Fountains in Lima, la Marinera, and Anticucho

We have been offline for almost a week now as we traveled around Cusco. Before we get to that great adventure I thought I would post about what we did right before we left.

There is a big park in the middle of Lima that has 13 fountains and during the evening they are lit up in exciting ways. The Circuito Magico del Agua was quite entertaining, as well as being the largest public fountain park (as noted by the Guinness Book of World Records)! All the fountains themselves were fantastic to look at, but the ones that demanded a bit of interaction were certainly the favorites. We all took advantage of the photo opportunity at Tunel de la Sorpresas and enjoyed the walk through.


We also enjoyed la Fuente Labarinto del Sueno! Rory decided to keep the camera dry while Fredy, Eduardo, and I all scampered through the "labrynth" trying to avoid getting totally soaked. I, unfortunately, got splashed directly. Here's a video of that little adventure.



Another one of our favorites was Fuente Magica. It reaches over 80 meters into the air. I was somewhat entranced by this one because it seemed so much like the movies - the silhouetted shot with the water spraying behind.... Clearly it was a perfect time for spirit fingers.


We were at the park for the laser light show that they put on through, yes through, one of the fountains. It was pretty awesome! If all the geometric shapes and lines weren't enough, they projected movies of Peruvian folk dances into the mist. Here is a video of the Marinera, a dance that originated in the North, but is danced with different regional flare all over the country. We have had a bit of exposure to la Marinera because one of Fredy and Eduardo's good friends, Ivonne, has been dancing Marinera and competing for many years.



Last Friday we got to experience two Peruvian treats! Ivonne, Vonny, Eduardo and Fredy's friend who dances la Marinera invited us to one of her classes to watch. It was fantastic - lots of fancy foot work, full skirts swishing around, handkerchiefs twisting to and fro, and a coy chase between the man and woman. While the woman's footwork remains somewhat of a mystery, we learned that the men's feet are supposed to look a little like horse hooves dancing. There was a time when horses were trained in the particular steps of the Marinera. Not sure which came first, the dance or the fancy-footed horses. (Sorry no pictures of it, but hopefully the video from the fountain gives you a sense of it.) There is a large Marinera competition coming up in the north of Peru and this dance school is in the process of partnering younger dancers so we got to see a girl and boy of about 10-12 years of age dance the Marinera. They were fantastic! The little boy was totally hamming it up and the little girl looked so graceful.

After dance class everyone was famished so we went to a local spot for a Peruvian specialty - Anticucho. Anticucho is beef heart that is sliced, marinated, put on skewers and then grilled. It seems to be regularly paired with different sauces of varying degrees of spiciness. The history of the dish goes back to the colonial times when the Spanish would indulge on the meat of animals, and reserve all the extra bits for the people they had enslaved. Turns out the Spanish were the ones missing out because anticuchos is delicious! There are other dishes that feature kidney and stomach that we have yet to try....