(upbeat jazz music)
- [Narrator] The heartbeat of Peru can be felt in Lima,
the thriving and cosmopolitan capital
of this diverse South American country.
The cuisine, the art, the lifestyle,
reflect a new vision of Lima's future.
Here, there's a rhythm, a beat,
a creative spirit, that keeps the city speeding ahead.
While groundbreaking chefs, artists, musicians,
athletes and others, are looking beyond their borders
for inspiration.
They also draw heavily from local tradition,
history, and heritage.
Young Peruvians are using a vibrant palette of colors
to pain a modern image of this massive city.
(upbeat Latin jazz music)
I'm hitting the streets, to feel the city's pulse,
and divine a sense of what the future holds,
for Lima, Peru.
- [Announcer] Funding for Music Voyager
provided in part by:
celebrating culture,
encouraging communication,
Create for Change,
a non-profit for bridging cultures through film.
Look, listen, learn.
Additional funding for this season of Music Voyager
provided by:
Prom Peru, Commission for Travel and Tourism, Peru,
Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau,
Tauck, how you see the world, matters.
- [Narrator] The diverse ecosystems
and rich history of Peru,
have long been a source of inspiration
for its creative people.
The natural beauty of Peru's jungles,
mountains, and deserts, and coastlines,
have enchanted locals, and visitors,
for countless generations.
Traditional cultures with roots
dating back thousands of years,
continue to exist alongside vestiges
of the Spanish colonial era.
Here, amidst the modern architecture of Lima,
Peru's complex, and often tumultuous past,
lives on in the diverse faces of its people.
(upbeat Latin jazz music)
While the past is always on display,
Peru's innovators aren't stuck in it.
In fact, they're using their history
as a launching pad toward an exhilarating future.
The epicenter for these forward-looking movements,
is in Lima, the capital of Peru,
a city built on cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Lima is also perched on the edge of new possibilities.
It's a place where you can, in fact,
teach an old dog new tricks.
My name is Jacob Edgar.
I'm an ethnomusicologist,
and I follow the planet's musical heartbeat,
to reveal the soul and spirit of our world.
I'm traveling across Peru, with my friend, Alvaro Fernandez,
a musician and entrepreneur,
who invited me to explore his fascinating country.
Alvaro is the drummer for one of Lima's
most popular rock bands, Campo de Almas.
With his connections to some of Peru's top trendsetters,
and his knowledge of unique,
off-the-beaten-path destinations,
Alvaro has promised me a journey I'll never forget.
As with many urban centers,
street art has brought an explosion of color
across the city's walls.
In Barranco, a bohemian neighborhood
that attracts artists, writers, and musicians,
public art is particularly abundant.
- I believe that the diversity that we have in this country,
the art, the music, the culture in general,
foods, the landscape, everything,
all these flavors and colors
are represented or reflected in the art of Entes y Pesimo.
- [Jacob] Entes y Pesimo are a street art power duo,
whose work is on display
in trendy galleries around the world,
not to mention, across the walls of Lima.
Alvaro and I head into Barranco,
where we meet these influential young talents, in person.
(Latin hip hop music)
- So we met them in Barranco,
and I wanted them to show us a piece of art,
a piece of work, in this district,
that is full of art, is full of culture.
- [Jacob] We walk a few blocks together,
to see one of their murals, up close.
(Latin hip hop music)
- If you are a Peruvian,
basically you have to know about Entes y Pesimo.
Their art is everywhere,
they're really well known.
- One of things you'll notice
in the artwork of Entes y Pesimo,
is the importance of music in what they do.
The panel that we saw, was a fiesta creollo,
which is a creole party.
It's a gathering where people get together,
they bring out their instruments, they play music,
they pull open a bottle of beer, or some drinks,
and just have a community gathering,
and that was what was being expressed in their artwork.
- [Jacob] These weren't just guys who were
inspired by contemporary hip hop or graffiti,
they were inspired by pre-Columbian history,
they were inspired by identity movements of the 1970's,
across Latin America.
And they were expressing that, in their artwork.
