That was a curiosity on my “bucket list.”

And the answer is, “Yes.” And then some.

Some classmates and I had the evening of Feb. 18 free and decided to catch the (South American region) Copa Libertadores game between host Alianza Lima (Club Lima Alliance) and Estudiantes of Buenes Aires, Argentina. Alianza is arguably the most popular team in the Peruvian First Division league and Estudiantes was the 2009 Copa Libertadores champion.

The game was played in one-deck, 35,000-seat Estadio Alejandro Villanueva, a 35-year-old stadium in the La Victoria District of Lima, Peru.

Here’s my account of the sights and sounds:

The eight of us had an “in” – a friend of a friend we had met who happened to be an Alianza fan. He offered to get us to the stadium and to the appropriate seats. (That’s important.)

The taxis dropped us off in a street next to a large wall about 45 minutes before the 7:30 p.m. game. Policemen stood at a gate, opening it periodically to let fans in. We entered and walked a few feet to a concrete “bunker” along the wall that was the ticket office. Gustavo took our money and bought tickets in what we learned is the “sedate” section. The tickets were about $35 each.

Gustavo was wearing his Alianza jersey. He looked at us Americans milling around and suggested we buy some Alianza jerseys to fit in. Good idea. I am now No. 9, a big fan of Claudio Velásquez (who happens to be playing in the Argentina league). It cost $8 from a street vendor.

We walked up a ramp, by a policeman, by a guard checking bags and then through the ticket-taker. Then we were in the stadium concourse, a narrow concrete tunnel. At one end was a glassed-in café for VIPs. We walked to the other end, past restrooms and a card table at which a woman was selling …. something to eat. Still not sure what it was.

We squeezed past some fans that were milling around at the top of the steps of the stadium and walked down 20 rows. Our seats faced the Argentine goal, as if we were on the 5-yard-line at an NFL game.

So what did we see?

First, you notice that there is a 10-foot-wide “moat” separating the stands from the soccer field. It’s not filled with water but it’s clear that there’s a drop of about 12 feet. There probably won’t be any fans trying to run onto the field.

Across the stadium and to our right are areas filling in with fans. They look like bleachers and have flags representing dozens of “fan clubs” based in that section.

Then you see the barbed-wire-topped chain-link fence separating us from the “end zone” seats.

You couldn’t buy a water or a Coke in the stadium. Instead, a vendor walked the stands with a red ade in a lidded cup. (It was actually OK.) The most popular snack was popcorn.

* * *

The atmosphere became electric minutes before the game.

First, about 20 Estudiantes fans and team managers were led by police from the “moat” to seats just in front of us, at field level. Based on catcalls, someone in the entourage determined that it might be better to be “above” the foes, instead of between them and the field. Police with plastic shields then led the group up the steps to the top of the stadium.

A TV crew then walked up and interviewed a few of us for the pregame show. Sufficed to say, we pledged our allegiance to Alianza, to cheers from those around us.

Then the singing started.

One “swarm” of fans at about the 50-yard-line on the other side of the stands began rhythmic chants, fan-club songs and cheers for the home team. Of course, the songs were in Spanish – and, according to my friends – the anti-Argentina ones called into question those players’ “heritage.”

Another swarm caused a commotion by entering the stands from the adjacent end zone and marching down to the fence against the field.

The fervor continued to rise, with each group trying to out-sing the other. Then one side would light some red flares and wave them. The other would create an open space within its throng, toss in a lit firecracker, watch it explode and then rush to fill the space. Really.

Now we knew why Gustavo bought us these seats.

* * *

The uproar continued through the opening whistle … and even after Estudiantes scored 14 seconds into the game! A long kick, some defensive confusion, the Argentine player gets the ball, he moves around the goalie and it’s 1-0. (The links are short videos taken on a Blackberry.)

Ugh!

But the chanting continued!

Then Alianza took control. They scored one goal, then another.

The fans continued to go crazy. After the goals fans rushed and climb the fence against the moat.

Yes, objects were thrown at the opposing team. On Estudiantes’ corner kicks, three policemen with plastic shields would protect the player as he prepared to kick the ball.

The third goal seemingly put the game away. The fourth, late in the second half, sealed it.

With five minutes to go, Gustavo scooted us out of the stadium. He had a friend’s taxis waiting and we were off. Just before the tear gas (just kidding).

Santiago, Chile is refined, isolated, modern, and architecturally beautiful.

Lima, Peru is scrappy, noisy, dusty and crowded.

Santiago has subways; Lima has private minivans stuffed with workers.

Santiago has a hillside park with a funicular, a zoo, an amphitheater below a towering statue of the Virgin Mary.

Lima has a few parks squeezed between one-way streets.

And those streets are congested with honking taxis making their own lanes.

