Perusing Peru: Destination 2: El Norte

Elias Aguirre stands tall in the park that bears his name

Travel day. And the travel day destination? El Norte. Or, more specifically, Chiclayo, Peru.

I am referring to this as El Norte, the North, because just about everyone in Lima with whom I spoke, when I said I was next going to Chiclayo, would respond with two two-word responses. "El Norte," because it is in Northern Peru. And "muy calor," very hot, because Peru, being in the southern hemisphere, gets hotter as you move north,

I am staying at the Casa Andina. Casa Andina is a Peruvian chain hotel. But I'm not just staying at any old Casa Andina. No. Not me. I'm an upscale traveler who in the course of my travels has developed a taste for the finer things in life. I am staying at a Casa Andina Select.

It's in a relatively quiet neighborhood, just beyond the small downtown core of Chiclayo. Of course, any neighborhood is going to seem quiet compared to Lima. Where I was staying in Lima, by Lima standards, was a quiet neighborhood. That meant the car horns stopped their constant honking at around 1:00 a.m. I shudder to think what it's like in the less-quiet neighborhoods of that mega-city. Here in Chiclayo, the streets are quiet by 9:00 p.m. Just like in Phoenix!

The hotel is across the street from a small park: Parque Infantil de Chiclayo. Translation (and this one is obvious): Chiclayo Children's Park.

There is a statue of man on a horse.

Every park should have a statue of man on a horse. There also is an abbreviated colonnade:

The streets are relatively quiet. You can actually safely jaywalk. Not that I would ever do anything illegal in a foreign land. But I could do it if I were so inclined. But I'm not. So stop thinking about jaywalking please.

There is of course market stalls right on Avenida Salaverry.

And we then come to Plazueta Elias Aguirre,

I presume he was a Naval hero of some sort. The anchor is my clue.

And he does have a cool-looking building over his left shoulder. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Chiclayo has been thrust to the forefront of global tourism because of events that happened this past May. The selection of Robert Prevost as the new pope. Pope Leo XIV. Chiclayo now is known throughout the land as "La Ciudad del Papa León XIV," the City of Pope Leo XIV. And when I say "throughout the land," I mean the land that is Peru. And when I say that the city has been "thrust to the forefront of global tourism," I mean interest in Chiclayo as a tourist destination has increased among the people of Peru, who are quite proud to have been the home of the reigning pope.

I do want to see the Pope Leo XIV sites when I am here. But the more significant reason for visiting Chiclayo -- which has been on my list of places I want to go long before any of us thought that Chicago-born priest living in Peru would be selected pope -- are some pre-Inca historic sites in the Chiclayo environs. The first is the Sipán, or Moche, culture, which was dominant in this region from A.D. 100 to A.D. 800. The Sicán, unrelated despite strikingly a similar name, was dominant in the region from A.D. 750 to A.D. 1375, right before the rise of the Inca in the 120 years to so before the Spanish arrival in Peru.

I was on my way to dinner at a well-reviewed restaurant according to the google: Don Juan Plazuela, right next to the Elias Aguirre Plazuela. But, first, I had to check out the Christmas decoration at a retail location along the street which, at some point in the brief few blocks I walked changed its name from Av. Salaverry to Calle Capitan Elias Aguirre.

Peru does decorate for Christmas. Anyway, google maps said that Don Juan Plazuela was "not too busy," which is not bad for a restaurant rated 4.9 stars. It was closed. "Cerramos," said the man behind the locked gate. Well, I guess if your restaurant is closed then, inside, it genuinely would be "not too busy," although, in my world, the use of that phrase was a trifle misleading.

So, anyway, not wishing to do any further research and just wanting to feed my stomach which has not had food tossed into it since the quinoa bar on the airplane ride, I went to Brasa Roja. It's a chicken restaurant. Ninety percent of the restaurants in Chiclayo (at least my neighborhood) seem to be chicken restaurants. The rest are chifa, but downscale chifa. 

