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Posted on Sunday, 10.18.09

LATIN AMERICA

The pulse of Peru: A revitalized Lima invites rediscovery

IF YOU GO

� Getting there: The best time to go is the Peruvian summer, December to May, when it's usually 80 degrees and somewhat sunny. Lima's winters are pretty depressing: The overcast skies and weak drizzle are unrelenting, and the humidity makes the 50-degree chill sink into your bones.

GETTING AROUND

� Taxis: When you arrive at Lima's Jorge Chavez International Airport, swarms of people will ask if you need a taxi. Arrange for one inside the airport from an official provider. Once in the city, the plentiful taxis are the best way to get around. Fares are low and negotiable; be sure to agree on the price before or as soon as you get in the cab.

� Combis: If you're adventurous or on a low budget, you can commute with the locals in ``combis,'' small buses that whip around the city. The privately-owned buses follow designated routes, which are written and color-coded on the side of the bus, but they pretty much stop wherever you flag them down. A ``puller'' literally pulls you onto the bus so they don't have to stop completely. Fare is 40 cents.

� Safety: Keep an eye on your belongings when walking around: wallets in the front pocket if possible, purses closed and tucked under your arm.

WHERE TO STAY

� Country Club Lima Hotel in San Isidro, Los Eucaliptos 590, San Isidro, 011-511-611-9000; www.hotelcountry.com. Built in 1927 and declared a cultural monument, this is an elegant hotel, decorated with colonial art and furniture. It has a spa, gym, pool and a relationship with the Lima Golf Club across the street. The 83 rooms range from $440 for a master bedroom to $1,850 for the presidential suite.

� Sonesta Hotel El Olivar, Pancho Fierro 194, San Isidro, 011-511-712-6000 or 800-SONESTA; www.sonesta.com/Lima. Across the street from the Olive Park in San Isidro, this high-end hotel is part of the Sonesta chain. It has 134 well-appointed rooms, a pool and a fitness center. Rates $115-$319.

� Hotel Antigua Miraflores, Av. Grau 350, 011-511-241- 6116; www.peru-hotels-inns.com. This is in a beautiful, coral-colored colonial mansion, with pretty and comfortable rooms. It's near the heart of the action of one of the most tourist-friendly neighborhoods. Rates for the 39 room range from $79 for a single to $154 for a junior suite.

� Hostal Buena Vista, Grimaldo del Solar 202, Miraflores, 011-511-447-3178; www.hostalbuenavista.com. Housed in a lovely turn-of-the-century white mansion in Miraflores, the 14 rooms are modest but pretty and all have cable TV. Common areas include a garden, terrace and library lounge. Rates range from $37 for a single room to $79 for a quintuple room.

DINING

Lima is known for its excellent food, particularly fresh fish and -- surprisingly enough -- Chinese food, called chifa.

� Jose Antonio, B. Monteagudo 200, 011-511-264-0188; www.Joseantonio.com.pe. Serves superb traditional Peruvian dishes in an elegant yet rustic Spanish-style setting, with dark wood, leather chairs and a bull's head on the wall. Typical dishes include lomo saltado (beef saut�ed with vegetables, $14), aji de gallina (chicken in nutty cream sauce, $10) and lenguado a lo macho (filet of sole in seafood sauce, $24). For dessert, try the achingly sweet suspiro de limena (sigh of Lima) for $5, made with condensed milk and meringue.

� La Rosa Nautica, Espigon 4 Circuito de Playas, 011-511-445-0149; www.larosanautica.com. Serves Peruvian and international dishes in a romantic, gazebo-like complex on a pier jutting into the Pacific Ocean. Try to get a table outside or by the window; at night the restaurant lights illuminate the white of cresting waves and sea gulls. The food isn't Lima's best, but the atmosphere and the pisco sours ($5-$9) are top-notch.

� Astrid y Gaston, Calle Cantuarias 175, Miraflores, 011-511-444-1496; www.astridygaston.com. A hip and sophisticated restaurant in Miraflores, considered a must for foodies. Owner Gaston Acurio is a pioneer of novo-Andean cuisine and Peru's celebrity chef of the moment; he has declared it his mission to share Peru's treasured cooking with the rest of the world and has opened restaurants throughout Latin America, Europe and recently San Francisco.

