had been restored and painted but the rest was practically in ruins with vultures perching on the skeleton of the steeple and bent cross.

The Museo Rafael Larco Herrera is a ceramic artistīs paradise with something like 50,000 ceramic pieces. First we went through the main collection featuring Moche, Inca and other groups. Most of the pieces were drinking vessels with the spout rising from the handle but aside from that there seemed to be every possible variation--animals, faces, painted geometric designs, scenes, all beautiful and individual.





There were also some intersting tapestry pieces including one I liked with creatures that I first thought were some kind of crocodile since they had long pointed tails but were actually a type of feline deity with a long tail and a grin like the Cheshire Cat...could the Cheshire Cat actually have been an incarnation of a Peruvian cat deity?

The thing that really blew us away was the storage
room: shelves and shelves full of ceramic vessels, all sorted by type. There were shelves of people relaxing, people with domesticated animals, faces, vegetables, falcons, toads, shells, snails, demons, medical topics and on and on. It seemed like a catalog in clay of all the objects and creatures the sculptors ever encountered. It made me wish I was an art historian so I could study inspiration and culture. Why did they show people weaving but not cooking? Sleeping but not playing sports? Why did some places develop such a psychadelic stylized form of decoration when others were more realistic? Did they make vessels from all the birds and animals or did they avoid some? Overwhelmed and amazed we headed to the famous erotic ceramics hall which featured ceramics of copulation
both animal and human as well as featuring the dead. There were humorous figures with exagerated genetalia and even some depicting guys with syphalis sores. This made me wonder if these drinking vessels were really used as drinking vessels because who would want to drink from a vessel depicting that?!!!

Anyway, both Rowshan and I will probably have to do some more research in this area.

Entertainment in Lima isn't difficult to find. In the Parque de la Cultura there was a stage with bands playing. Today on the bus we passed 2 outdoor stages with bands, and last night in Miraflores where were a bunch of people dancing to recorded music.

The most interesting entertainers weīve seen are the street entertainers. They donīt busk in the traditional sense. i.e. sitting in a park playing with
a hat out. Instead they are active, jumping onto a mini bus, playing a brief performance and then collecting tips. Yesterday we were serenaded by a kid playing the pan pipes while simultaneously scraping a rhythm with a comb on one of those scraper instruments. Today a singer/guitarist boarded the bus to present his "mini-show"

The other interesting performance spots are interesections. As the cars stop, a performer runs out in front and does their show until the lights change and then they rush to the next street where the light has just changed to red. I guess there must be someone collecting money for them. We saw some jugglers, fire poi ball spinning and a kid doing gymnastics.

Speaking of performing, we stumbled upon the music store region tonight. Itīs the Plaza 2 de Mayo--a plaza filled with blue buildings. We ended up there non-intentionally but it looked interesting so we walked towards it. About a block from the plaza we encountered some music stores. Then, down one street we saw a Peruvian harp. It was a store and workshop where they make harps. The harps are interesting because the upper octave or so is wire strung while the lower strings are nylon, making it sound like 2 different instruments are being played. We saw a guy playing a harp on one side of the plaza. We asked him where we could find traditional music and he gave a rather worrisome response which through my minimal
Spanish and his broad gestures could be interpreted as where ever the music is we would get robbed and beaten up. Eventually he took us to a school on the 2nd floor of a building on the plaza where a group was practicing for a show. There was an electric harp, bass, drums and singer. It was loud. Through a few more miscommunications we finally managed to agree that weīd go to the hotel and bring Rīs accordion
which we did. So R and Alex, the harpist, jammed a little
.
Then with very tired legs we headed back to the hotel.