Peru, Day 10

Today was a good day. First of all, I woke up realizing that I had a full twenty-four hours to see Lima – my last day in Peru before I fly north to Quito, in neighboring Ecuador. (Quito is 9350 feet above sea level, so I’m hoping I don’t have another bout with altitude sickness.)

I woke up at six so that I could grab a shower and then hit El Mercado Numero Dos before it fully got in swing. I ended up leaving my hotel at a little before seven and got to the market about ten minutes later – it was a nice, brisk morning walk from my hotel. The neighborhood got progressively worse, and more crowded, as I neared the market, but the area was interesting in its own right. The number of hulking security men in berets and camouflage around the market itself told me that the area probably isn’t where I want to hang out, but it looks like a good place to buy foodstuffs.









The people working inside were friendly, too, and didn’t mind me poking around taking photos. I ended up buying a guanabana for six soles (~$2), which I haven’t eaten yet but need to before I leave Peru.



I hung out there until a little after eight a.m., and while the market was getting busier I’d say that only half the stalls, at most, were even open. I’m sure if I’d returned at ten the place would have really been bustling.

Afterward I came back to my hotel and availed myself of free breakfast.



Once I’d filled myself with nondescript food, I grabbed a taxi for Museo de Larco, which I recommend to anyone visiting Lima who wishes to get a deeper understanding of Peruvian pre-Columbian history. During this taxi ride my feeling about Lima changed even more. As we drove through the neighborhoods of Miraflores, San Isidro, Jesús Maria, and Pueblo Libre, I became increasingly impressed with how beautiful Lima is -- yes, this is a backtrack from what I said about my initial impressions of the city. There are a great many parks in Lima, and the architecture in these neighborhoods is beautiful. It goes without saying that it's too bad that crime is such a big problem here, as Lima seems to offer so much. Having come here from more rural areas of Peru, it's also worth saying that the socioeconomic differences between Lima and every Indian community I passed through are insanely steep. Much of Lima is very affluent, whereas the Indian communities that I saw are very poor indeed. I noticed this going from Cuzco to Poroy train station (a thirty-minute trip) for my trip to Machu Picchu, too, but Lima in many parts is far more affluent than even Cuzco.



But back to Museo de Larco. While the museum is known for its gold and silver collection from Ancient Peru, and also its textiles, I was most impressed with the pottery pieces on display. The creativity in all the works was astounding.









And the sheer number of civilizations represented – Peru, after all, is one of six regions of the world where first civilizations (“cradles of civilizations”) developed independently of other societies – is mind-boggling. Oh, and the erotic archaeological collection is mind-boggling, too. It almost makes the Kama Sutra look tame.

In addition to the museum pieces, there are two nice stores on the grounds and what’s supposed to be a great restaurant.



There’s also apparently a resident Peruvian Hairless that sleeps on the entrance walkway, blinking its coffee-bean eyes in the sun.



Museo de Larco is located at Av. Bolívar 1515 in Pueblo Libre, Lima. Tel: 461-1312. Email: webmaster@museolarco.org. Web: www.museolarco.org. Tickets for adults are 24 soles (US$8.37).

By the time I finished at Museo de Larco it was lunchtime, more or less. So I took another taxi to a place that was also in Pueblo Libre called Restaurant El Bolivariano.



I got there just as it was opening, and had my pick of tables.



I ended up ordering causa acevichada (ceviche on top of a cold casserole-like serving of mashed potatoes, avocado, hot peppers, and onions in an ají amarillo sauce).



I had a frozen lemonade, too.



The causa acevichada was beautifully presented and also tasted great. The flavors were milder than I expected – ají amarillo is always mild, I’m coming to understand – but the combinations were pretty amazing. By itself each portion would have been good, too, but putting them together like this doubles the fun (if not the flavor). After this I was convinced by my friendly waiter to try the “postre nacional de Peru” – picarones, which are rings of fried bread served with cinnamon and cane syrup. He said they were small and not to worry that they came in a dish of four. Being the trusting type, I said fine. When they arrived, however, they were huge.



Being the eating machine that I am, I squeezed them down. All four of them. It was easier than I’d expected. Actually, they didn’t have much flavor to them, and surprisingly even the cane syrup and cinnamon didn’t add much, either. But they were there, my stomach was telling my brain, “Gimme more,” and I was game for anything. My causa acevichada cost 19 soles (US$6.62) and my picarones were 7 soles (US$2.44). El Bolivariano is a great choice if you’re in Pueblo Libre to visit Museo de Larco or Museo Nacional de Arqueología (just a two-minute walk away from the restaurant). It’s located at Psje. Santa Rose 291, Pueblo Libre, Lima. Tel: 261-9565. Email: Reservas@elbolivariano.com. Web: www.elbolivariano.com.

But I wasn’t done yet. Amazingly, I found the fortitude, both mentally and intestinally, to visit an 88-year-old tavern called Antigua Taberna Queirolo.



The place is famous for its pisco sours and fortified wine, which is brewed next door (which is in turn next to a church, which I’m sure loves the tavern’s proximity). I ended up ordering what I think was called a Chilado de Pisco, which my waiter told me was the especial de la casa.