Heavily influenced by graffiti art, and hip hop culture,
Entes y Pesimo use carefully manipulated spray paint,
to craft murals with clean lines,
saturated colors, and subtle social statements.
- Wow, when I see their art, it's like boom,
I mean it's in your face.
You know, the colors, the images are strong, are powerful.
- The world is basically in the streets, right?
The walls of the streets that you pass by every day.
- [Jacob] From the magical realism of Entes y Pesimo,
to the explosion of flavors that can be found
at the city's hottest restaurants.
Lima is bustling with creativity.
At these cutting edge establishments,
the culinary cornucopia of Peru is transformed
into edible works of art,
no less impressive than an Entes y Pesimo mural,
but a lot more tasty.
- I think Peru is way more than
at the beach and a bisco sour.
Even (muffled) to showcase more of what we do.
- We are in front of a pantry that is basically
unknown, and very vast.
- We know very little about the jungle,
and we know very little about the Amazon,
and we know very little about the Andes,
and the whole mysticism of being in Peru,
what's the Andes?
What's the jungle, what's the Amazon?
How can you experience that?
- [Jacob] Several of Lima's chefs are radically
changing the concepts of Peruvian food.
Chef Pedro Miguel Schiaffino,
of the restaurant, Amas,
offers a menu influenced by the exotic flavors
of the Amazon.
While Chef Rafael Piqueras is one of Peru's top chefs,
and his dishes rely on simple, local ingredients,
prepared beautifully, at his stylish restaurant, Maras.
But Chef Virgillio Martinez
is taking a top to bottom approach,
and re-imagining everything about Peruvian cuisine.
- We know we are in the coast, in Lima,
but this not of course a Lima restaurant.
We propose menus based on different attitudes of groups,
and seeing the Peruvian geography in a vertical way,
with menus, with food.
Central, is currently number five on the prestigious
Conde Naste list of the world's 50 best restaurants,
making it the highest ranked restaurant
in all of Latin America.
- I think that here is the chef
that is a more artist chef.
- When I see his cuisine,
it's like seeing a painting, you know, an art painting.
And also, he is doing a tremendous effort
in using ingredients from all over Peru.
- [Jacob] Chef Martinez is challenging his guests
to explore Peru's biodiversity, with an 18 course meal,
that can take up to four hours to present.
- Here in one experience, you try
about 258 Peruvian products.
And probably about 150, you haven't tried before,
if you are coming from abroad.
- [Jacob] We meet this celebrity chef at Central,
to find out what's cooking.
So this is a garden attached to your restaurant,
what do you use this for?
- You know this garden is just on top of the kitchen,
the kitchen is downstairs.
We try to use like as many Andean and Amazonian herbs,
that we grow in Peru.
- What Virgillio is doing, is really really interesting,
because he has decided to create a very Peruvian
approach to gastronomy.
His restaurant, Central, is kind of like
a museum of modern art of food.
- It's interesting to know that he's not only
focusing flavors, but he's
showing us a whole ecosystem in every dish he does.
- And he really is an artist, a food artist,
because he takes these ingredients,
and presents them in this incredibly unique way
to create dishes that are as aesthetically pleasing,
and they are culinarily pleasing.
- Our thing is innovations,
and we know that we will be criticized about this,
of course, about what we do,
and if we are not preserving tradition and stuff like that,
and we do preserve tradition,
we do preserve Peruvian natural ecosystems with our food.
We do preserve what's happening with Peruvian producers,
so I think, what is more Peruvian than that?
- We asked Virgillio to take us
to a place that he likes to eat,
and I thought it was interesting that he decided
to take to a restaurant in Barranco called Isolina.
- This is very traditional Peruvian cuisine.
- This is like comfort food.
- Comfort food,
it's very so different to what I do,
which really excites me.
And here you talk about sharing portions,
portions are huge.
- So it's like family style?
- Family style,
and no fuss, nothing.
- This is classic Peruvian dishes,
but prepared in the most exquisite
and delicious way imaginable.
Oh my God, look at these plates.
What? That's huge.
Oh my God.
- Yeah, so here you see like a very,
a tiny portion of (words in foreign language).