Still, Lima has its charms.

The Miraflores district south of downtown bustles with shops, restaurants, and hotels. There are major retailers along with “pocket” storefronts offering men’s clothes, jewelry and art.

Downtown Lima – dating back to the 1600s – has several large squares. The famous Plaza Mayor boasts the Government Palace to the north (with a Buckingham Palace-like look), the Cathedral of Lima to the east, the Municipal Palace to the west, and now commercial buildings to the south. The architecture is Spanish colonial, dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries. The facades and balconies are incredible.

Several blocks from the Plaza Mayor are the San Francisco Church and Monastery. The sprawling compound was built between 1657 and 1774 in Spanish Neoclassicism and displays incredible original artwork by painters like Peter Paul Rubens.

One room features 12 murals depicting the Stations of the Cross. Another has a Peruvian take on the Last Supper. (Alas, photos aren’t permitted.)

The convent’s library is world-renowned both for its design and its centuries-old books. Below the church are catacombs displaying bones and skulls of some of the 25,000 “elites” buried there.

Most disappointing is the upkeep of the art and structures; it seems no one has the time or money to care for it. So they just wear away, which is sad.

Over the last 20 years Peru has moved away from its recent state-controlled past to embrace private enterprise, international trade, individual freedoms, government that’s more accountable and less inclined toward social engineering, and an independent central bank.

Privatization is improving Lima.

The airport, which former prime minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski once called a “dump,” is now modern, with efficient flows of people and baggage.

The port of Callao, just northwest of Lima, has been updated by its outsourcing to world port manager Dubai World.

And then there’s this oddity: Lima has miles of property along the Pacific Ocean. It’s vacant. Nothing. Rocks. Fences. A road. Puzzling.

How has Peru changed over the years?

One man who could offer a credible explanation spoke to Arizona State’s Executive MBA class during a visit to ESAN University in Lima.

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a former prime minister and economic minister for the nation, has seen it all in his 71 years.

The son of a German émigré, Kuczynski studied in Peru before heading to Oxford University in England. He put his economics background to use with the World Bank in the 1960s, on Wall Street and in Washington in the 1970s, and then as the minister of energy and mines in Peru in the early 1980s. Then it was back to Wall Street and investment banking, along with foundation work, until 2000.

That was the year a professor friend at ESAN, Alejandro Toledo, ran for president of Peru, won, and made Kuczynski his minister of the economy. He held that post and the position of prime minister at different times during Toledo’s six-year term. Since then he has contributed to non-profit work in Peru, lectured and continues to write on national issues.

What is Peru’s biggest challenge?

“Poverty,” he told the class.

Of Peru’s 29 million citizens, one-third live in poverty. It creates a problem like a three-wheeled ice cream cart with one flat tire, he said. “It’s a drag on the others.”

Poverty in the country has never been a secret. From the military coup in 1968 to 1988, Peru was a state-run enterprise. Land was confiscated, industries taken over, promises made. There was no progress.

“Locust years,” Kuczynski said. “Per-capita income fell.”

1990 brought a radical change, with the democratic election of Alberto Fujimori. There was privatization, 300 separate taxes were eliminated and the economy bounced back.

But the administration was corrupt and Fujimori was eventually jailed.

When Toledo was elected, the poverty rate in Peru was 55%.

President Toledo and Mr. Kuczynski reduced import tariffs to boost trade and sought to simply the tax structure, to bring more businesses into the “formal” economy, and away from the black market.

They also cut Peru’s debt, from 55% of GDP to 25-30%. (Kuczynski chided the U.S. government for the spending binge it’s been on since 2008; the country is getting dangerously close to the edge, when the debt equals 100% of GDP. Like it or not, the U.S. has to cut entitlements, increase but simply tax rates, and raise interest rates.)

Kuczynski would like the government, now led by Alan Garcia, to keep its eye on reducing poverty. He believes it starts with education (holding students to higher standards and paying teachers more), encouraging investment and growth, and addressing the country’s infrastructure.

“The water systems don’t work,” he said. “No one pays, there are no bills, and pipes break.”

He wants to see the water system privatized, like the country did with the phone system and electricity.

“(Private managers) oversee things better,” he said. “The (Lima) airport was privatized. Ten years ago it was a slum.”

Kuczynski said formalizing the economy will make a big difference. Without it, people pay in cash and there is no tax revenue.

“We need to give incentives to companies to become formal and play by the rules,” he said. “For employees this will mean social security and pension funds.”

If government stays focused on limited spending and encouraging free enterprise, Peru should grow at 7-8% a year for the next 20 years, he said.

“One, there’s a demographic bonus,” he said. “We have few old people, not too many kids, a rapidly growing workforce, and fewer births.”

