Shopping with Netita
Netita is a city girl. She grew up in Lima and Chiclayo. She doesn’t even have a driver’s license, let alone a car. She gets around the city by walking, taking public transportation and using taxis.
One evening, the touch screen on my cell phone stopped working! These days, cell phones are as essential to international travel as money, credit cards and passports. I had to get it repaired.
The next morning, I asked Netita where to get the phone repaired. Of course she knew where to go. She told me she was doing some other errands that morning and if I wanted to go with her, she would take me to a place to get the phone fixed. Since Daniel was still sleeping (he’s a night owl and is not usually up and about in the morning), just the two of us set off to do the errands together.
Walking
The Bemsa Market is across the street from our apartment. It has a butcher shop in the back and also sells fresh fruit and vegetables, dairy products, soft drinks, beer, wine and liquor, cleaning supplies and snacks.
Note the delivery motorcycles parked outside the market.
First we walked to the market across the street. She bought some bulk cat food for her sister. Then we walked a couple of blocks over to the Jorge Chávez metro station where she found a waiting moto-taxi that would take us to her sister’s house. Her sister Katiuska lives in the La Floresta neighborhood about a mile and a half away. “La Floresta” is the word you would use to name a beautiful spot out in the country. It’s a nice name, but in this case, it’s more aspirational than literal. Daniel says the area was just sand dunes when he was a kid.
Moto Taxis
This moto taxi is making its way through the open-air market in La Floresta.
The moto taxi that took Netita and me to her sister’s apartment in La Floresta was, unlike this one, old and beat-up. But there was enough room for both of us.
That ride, through traffic-choked thoroughfares, chaotic intersections and narrow dusty commercial streets was more exciting than anything at Disneyland!
This street is just one block west of the Panamericana Sur Expressway. On the other side of the expressway is the upscale Mall del Sur where we bought our refrigerator (see below).
Combis
After delivering the cat food, we walked a couple of blocks to a bus stop on a larger street. Netita explained that, while much more modest than the neighborhoods of La Virreyna and El Rancho, La Floresta is reasonably safe. A combi picked us up. A combi is a small 15 passenger van with a driver and a conductor. I barely fit, but it was a fun ride. We joked that Daniel would NEVER take a trip in a combi!
Coasters (Cúster, in Spanish)
The combi took us to Avenida Santiago de Surco, where we caught a Coaster bus to the Óvalo Higuereta.
Coaster buses, ubiquitous in Lima, are manufactured in Japan by Toyota (there are also Chinese and South Korean knock-offs).
They are also popular in places like Australia (pictured here), Thailand, Panama and Bolivia. They are much more comfortable than a Combi.
Polvos Rosados
After disembarking at the Óvalo Higuereta we walked a block over to Polvos Rosados. Polvos Rosados is an emporium of a couple hundred stalls selling a great variety of goods: clothing, jewelry, cell phone covers, sporting goods, luggage and much else. The top floor is a food court, open to the air on the sides but covered for protection from the sun.
One of the shops repairs cell phones.
The technician examined my phone and checked for parts. Fortunately, he had the parts he needed. The repair took longer than expected – my phone’s screen had a metal frame whereas the phones in Latin America use a plastic frame. We walked back three blocks to El Rancho for a late lunch of Silvia’s delicious cooking. When we got the call that the phone was ready, Renetta drove us back to pick it up and then dropped us off at our apartment.
The phone works perfectly now.
Shopping with Daniel
Unlike Netita, Daniel has lived all his adult life in the suburban United States. His shopping habits are thoroughly Americanized. He is used to driving to large malls and big box stores like Walmart, Lowes, or Best Buy to do his shopping.
The small refrigerator in our apartment was on its last legs. It was barely keeping the temperature down to 50 degrees Fahrenheit – far too warm for Daniel’s meds. We had to get a new refrigerator.
