Our move to Rio was my first trip to South America and I'd been dying to travel to this part of the world for years, but it was always too far and too expensive from England. Not anymore! So when my girlfriends from Cali asked me to join them on a trip to Lima, Peru, I said hell yeah! It was actually pretty spontaneous, which made it all the more exciting.
First, lets talk food. OH MY GOD IT'S GOOD. Peruvian food is so diverse, it's a mix of indigenous dishes like papa a la huancaina and fusions with other cultures like tallarines. I loved the varieties of corn and potatoes and the rich sauces. It was so refreshing to see vegetables play an important and colorful role in Peruvian food.
We went to this restaurant called La Onceava in Barranco, a cool neighborhood with Victorian architecture, lots of entertainment and oddly interspersed abandoned streets. We ordered many traditional dishes like cebiche, tallarine, tiraditos and causas. Everything was fresh, delicious and beyond this world.
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| cebiche |
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| tallarine verde con langostinos |
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| more cebiche |
We ate up a storm and got really drunk. We arrived in Peru during the elections during which the country imposes a strict no
drinking policy EVERYWHERE. However we were armed with charm and managed to convince our waiter to serve us pitcher upon pitcher of the famous national drink, the Pisco sour. That thing was tasty and absolutely lethal. By round two it was clear that we were drinking and the only ones in the restaurant.
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| Pisco sour with a side of cebiches, tiradito de pulpo and causa de cangrejo |
We stayed at Casa Andina in beautiful Miraflores, which was the best location. It has gardens aplenty like El Parque de Amor, is close to the Costa Verde, has great shops like Artesanías Miraflores and great restaurants.
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| Costa Verde |
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| Lancomar |
The beach is lined with Tsunami evacuation signs and with good reason. Peru has lots of earthquakes and shortly after taking this photo, we felt the ground tremble. Although it was a minor earthquake, it was very strange and kind of scary.
I only went for 4 days, but managed to cram in a lot including a trip to Ica, home to many Pisco vineyards and massive sand dunes. Stay tuned for more photos from that trip.