The restaurant was basically El Pollo Loco, but where you sit down and they take your order. Plus they serve alcohol, which I believe El Pollo Loco does not. I had the rotisserie chicken, breast quarter, served with a large amount of fries (three dipping sauces for the fries), a salad that was equal parts salad and dressing (which in my mind is the appropriate amount of salad dressing: make that lettuce swim), and a Cerveza Cusqueña Negra, the dark ("negra") beer from one of the major Peruvian breweries.

This not being Los Estados Unidos, none of the three fry-dipping sauces were ketchup. One was mayonnaise. One was what seemed to be, potentially, a mayonnaise and ketchup mix. What people in Utah would call "fry dipping sauce." And the third was this spicy mayonnaise-based herbal sauce. The herb might've been cilantro, but the spice level was sufficient I could not be certain.

As far as the adult beverage goes, truth be told: this was not one of my favorite dark beers. It was very sweet. And I mean VERY. It was so sweet it tasted like hard root beer, rather than a dark lager.

One last look out my hotel window at the park across the street before I turn in for the night.

The One Full Day in Korea: Starting at the National Museum

A pagoda in the snow. And in front of the National Museum of Korea

Three days in wintry Seoul, but only one of those days is a full 24-hour day.  This is it.

Other than sleeping in to get caught up from the jet lag, there were only two items on the agenda.  First up was the National Museum of Korea.  This meant taking the Seoul Metro to the Yongsan stop.  I probably should have gone to the Ichon stop instead, but that was a different subway line so I didn't think to take it.  The area around the Yongsan stop was interesting.

The Seoul Metro is not that difficult to navigate.  I was able to figure it out in a couple of rides.  Which is one of the reasons I like to travel to solo:  you don't have to explain to someone you're traveling with when you are still trying to learn to navigate the subway system.

This was a weird looking whatever:

It said it was a spa.  It had the over-the-top flamboyance of a casino, but it appeared not to be that.  But it did have a Christmas tree, which was appropriately on a snowy day.

And then:  another Christmas tree!

And then: a railroad crossing.

You can see that the snow is starting to pick up the pace:

Soon as I was at the snowy grounds of the National Museum:

Lots of schoolchildren outside.  Even more inside.

Let's go check out the pagoda.

And of course that is what a bridge to a pagoda would have to look like.

And this is what the pagoda looks like.

A pagoda in the snow.  With child.

I, of course, meant that there was a child in the photo with the pagoda.  Not that the pagoda was pregnant.  The sign call this:  Cheongjajeong.  I don't know if that is the name of the pagoda, the builder of the pagoda, or the Korean word for pagoda.  Some mysteries are unsolved even on travel.

Enough of the pagoda.  It's museum time.

Even better:  it's time to go inside the museum.

The museum does go back into Korean history.

And here is one of those chimes instruments that we saw at Gwanghwamun Square.

Here is Emperor Gojong, founder of the Joseon Dynasty.

The Joseon Dynasty ruled the Korean Peninsula until the Japanese conquest and subjugation of Korea in the late 19th/early 20th Century.  One nugget learned in the National Museum of Korea:  Japan became a great an international power in the early 20th Century because of the wealth it stole from Korea.  That's the Korean side of the story and they are sticking with it.

And here's a tower with a robot:

The robot is in the middle.

The standard wall of pottery:

I've traveled enough to know this:  Every national museum has a wall of pottery.

And a man on a horse.

I learned a lot about Korean history, specifically from the Korean perspective.  And, from touring two museums, I've learned this about Korea:  they're still not over the whole subjugation at the hands of Japan thing.

Walking Down Avenida Presidente Manuel Bulnes

Someone is climbing onto the bronze horse at El Monumento al Ovejero

Time to fit one more travel adventure into the Punta Arenas portion of this Chile trip.