Driving
So one evening, Daniel, Netita, James and I piled into Renetta’s blue Suzuki and drove through the usual dense chaotic Lima traffic about a mile down Avenida Santiago de Surco under the elevated metro line, then through the interchange with the Panamericano Sur and through the crowds of cars, taxis and moto-taxis to the entrance of the parking garage of the Mall del Sur. Since land is scarce, the parking garage sits underneath the building (like City Creek in downtown Salt Lake and unlike Fashion Place in the suburbs).
Parking
If Dante Alighieri were alive today, the parking garage of the Mall del Sur would inspire him to add another circle of hell to the Divine Comedy. The place assaulted the senses. Despite high ceilings, the interior felt humid and thick with car exhaust fumes. There was a little light above each parking stall that was red if the space was occupied and green if the space was available. There were only a handful of green lights scattered off in the distance, beckoning the dozens of cars looking for a parking place. All this was accompanied by a cacophony of triggered car alarms.
The Mall del Sur
But when we walked into the mall, everything was bright, clean and enticing – just like in the United States. We checked 4 different department stores. Netita and Daniel carefully compared features and prices. The brands were mostly familiar: Samsung, Bosch, LG, but some were unfamiliar: Mabe from Mexico (the microwave oven in our apartment is a Mabe) and Indurama from Ecuador. We ultimately settled on a Hisense from China that was on sale for about $500.00
Delivery
Our new refrigerator! It is made by Hisense, a Chinese company. It is quite spacious inside and cools very well.
The water dispenser taps into a water container inside the refrigerator that you have to refill by hand.
The label on the upper left corner indicates that this model falls into the most efficient category of energy use.
Daniel has already started covering this refrigerator with the magnets he is collecting on this trip.
When the refrigerator arrived a couple of days later, Daniel bribed and browbeat the delivery truck drivers into carrying it upstairs into our apartment. We had to unpack it in order to get it through the kitchen door. It looks very elegant. It is spacious. It works great – no more worries about keeping the meds cool. And Daniel has more space to display his collection of refrigerator magnets!
Shopping with Renetta
Renetta grew up in Lima and as an adult has lived in Greece, England, Peru, New Jersey and Utah. She is a world class shopper! She drives, although her driving style is somewhat more sedate than is typical for Lima. She told me that once another driver, frustrated with her slower pace, yelled at her, calling her a “tortuga vieja” (old turtle). She just laughed and yelled back that his mother was also an old turtle!
One afternoon Renetta announced that she needed to buy a small set of shelves for her bedroom and invited Daniel, Netita and me to come along. We all piled into her blue Suzuki and she drove to a street in the nearby municipality of Surquillo that was lined with small furniture and basketry shops. We went to a store where she picked out what we wanted. We stuffed it into the Suzuki (it has a remarkably spacious interior for such a small car) and, after stopping in a small restaurant named Don Facu for some of the best anticuchos I have ever eaten, made our way back home.
Daniel with Renetta (right) and the owner of the furniture shop (left). Renetta picked out a half-height set of white shelves.
The shop also had wooden coat racks (visible behind Daniel) that would be perfect for our house in Salt Lake.
Note the baskets hanging from the ceiling of the basket shop next door.
The shops were tiny! Maybe 12 feet wide, but they extended way back from the street.
Shopping by Myself
I have lived most of my life in suburban Salt Lake City, but spent a crucial six months in Italy when I was nineteen. I didn’t have a car, and I loved living in a place where you could walk a couple of minutes to small stores in the neighborhood and buy anything you needed. Ever since, I have looked back at that time with fondness. And here I am, over 50 years later, once again in a neighborhood where all my routine shopping is within a couple hundred yards of our apartment.
So for breakfast, I first go to the bakery around the corner to get some rolls hot out of the oven. On my way back, I stop at the fruit stand – the one with the cats – and pick out something good. The mangoes are especially tasty! I might also go to the market across the street to pick up some milk, yogurt, butter, bottled water, coffee or anything else we need. I’m back at the apartment within 10 minutes, eating a delicious breakfast of fresh brewed coffee with milk, hot rolls with butter and jam and fresh fruit.