- This is just for me, right?
What is it?
- A pork stew.
- [Jacob] Pork stew?
Did I hear mani?
- Yeah, with something else.
- Pork with peanuts.
- Yeah.
- And this beef, when they say saltado,
what does that mean?
- Saute.
- Sauted beef.
And there's actual like french fries.
- Here you have like some Chinese and African influences.
- Yeah, so a little Chinese flavor.
- Yeah, well you know we've been through
500 years of fusion.
- And I thought it was interesting that,
that's where Virgillio chose to take us.
Somebody who's such an innovator,
somebody who creates these kind of masterpieces
of cutting edge cuisine,
decided to go back to his roots,
and show us the quintessential example
of Peruvian home cooking.
- Peruvian cuisine is all about diversity.
And you go to different restaurants,
and nobody's doing the same.
Every time you go to a restaurant like,
you see different stuff,
different recipes, different ingredients.
- But it's funny, like here we are,
we have liver, beef, pork,
but I noticed on your menu it's actually,
it's not a lot of meat.
- No.
- Very vegetable or fish oriented.
- Yeah, we're quite doing the opposite.
When this guy comes to my restaurant,
he had a good laugh like, there's no meat,
and it's in plants and herbs,
and he's like hey, where's the meat, man?
- I mean I have eaten some great food on this trip in Peru,
but this is probably the best meal I've had,
on the entire trip.
The past is a constant presence in Lima,
but that doesn't mean it's passe.
(upbeat Latin jazz music)
In fact, what's old is cool again,
especially according to bands such as Bareto,
who dig into the vaults to find inspiration
for their hit songs.
Bareto has mined, and reinvented, retro sounds,
to become one of the most popular bands in Peru today.
Bareto started as a reggae band, doing tropical music,
and then they realized wait,
we have our own tropical music right here in Peru,
it's this jungle Cumbia, this Cumbia from the Amazon.
- So basically I mean, they're important
because put the Amazon in the map again.
- But they're young hip guys,
who made this old music seem cool.
And I think to their surprise,
they were hugely successful.
The people of Lima are discovering the Amazon
in a lot of ways.
I mean, here we are in a nightclub
and a bar called Ayahuasca,
and we've seen artwork influenced by the Amazon,
so the Amazon's--
- Because we're very cool.
And this bar is kind of trendy, and it's nice.
- And it's different as Peruvian too,
because of the cuisine, the art, the street art.
- [Jacob] It's unique, right?
So it's exotic even for Peruvians?
- The thing about what we do, playing this Amazonian music,
is like Amazonian music is not very famous here, in Peru.
Peru is very centralized in Lima.
We kind of connect that whole great culture,
of the Amazon, and we do our best
to bring it to the people here in Lima,
and in every place over Peru.
Peru is always fantasized, it's always the mountains,
but not the jungle, necessarily.
- [Jacob] The Amazon is hot.
- And Ayahuasca, this bar, and Bareto,
are two big examples of how
the Amazonia has influenced the modern life
in the capital, in Lima, in Peru in general.
- Well I'm drinking a coca sour.
- I'm drinking chamung.
- It's all Amazonian right here.
- This is a nayaka sour.
So we're in the jungle, in the middle of Lima.
- [Jacob] Lima's landscape is certainly unique.
The cliffs that drop to the shoreline below,
provide a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean.
Locals enjoy that view along the Malecon,
a stretch of sidewalk that weaves along the cliffs.
This coastline has been one of Peru's
most vital resources for millennia.
The people have been heading into the ocean for food,
adventure, and fun, since long before written history.
Alvaro and I head south along the coast,
to Santa Maria del Mar,
a resort town, popular with upscale Lima residents.
He took us to the community south of Lima,
where he's been going since he was a little kid.
(upbeat Latin jazz music)
And took us out with a great captain, onto the ocean.
We take to the water with Alec Hughes Pardo.
On land, he sells banking software,
but on the water, he's the captain.
- Alec is this friend of mine
that he's known in Lima,
and in the sailing environment.
He sails around the world, like literally.
