6.16pm, Sunday May 17, KSA Tomada bookshop ....happiness

Happiness is an excellent bookstore/cafe. I was looking for Huaca Pucllana, which I gather is some sort of archeological site (it is an elongated brown blob on the map) but instead found one of the best bookstore/cafes I have ever been to. KSA Tomada is spacious and modern and quiet, with dark wood bookshelves and white walls. The tables of the cafe, a large room with red walls and shellacked concerte floor, has large glass-topped tables with scattered coffee beans and picture books of Peru under the glass. There is a low-ceilinged upstairs with red couches and chairs.

After trying and failing to figure out what ´palto´is (avocado!) I am eating a ´triple´with egg, tomato, and avocado and mayonnaise. Crustless. Divine. I think the menu says that this was Borges´s favourite sandwich (don´t quote me on that). Simple but divine. I also have a bottle of cusqueña beer, which is cheap. $5.50 solars a bottle and the exchange rate is $1Aus to 2.25 solars.

Before I arriving at this calm spot I found an immensely grand supermarket. It had two floors connected by a grand balustraded wooden staircase. Despite its grandeur it wasn´t expensive...well, not for me. I bought a small slice of blue-veined cheese; three different sorts of beautiful looking bread rolls (one more wholemeal pita-like) ; a tamale verde, which I hope isn´t stuffed with meat; a cucumber; more big, white passionfruits; and another unknown fruit to try, which I´ve seen before - yellow with five pod-like sides. I also bought deodorant, which I got away without using in cold Buenos Aires but now my clothes are smelling, and another disposable camera. I shot my last photo on my first camera while walking above the ocean and want to take more where the beach becomes prettier. I thought I was being frugal with photo taking but already I have taken 27 photos.

For May Sarton happiness is a vase of flowers in her ´cosy room´. For me it is a great bookstore/cafe. In such places being alone is a pleasure.

But, one must READ in a bookstore/cafe...

People are allowed to smoke here in the cafe. In Buenos Aires people smoked in train stations, though it is technically against the rules. There was a smoker and a not-young couple from which emanated a constant stream of kissing sounds sitting in the cafe but they have now gone to leave me in more peace.

A few details I have remembered:

Here in Miraflores there are little strippy gas stations in the median strips of major thoroughfares.

On Buenos Aires mornings, waiters holding trays of coffee cross streets to deliver breakfast to shopworkers.

Everyone beeps plentifully here in Miraflores, little soft beeps. Mostly it is taxi drivers letting you know they are available for you, but I wonder if some of the beeping is to warn other cars and pedestrians that a car is coming because many crossings don´t have lights. Even if there are traffic lights, people cross as soon as the opportunity arrives, regardless of lights.