Lima, fine food by the sea and the deadly sins!

So, it turns out Lima, in deepest darkest Peru has a beach! Who knew? Well I guess anyone who has looked at their map, however I hadn't really been paying attention. I think this was mainly because I saw Lima as just a stop on the way to Quito and the Galapagos rather than a destination in its own right.

This was wrong because we found Lima to be a pretty darn good destination city. We were staying in up market miraflores, which is a pretty affluent neighbourhood full of embassy's and sea food restaurants. This was pointed out by the owner of our hostal, Miraflores house, who from his substantial girth clearly loved a good meal. He spent a solid hour marking every type of food and restaurant on a map for us as it quickly became clear we probably hadn't scheduled enough time for Lima if we wanted to eat all of the cuisines that were on offer.

On the first night we decided to go for a Chinese as it was close to the hotel, I was expecting a chifa, which is a budget style of Peruvian Chinese we've eaten a lot, usually costing at most a couple of dollars for a dish which is enough for two. However Wa Lok was a more traditional Chinese (the sort of dishes you would find in London's china town) but the prices were (for Peru at least) sky high (12-15 pounds a main course) and a little disappointing (the salt and pepper squid certainly was) and we promised ourselves we would do better the next day.

It is important to learn from you mistakes so at lunch the following day we went for the very traditional option of Ceviche. This is mainly served at lunch time at restaurants near to the sea. We went for a restaurant called Punta del Sal seafood, which is a three story place on the waterfront overlooking the beach.

The Ceviche for 2 people that we got was around 55 Soles (15 pounds), don't be fooled by the labelling of it as "snacking" in some menus English translation, the actual Spanish is more literally translated as "for sharing" and if you order this a main course is probably not necessary (if you are still hungry order more food after you have finished). The ceviche there had 5 dishes, raw white fish served with the traditional sauce of chilli, lemon, red onion as well as a more unusual thick orange creamy sauce. There was octopus served with avacado and tomato covered in a wonderful olive oil dressing and some boiled vegetables. The final dish and centre piece was a crab, potato and avocado cake topped with a boiled egg.

All of it was amazing, if you like sea food I really can't recommend something like this enough.

Our evening meal was also fish based, with all of the dishes having a theme from the seven deadly sins and various virtues. Pescardo Capitales is also one of the few restaurants to offer ceviche at night, which was why, a few days earlier, we'd booked in online (It was also recommended by the excellent fodors which for us is now very much a badge of honor). One thing to mention is that the restaurant is right on the (slighty dodgy) edge of Miraflores, so rather than walk it may be an idea to get a taxi.

Having had excellent ceviche at lunch we decided to go for something a bit different now we were here. We started with the 'little sins' which were prawn wantons. The batter isn't quite the same as the uk (different flour i think) but it is pretty good none the less.

I followed this up with another sin (a deadly one but not sure which), a really very good swordfish steak while my fiancée enjoyed a virtuous (can't remember which one either) seafood linguine which she described as the best pasta she'd had in South America so far (although this may be considered damning with faint praise).

Price wise this was not exactly within our budget, with the main courses costing between 50 and 70 Soles (12-18 pounds) but as a splurge I would recommend it.

Pictured below are the lunchtime cerviche, the wantons, the pasta and the swordfish.

Cuy, Valentines day (and food) in Arequipa

Valentines day this year found us in Arequipa. This left me with a bit of a problem in terms of booking somewhere nice, the place most people recommended was chi cha and those of you paying attention will know that we ate there in Cusco and weren't completely blown away by it.

In the end I used my best Spanish
(really not brilliant) to book a place called Paladar 1900 via Skype. In unsurprising news when we turned up there was no table for Barker, however Mr Parka did have a reservation we were able to take advantage of.

The setting was pretty romantic, a half barrel shaped room with lots of candles, my fiancee got an awesome chair too, which was pretty much a full winged armchair with an asymmetric back.

As a starter we shared an excellent octopus salad (which falls into the category of more excellent sea food from unexpected places as arequipa is 2500m above sea level). I followed this with a very good duck in orange sauce while my fiancée had an apparently less enjoyable fish on potatoes (thus proving the rule that seafood far from the sea is not usually a great plan.)

This was the day before our 3am start and trip to the colca canyon so we only had 1 pisco sour each (excellent as ever) and I left with a good impression of the restaurant, however my fiancée was less impressed. I think that if you go there meat rather than fish would be the option.

After our return from the colca canyon we were aware that our time in Peru was running short and we still had yet to try Cuy. After helping carry several guinea pigs out of the canyon (with limited success) we decided it was time to eat some before we left the Peruvian highlands (apparently in Lima it is less common and is not as good).

We'd spent a while building up to this moment, there were only 2 real questions, how do you want your guinea pig cooked? And secondly, do you want it "con cabeza" or "sin cabeza" (with or without its head)

We decided deep fried (cuy charcardo) rather than oven roasted or cut into pieces and served with sauce was the way to go with question one. However when it came to question 2 we both bottled it and had the head removed.