This is summer in Peru, and it's unusual
to have rains in summer.
It's more like a mist or like a drizzle.
- But it's very dry, I mean the landscape behind us,
it almost looks like the moon.
It's got this lunar quality to it.
As we sail further up the coast,
thick fog begins to settle in.
- Lima, has a special, unique climate,
because of the close Andes,
and the currents create all this fog,
because of the air that's not bad, it's cold,
and its difference in temperature
makes our coast, it's very unique
because of that.
- Definitely, that's one of the reasons why we have
so many fish and we're so rich in seafood.
- Peru has one of the most consistent waves in the world.
We have steady winds, it's perfect for sailing,
it's perfect for surfing.
- [Jacob] In fact, some claim
that Peruvians invented surfing.
Well that might be a stretch but,
there's no question that ancient Peruvian fishermen,
were riding the waves on reed boats,
long before bleach blonde surfer dudes were hanging 10.
Modern Peruvians feel this link to tradition
gives them a special cred,
in today's international surfing scene.
- We have a big surfing country in Peru.
Currently we are one of the countries
with more consistent waves along our coast.
- Well surfing culture in Peru is huge.
I mean it's more than I realized for sure.
Peru is one of the world epicenters for surfing,
and has been for a long time.
One of the surf world's rising stars
learned to catch waves right here on the Lima shore.
We met Vania Torres, who is a world champion surfer,
she's 21 years old.
Vania is making a splash on surfing's
international pro circuit.
She ranks in the top 10 of South American female surfers.
- I think the surf culture in Lima
has been developing a lot throughout the years.
People are trying more the sport,
and it's more about getting in contact with nature,
and having a little more time for your self.
- [Jacob] The beaches here are covered with smooth rocks.
The waves break upon the shore, only meters
from one of Lima's busiest roads.
Lima is unique because there are these amazing cliffs,
these very high cliffs.
- [Alvaro] So basically the city crashes with the ocean,
with the sea.
So the waves are right there.
- [Jacob] Alvaro and I catch up with Vania
at one of Lima's most popular beaches.
- I've been surfing for like, 11 years.
- Okay so you were a kid.
- Yeah, nine years old.
- [Jacob] And are you from Lima, originally?
- [Vania] Yeah, I started right here in Medrana.
- [Jacob] Right on this beach?
- Yes.
The stereotype of being a girl,
and doing sports that are more man-like,
like, not there anymore.
- The cool thing is that here in Lima,
it's so easy to learn how to surf.
You just go to the ocean,
right downtown basically,
right on the edge of the city.
- It makes it special that the city is right next to it.
Like, you can just come down and surf.
Also, there are a lot of schools,
like to learn how to surf, and they give you the boards,
they give you all the equipment so you can go and try it.
- [Jacob] I decided to give surfing a try.
A few tips on how to stand up,
and it was time to get in the water.
(reggae jazz music)
I was so excited that on my second try
I was able to stand up,
but really, it was because they just guided me
in there so easily.
So they're really supportive,
and that was great, it was fun.
- The thing is, you can sail on the coast a lot.
It's not an environment that's too difficult to live with,
compared to other parts of the world, right?
Or the Atlantic on the other side of South America.
- [Jacob] Captain Hughes tacks the ship,
swinging it around to head towards shore.
And just after he does that,
the sun breaks through the dense clouds,
lighting the sky on fire.
(reggae jazz music)
As we sail along the coast, near Lima,
the sunset marks the end of a day,
but it also means that tomorrow is just that much closer.
Lima is rushing toward its future,
but it's not leaving its past behind.
If anything, the past provides the foundation,
upon which a new society is being built.
The dawning of a new day in Peru is coming soon.
Based on what I've experienced in Lima,
it seems like that new day is already here.
(reggae jazz music)
- [Announcer] Funding for Music Voyager
provided in part by:
celebrating culture,
encouraging communication,
Create for Change,
a non-profit for bridging cultures through film.
Look, listen, learn.
Additional funding for this season of Music Voyager
provided by:
Prom Peru, Commission for Travel and Tourism, Peru,
Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau,
Tauck, how you see the world, matters.