I had been driven into Punta Arenas from the north on multiple occasions at this point and I noticed a lot of interesting statuary, buildings, and monuments along the road into town. The Punta Arenas sections of various travel guides never mention taking a walk down Avenida President Manuel Bulnes to take in the sights, but that sort of thing doesn't stop me.

The first stop was the Santuario Maria Auxiliadora church. Let's go inside. It was open.

Then, befitting the walk down this particular boulevard, is El Monumento a Manual Bulnes. The Monument to Manuel Bulnes.

What is striking about this monument is the head of the horse. It's bowed down. That is very atypical for heroic monuments with an equestrian element.

I don't know the reason why, but it caught my eye.

Next was a walk through the municipal cemetery, El Cementerio Municipal Sara Braun.

 

This was worth a walk-through, due to the fascinating and ornate mausoleums, which are plentiful and beautiful.

 

I'm sure there has been some sort of contest among the prominent families to outdo one another in terms of the mausoleums.

This is the Mausoleo Croata, the Croatian Mausoleum.

I had looked for, and not been able to find, many signs of the Croatian heritage of Punta Arenas. I had heard that there was a strong Croatian presence in the town's history, but other than the Croatian club in downtown, had not seen any signs of the Croatian heritage in modern Punta Arenas. Apparently, the Croatians of Punta Arenas are best found in the municipal cemetery.

And even though this is the official "Croatian Mausoleum," the names of Croatian families are found on many other mausoleums and gravesites in the cemetery.

This, best I could, was in memorial to the Dalmatian Society of Punta Arenas. I don't know if that means that the Croatians who emigrated to the extreme southern tip of South America were from Dalmatia, or whether the emigrees from Dalmatia separated themselves from the Croatians from the rest of Croatia.

But the cemetery is where the Croatian heritage of Punta Arenas may be found.

This is El Monumento al Ovejero.

I recognized the part of the word "ove" as being a word related to "sheep" both in Croatian ("ovce") and Spanish ("ovejo"), so I thought this was a monument to the shepherd. No. It's a monument to the sheepdog.

This is a dog-loving town, by the way. Well-cared-for town dogs. Signs for dog adoptions. They love their dogs.

Not sure of the above, but below is El Monumento al Inmigrante Croata.

Monument to the Croatian Immigrant. You don't even have these in places like Pittsburgh that also had a lot of Croatian migration. The monument looks vaguely communistic, although the Croatian migration pre-dated Tito's communism by several decades.

This monument hammers home the Croatian theme of this block on the Avenida:

Unmistakably a Croatian "chequy" as part of the Croatian coat of arms. In Punta Arenas! In the extreme southern tip of South America!

Finally, after a couple of kilometers of walking, I reach this:

 

Monumento al Petroleo. The Monument to Petroleum. We should have these in all cities, seeing how important fossil fuels and petroleum have been to the development of the modern world.

I don't know if this is an oil-drilling area. I don't think it is much of one, if it is. The monument looks like a well shooting out crude oil. But in the flow of crude is a human hand and a human face. It's actually kind of creepy, even if I do like with the honorable intentions.

After a long day, I worked up an appetite. And, this time, I wanted a real meal. So I headed back to El Taberno. I ordered the grilled salmon.

The rivers and fjords of extreme southern Chile are filled with salmon. So it's fresh and local, served on a bed of creamy quinoa. My beverage was a ginger lemonade. It tasted like lemonade, only with ginger. And I love ginger.

The meal hit the spot, so I had a "traditional sour" cocktail for dessert.

This is Chile, so I think the "traditional" way of mixing a sour is with pisco, not whiskey. I wanted a pisco sour, which is the national cocktail in Chile (but different from the pisco sour that is the national cocktail of Peru). This is what they served. So I think "traditional sour" in Chile means "pisco sour."

This concludes my trip to Chile. Soon it will be time to wing it back to the States. My only complaint about visiting Chile is: why didn't I come here sooner? Why did it take me 63 1/2 years to get here? So much world and I waited longer than I should have to start exploring it in earnest.