Day 2: Lima, Peru

We got out of the airport with bags and into the hotel faster than we expected. We got a decent amount of sleep before getting a small breakfast at the hotel. We were going on a food tour at 9:30am so we had to save room....

We started in Barranco at a church built when the Spanish first came. The roof of the church was destroyed in the 1940 earthquake that the government has promised to restore. Our guide, Lourdes, said “they’re working on it”, which is about how it looks. We then walked across the “Bridge of Sighs” while holding hands and our breath. Legend has it that is you make a wish and make it across without taking a breath with your beloved, it will come true. We took some more photos and went for a coffee tasting.

Tostaduria Bisetti selects and roasts their own beans on site. I had an Americano and we got Jill a Mochachino with Peruvian chocolate so she could taste. Jill doesn’t drink coffee so I finished mine and most of hers. We did more walking on Barranco and then went into a place for a shake. It has a Peruvian fruit called lúcuma along with ice cream and sugar. It was fairly tasty!

We used the toilet here since our next stop would be the market and it’s much cleaner here. While Jill was away, I talked to Lourdes about awareness of thieves. She said that they are so good they can unzip a backpack and take something without you noticing. She said someone took her wallet from her front pocket and she did not notice it. She called this “manos de mantequilla”. Hands of butter. So smooth.

We then went to the market. We looked at a veggie stand for a while inspecting at least 10 different types of potatoes. We saw many other veggies with variations including black corn and a white corn with HUGE kernels. We learned there are about 3000 varieties of quinoa grown here although only a few are actually known on the market. We were also shown a bunch of fresh seafood and fish caught today. We then hung out at a fruit stand for a while learning about several variations of some fruits and even saw some raw cacao that with some work could become chocolate with the stuff on the inside. We were then given forks and bowls of several fruits to try. One had this gooey seed stuff we were told not to chew - just scoop onto fork and swallow it.

We then over to Miraflores to do two things: 1. learn how to make a Pisco Sour and 2. learn how to make a ceviche. For the Pisco Sour, it’s important to note that today is ‘Election Day’ in Peru. This means no alcohol is allowed to be served through Monday morning so I’m not naming where we went. We got there before the lunch hour so the staff showed us how to make them and then we got to make our own! It was fun AND foamy good!

Once we got that down, we sat down at a table and made our own ceviche with assistance from the chef. We then ate the “appetizer” and it was good. We still had lunch to eat.

Lunch was at Huaca Puallana right next to some Incan ruins. The restaurant is helping to unearth then somewhat. We had a great chicken dish along with  guinea pig (tastes like chicken) and beef heart (a little tough, but not bad). Of course, they then cleared our plates and then brought out 4 different dessert cups like a shake/ice cream. A couple of them had fruit that were good. 3 of them had some or a lot of chocolate! 

It was all so well balanced and tasty - we were so full..... Great way to start the trip in a food city which I’m sure Jill will be talking about in detail over the next several days.

After this food tour, we headed back to the hotel to rest and digest. Eventually I swam in the pool for about 25 minutes and Jill worked out in the gym.

For dinner we went to La Rosa Nautica - the same owner as the place the tour happened to take us for lunch as our final stop. They had a Perry Como & Frank Sinatra Christmas music on a 10 song repeat loop. We heard it at least 3 times and we weren’t really there that long since the voting prevented ordering a bottle of wine. Jill ordered a ceviche starter and a seafood main while I got a pasta dish in a cheese sauce and Arroz con Pato. That duck was a superb Peruvian dish. Jill’s main came first which kind of confused us and the other dish never came. By the time we got the staff to understand what was missing we realized we had eaten so much today that we should just get back to the hotel. We had eaten 2 days worth of food in a single day.

For more pics, please click here.