“Second, China is our second-biggest market after the U.S., and it is growing.”

The one threat, however, is social unrest.

“Peru is potentially unstable because of poverty,” he said. “It’s not the distribution of wealth. It’s the poor population.”

The hamburger was not completely foreign, but it was viewed by Peruvians as more as a snack, to be eaten after 6 p.m.

The pair created Bembos as a spot for lunch or dinner by putting the burger on a plate, serving it with French fries and having a fork and knife close by. The approach worked.

Now Bembos has 40 stores across Peru, and holds about 50 percent market share. McDonalds and Burger King have come down from the United States but Bembos is holding its own.

The first point of differentiation is the burger. It’s a grilled, thick half-pounder, made up of beef mixed with spices. You can get a standard burger with cheese, but Bembos offers much more. “The Mexican,” for example, includes guacamole, cheese and tortilla chips between the buns. “The Royal” features beef, egg and cheese. “The Hawaiian includes beef, ham and pineapple. Other burgers include mushrooms and cheese, or sausage, or rice.

Bembos may be “fast food” – with drive-thrus – but it targets a middle-income to upscale audience, marketing director Ruben Mazzini told the class. The clientele can be described as managers or supervisors, between 25 and 45, who are willing to pay $10 for a meal. Families patronize stores but not a lot of teenagers, he said. McDonalds and Burger King serve the middle to lower markets.

Bembos’ marketing reflects its strategy. Its ads feature a nicely dressed professional woman who, after looking in both directions, bites into a big burger. It says, “Be yourself, express yourself, give a present to yourself, be a rebel,” Mr. Mazzini said.

The placement of stores was well thought out. Bembos targeted commercial areas of Lima for lunch crowds and residential areas for family dinners and weekend traffic. They allow some customization of the menu by area, introducing local specialties or ingredients.

It offers online ordering and has delivery. (That feature was started 15 years ago during a period of civil unrest; crime and curfews kept people in their homes at night.)

Bembos also sells salads, chicken sandwiches and ice cream.

Bembos – which boasts its products as “the best burgers in the world” – is open to expansion. Individuals have purchased franchises for Bembos outside of Peru. One store is in Guatemala; three have opened in India.

Before you ask, “A hamburger place in India?,” Mr. Mazzini notes that it serves veggie burgers and lamb burgers. Why did Bembos go there? “It’s a big market,” he simply replied.

Franchises are available for $35,000, plus 5% of sales. An ambitious individual with a love of burgers may want to open a Bembos in a place like Miami, gateway to Latin America.

Instead of buses and subways, Peruvians travel across the city in taxis or, more likely, stuffed private minivans painted with individual designs or logos. It was not unusual to see three or four such vans backed up in the street waiting for the light to change. They would then pull over at an intersection and men and women would jump out and jump in.

The overall impression was that folks are busy, enterprising and trying to make their lives better.

This was no more evident than during a visit to the industrial park in Villa El Salvador in the southeast portion of Lima. The city’s poor live along hills on the outskirts, in areas called shanties. Streets are dirty, the structures nailed together, and garbage blows wherever it wants. There seems to be little desire to improve a building’s appearance; that would most likely send a message of success, and make one susceptible to crime.

In this setting 25 years ago a group of men, encouraged by the government, which was fighting unemployment, created an industrial park in the shanty town. They were asked to expand trades in the area and provide jobs to the residents. The government promised to extend railroad tracks to the area to make moving materials and products easier. (Ironically, the tracks are there but a train has never arrived.)

The men divided the park into four areas: Carpentry (for furniture-building); metal works; shoe-making; and garment-making. They set up small businesses and employed people from the area.

The park now employs 30,000 people, including 1,300 carpenters. The average monthly salary in Peru is $550; in the park pay of $1,000 to $1,600 per month is not uncommon.

The furniture dimension is considered a huge success. The manufacturing shops produce high-quality items like office furniture, sofas and shelves. Some of the items are sent to Lima stores and some pieces are exported. Here’s one participant’s website: http://www.muebles-orihuela.com

Wood is imported from Ecuador and Chile, and craftsmen use Computer-Assisted Design programs to size shapes. Custom orders can be filled within 48 hours.

But, interestingly, in this area are a large number of furniture showrooms that, from the inside, could compare favorably with American stores. In fact, more affluent residents of Lima are known to travel to the park to buy their furniture, because of the quality and selection.

The leaders of the park spoke to our college group in an open-air, cement-floored meeting room with plastic lawn chairs. A Peruvian flag and a Rotary-like flag showing the teamwork of the various industries were on poles behind the panelists.

They were quite modest about what they’ve achieved since 1985. Through a translator, the man in charge of the metal segment attributed the growth to “little steps.” A lesson to remember.