� Cala, Circuito Vial Costa Verde, Espigon B2, Barranco (http://calarestaurante.com, 011-511-252-9187). An airy restaurant on the beach just beside Barranco. I fell in love with the tiradito for $12, made of thin slices of raw fish cooked by the acid of limes (unlike ceviche, it doesn't have onions). The owner, Alfredo Aramburu, also owns Alfresco in San Isidro, which is also excellent for fish.

� Bodega de la Trattoria, Gral. Borgono 784, Miraflores, 011-511-241-6899. An Italian sidewalk cafe favored by locals. The pastas (about $8-$14) make for a satisfying light meal.

INFORMATION

� Peru Export and Tourism Promotion Board, www.peru.info/perueng.asp.

� Lima Tours, www.limatours.com.pe.

BY ALEXIA ELEJALDE-RUIZ

Chicago Tribune

LIMA, Peru -- Falling in love with Lima doesn't come easy.

The drive into the city from the airport is lined with flashing neon signs for tragamonedas -- slot machines. Traffic gridlock and kamikaze taxis dash quaint fantasies of big-eyed llamas. By the time you see your fifth McDonald's, the itch to get out of the capital and into the Andes can be overwhelming.

Tourists often find Lima to be too modern and Americanized to be worth exploring on their way to the lost Inca city of Machu Picchu, the Amazon jungle or any of Peru's other treasures.

``I was surprised to find it so metropolitan and clean,'' Seattle resident Jennifer MacLean said as she waited at the Miami airport baggage claim after spending several weeks in the Peruvian highlands.

Would she recommend Lima to friends visiting Peru? ``I would say it's not necessary,'' MacLean said.

I disagree. From the food to the museums to the landscape to the architecture, Lima is stunning if you know where to look. And it has more heart than many tourists give it credit for. If Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital that serves as the base for travelers to Machu Picchu, was once considered the ``navel of the world,'' then Lima is the pulse of Peru.

I feel Lima's pulse most acutely when hurtling down winding roads to the oceanfront, past giant, dusty cliffs that drop like jagged razor blades into the roiling Pacific Ocean -- a sure mudslide hazard were Lima not in a desert, with practically no rainfall. There, men play pickup soccer games beside the water and fishermen stand stoically on rocky piers. Surfers bob in the gray-green waves as pelicans nose-dive beside them to snap at the ample fish feast below.

This is no tropical paradise -- the city beaches are small and crowded, the water is freezing and Lima's notoriously gray sky, said to be ``the color of a donkey's belly,'' hangs low and chilly during the winter months (May to November). But the buzz of activity on the soulful coast lays bare Lima's many layers.

At the Waikiki Club, an exclusive surf club nestled between the cliffs and the ocean, Lima's elite socialize, sunbathe and dine on exquisite seafood. Just outside, the poor sell ice cream from yellow carts and guard the cars of the rich for tips. At the nearby Parque del Amor (Park of Love), whose mosaic tiles are reminiscent of Gaudi's Parque Guell in Barcelona, young couples pose in front of a giant statue of a man and a woman kissing. Paragliding tourists sail above them.

The city is divided by class, but united by pride -- and with time, that pride becomes infectious.

But I wasn't always so smitten.

Lima is my father's hometown. During childhood visits I found it oppressive. The disparities between the rich, in their gated homes, and the poor, living in makeshift huts on dirt hillsides, felt unjust. It didn't help that I was visiting at the height of the era of Shining Path, a Maoist group that terrorized Peru from 1980 to 1992. Armed guards, hired by residents, stood on practically every corner, blackouts were common and purses had to be carefully stashed under the car seat lest you provoke a smash-and-grab.

A NEW ATTITUDE

My attitude changed after I lived in Lima for a few months after college. I woke up every day to the sweet song of a bird cooing ``cu-cu-lu'' outside my window and enjoyed long conversations with thoughtful cab drivers as we dodged small buses called combis, weaving recklessly through Lima's heaving tangle of traffic. The city was maddening, yes, but also beautiful, complicated and trying hard to make good.

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