The guinea pig itself turned up with a great crispy skin (similar to Chinese crispy duck) and quite a dark meat which was similar to thigh meat on chicken or turkey (although a little fattier), my only criticism was the lack of meat (I know this will not be a surprise to anyone who has seen a guinea pig) but the actual food we did get off it was quite tasty, however I suspect this will be the last guinea pig we eat as I think I prefer chicken, beef and most other sorts of meat.

Traditional eating in the Colca Canyon

For some reason as this trip has gone on we've decided we like walking. This came as a shock to us as the thought had never really occurred to us before, but a trek in the countryside is something we both really enjoy (especially when you have better weather options than the Uk)

This revelation coupled with our recent indulgences meant that a trek in the colca canyon was high on our to do list during our time in Arequipa. Having read up on the subject we realised that not all treks into the canyon are the same. We (after much consideration) booked one that involved about double the usual amount of walking than a standard 3 day colca trek. We booked this through Pablo tours as they come highly recommended on trip advisor with most people commenting on how good the food was.

The other reason for doing this tour was the fact that it included some home stay elements and a small guided group rather than a large group where one slow person can ruin it for everyone (oh and they were the first tour company we came across who were open!)

One thing I did find bad about the experience is the fact that you have to leave Arequipa at 3am (yup, three in the morning!) on a bus on the first day but as our bus was not full this just meant that I got to sleep lying on the back seat as we drove up into the mountains.

It turned out that we were the only people on our tour so it was just us and Maria Jesus our guide, she explained that we'd probably not see any other tourists for the first day and a half as we were going in a completely different direction to the others (and walking for about double the time) our first day was a 5 hour trek, mainly down hill. "Easy" I hear you say, well, you'd be wrong! We descended around 1500m on a steep, narrow gravel track. After that my knees and ankles were aching after sliding around on all of the loose rocks.

As predicted we didn't see anyone else on the path or the dirt road we finally came to. The dirt road is new, completed 2 months before we got there, according to our guide Maria, it is precariously dug into the side of the mountain linking villages where transport was previously either mule or llama! Only 2 buses a week brave the journey (on Wednesday and Sunday) and we saw 1 pickup truck drive down it in the 2 days we were there.

Not even a dirt road reached our first home stay in the isolated village of llamadur, it was a kilometre away from the road, down a narrow path and across a pedestrian bridge over a rushing river.

The best thing about this isolation is that the 6 houses here are almost completely self sufficient with large gardens growing vegetables, fruit trees and cactuses. The also have a small menagerie of animals such as chickens and guinea pigs to provide eggs and food.

The meals we had while in Colca all started with a soup most were chicken and vegetable broth with either pasta or rice. All of these were really tasty and were served with the crunchy corn and a dip of chilli, red onion, tomato and lemon juice. Apparently the locals all put these in their soup in varying amounts depending on taste. The corn works kinda like croutons.

The main courses in the evenings we had were chicken in different sauces. first night we had a tomato and vegetable sauce with both rice and potatoes (fairly standard to have both of these in Peru). Apparently it wasn't one of their own chickens, but was one from the shops (price of progress) but even so the whole thing was tasty.

After a night sleeping in a stone hut with a gravel floor, a tin roof and a bed with 2 mattresses followed bu excellent pancakes and fruit for breakfast, we opted for 6 hours of walking and our number was increased by 4. Maria our guide purchased 4 guinea pigs from the house we stayed at as she said the ones in the city were much smaller! The idea being that she could breed these for food. Guinea pig is an expensive delicacy, once deep fried they sell for upwards of 15 pounds a meal (when a normal mail course is 6-10). This precious cargo was held in a cardboard box tied up with string, which she held as we walked along.

The second day was a bit of an effort, an hour and a half of climbing, 3 hours of flat followed by an excellent vegetarian lunch of soup followed by vegetables cooked in tomato sauce (at a family home with a very impressive view and herb garden) we then walked for 2 hours back down to the river where they had hot springs to revive us for the next days climb.

Our meal was the now obligatory soup followed by chicken with an orange sauce (surprisingly tasty) this would have been followed by an early night (we had 1500m straight up to climb the next morning) but disaster struck the guinea pigs had broken free and so we spent some time hunting them with torches in the dark. Sadly the dogs got 2 of them but Maria managed to re capture 2.

To escape the heat of sun we started the final climb at 5am, impressively we finished in a little under 2 and a half hours despite the fact that the previous days excursions were making our legs hurt. The climb, like the whole expedition was not easy, with lots of loose gravel and a steep incline, rather than steps.

I really enjoyed the whole experience, especially the food, it was a really good way to get a feeling for the more simple life of people in the colca canyon as well as giving a view of a more country diet.

Pictured below are the lunch soup and view on day 2, soup with all the trimmings, our room on the first night and a particularly impressive cactus!

Peruvian drinking

As I mentioned in my previous ode to Pisco we rather fell of the wagon going around Peru, against all of our better plans.

Once we let pisco into our lives we wondered what other alcohol and beverages in general the Peruvians had we didn't know about.

Beer was an obvious thing to try, all through Bolivia and Peru each city had its own local lager. The names of these were things like pasceña (La Paz, also slang for a girl from La Paz), cusqueña (cusco) and arequipeña (arequipa). As you can see the start of each name denotes the city and the end of the name is apparently a colloquial way of saying "from the city of".

I tried most of these beers and found pretty much all of them were more than acceptable lagers although my judgment may be clouded by too much drinking fosters and carling as a young adult (all the ones i mentioned were certainly vastly superior to both these abominations).

As well as brewing from barley the Peruvians have been making drinks from corn at least since inca times, and probably much before that.

Some of these drinks are called chicha, of which we found a couple of types, which are quite different.

The first was Chica Morada, this is made from the red maize and contains no alcohol (but quite a bit of sugar). It looks a lot like ribena and probably tastes a little like it (although how much of that is because I associated the colour with ribena is still a grey area). It has become a favourite with both me and fiancée when we don't want water.

Chica De jora is a different matter. This was apparently a drink used by the inca priests. It is a cloudy grey in colour and tastes a lot more like you imagine fermented maize to taste like. There can be a lot of alcohol present depending on the brew and at restaurants you're not really sure how much as it just comes in a glass (in some cases they brew it themselves). The version we tried was very filling, with what I imagine quite a bit of crushed maize floating in suspension in it. I certainly think that drinking it with a big meal (as I did) was a mistake.

The final drink which is a Peruvian curiosity is Inka kola. This is the only local drink which continued to outsell coke once it had been launched in a country, and judging by the locals it is still their drink of choice. As you'd expect from coca-cola coming second isn't something they do well and so they bought the recipe and naming rights to the inka version and now they make and distribute it.

After seeing it everywhere I finally decided to give it a go and can tell you that it is basically iron bru but without the neon orange colour, a far more urine like yellow (it still has the unmissable glow of tartrazine).

Peruvian drink, like Peruvian food, is full of diversity and surprises. Even the Peruvian wine that doesn't make it into pisco is actually quite drinkable (although the Peruvian restaurants mainly serve Chillean and Argentinian wines).

Weird eating in Puno, Peru

South America has been a little disappointing so far in only one respect, there has been very little weird food, the only exception to this has been llama (tastes just like deer, see post from Bolivia) but I was hoping that all this would change as we crossed the border from Bolivia into Peru, after all Peru is home of the deep fried Guinea Pig and who knows what else.

Our first Peruvian stop was in Puno, a short (well 3 hours, but we're getting used to it) bus ride and comical border crossing from Copacabana.

As our time in Puno was short we decided to do a couple of organised tours while we we there. The first was the Uros Floating Islands, these are man made islands floating in the middle of Lake Titicaca's Puno bay. The inhabitants are dependant on the 2m high reeds which are native in the shallower parts of the lake.

The reeds are used for so much, their large floating roots are lashed together to make the islands base, dried reeds are laid on top to make a spongey floor, they are also used to build the people's homes and boats and as a food source.

Naturally I felt it was my duty to try the reeds, not least because I felt like pushing my luck, so far I had made it through Chile, Argentina AND Bolivia without a stomach upset! The reed looked a bit like a giant spring onion, but tasted like a strong lettuce, apparently the locals ate it with local fish they caught and sun dried. As a culinary location it isn't that interesting but if you are in Puno I would definitely recommend the experience.

In the afternoon we visited Sillustani, a group of inca and pre inca burial mounds near Puno, these were interesting but the best bit of the trip was on the way back we were offered a stop to see a local farm, the only person interested was my fiancée, although we talked a couple of other people into it (thanks Gemma and Tim, whose excellent travel blog you can read at samesametravelblog.com). This was a great decision.

We stopped on the road side at a small mud bricked farm surrounded with llamas, alpacas and ducks, I think it was fair to say we weren't expecting much, however once inside we got chance to see a guinea pigs being farmed, a bit more about the country way of life in Peru and best of all we got to try a typical set of Peruvian foods.

We ate a quinoa batter deep fried, giant maize corns which had been crisped up somehow (either fried or baked) which we were told to eat with a homemade cows cheese, with a similar texture to haloumi and finally local potatoes which the locals ate with fine grey clay which was mixed with boiling water.

All of this was excellent, the clay I certainly would not have tried on my own but between myself and Tim we talked each other into it. The taste was tricky to describe, the main flavour was minerally, but this is a) not a word and is b) open to interpretation, but for some reason it worked really well with the local potatoes, which tend to be a little dry.

That evening we went to dinner with Gemma and Tim who had spent the last week in Peru. They introduced us to the Peruvian tourist menu, a cheap fixed menu (usually about 15 or 20 soles for 3 courses, which is 4 pounds) that you usually have to ask for. We traded this for info about our time in Bolivia, where they were headed.

It was good to get information from something other than a guide book over a few drinks (more on the Peruvian booze later) and to hear other people's view of a country. It is definitely something we have been missing out on by steering clear or more organised tours and taking a more DIY approach.