I’d say fully half my glass was pisco, followed by ginger ale, lime juice, and two other things that I couldn’t translate. It cost 10 soles (US$3.49) and took me about half an hour to polish off. Then I got sleepy…I wasn’t the only one drinking at 1 p.m., but everyone else was eating sandwiches or ceviche. I’m sure they just thought I was a lush. Anyone regularly reading my blog might think so, too.

From there I took a taxi home and rested for a bit. But not for too long, because I had more eating to do. At 7:30 I headed to what is widely considered to be Peru’s best restaurant: Astrid & Gastón. That’s right, the best restaurant in a country famous for its food. I felt woefully underdressed for the occasion – all I had was a striped polo shirt (yes, it was clean), a pair of dark jeans (clean, too), a black jacket (not so clean), and a pair of running shoes (clean if you don’t look at the soles), and I was afraid they’d turn me away. But thankfully they let me in – they told me that reserved seating began at nine, so I was safe for a while – and sat me at a table more or less in the middle of their main dining area.



I was immediately given bread and asked what I’d have to drink. “A piscopolitan,” I said quickly and a little guiltily. But hey, it’s my last night in Lima and I felt like splurging. I forget exactly what a piscopolitan is, but it has pisco, of course, and cranberry juice, lime juice, and several other fancy ingredients. It came quickly and was excellent.



For my main course I was really torn – everything on the menu sounded extraordinary, and just reading the menu made me realize that I was in a special place indeed. Possibly this would be a once-in-a-lifetime meal. But the pressure was on them, not me, and I felt good ordering the Cabrilla del mar de Piura, which the menu describes as “steamed spotted grouper from the sea of Piura with glazed scallops, razor-clams, ají Amarillo and mint, and creamy rice, peas, and corn).” Not bad, eh?

As I was waiting for it, one of the waiters saw my camera and asked me if I wanted to take photos of the kitchen. Sure!



He ended up giving me a tour of the entire restaurant, showing me the kitchen, an outdoor “office area” with an art installation in the wall, and answered my questions about the place.



Nice guy. Maybe he was worried that I was a food reporter from the New York Times and wanted to make a good impression on me. Then again, I’m pretty sure I was the worst-dressed customer they’d seen in some time, so maybe he just felt sorry for me.

Shortly after returning to my table my food arrived. It was beautiful.



The creamy, light-green rice held my gaze for some time, and my first bite didn’t let me down. This might sound improbable, but the flavors were in fact new to me. The sauce was perhaps a tad salty, but the dish itself was fantastic – the grouper was perfect in its firmness, with a tinge of pink in the middle, and the scallop and razor-clams were just as good. There were also two pieces of squid mixed in, and the green rice, which seemed to be of a sticky variety, and therefore absorbent of all the flavors, was quite good, too. Surprisingly, the mint was cooked, which seemed to take away the mintiness I was expecting. But it was a fantastic dish, all the more so since it only cost 49 soles (US$17).

Following my entrée I decided to push the limits of my stomach’s capacity yet again and ordered dessert. It was a tough choice, but I went with the “dismantled tiramisu with fruit compote the ‘maiz marado’ (purple corn) way” (28 soles [US$9.76]).



Look: I’ve had more than my share of desserts in my lifetime. Nothing I’ve ever had compared to this. I mean, the entrée was excellent, but the dessert was in a class all by itself. I had the “maiz marado” in Cuzco, but that was like eating rotten bugs compared to this. The dismantled tiramisu is a brilliant idea, and that cream log in the middle was just unbelievably good. The fruit compote, too, was superlative, even though it only consisted of four small squares. In this case, I was thrilled to have pushed myself to the limits of my stomach’s capacity. I finished off the meal with more alcohol – a pisco de café y algarrobo: “coffee pisco and algarrobo (a kind of tree that grows on the coast in northern Peru where the weather is always warm).” Again, superlative.



As if that wasn’t enough, they served complementary candies at the end. I didn’t eat them, don’t worry…



The entire meal ended up costing me $47. Yes, it’s expensive – not compared to prices in Aguas Calientes, amazingly – but to me it was worth it. It was not only the best meal I had in Peru, but it was one of the best meals I’ve ever had. For $47, it was a steal. Even more so since I went there without a reservation and probably looked like I was going to a campground after my meal.

Astrid & Gastón is located at Castuarias 175 in Miraflores, Lima. Tel: 242-4422 / 5387. Web: www.astridygaston.com. They also have restaurants in Santiago, Caracas, Bogotá, Quito, Madrid, México City, and Buenos Aires.

Peru, Day 9

This is going to be a very boring update. Nothing really happened today other than more travel delays. My flight from Trujillo to Lima, which was originally scheduled to fly at 8:30 a.m., was pushed back to 3 p.m. And then, once I checked in, and was told that my flight was on time, I proceeded to wait another three hours to board. So, in all, I spent from 1 p.m. until 8 p.m. at airports and in transit between airports and hotels. Another partial day lost thanks to StarPeru. If I ever come back to Peru, and I hope I will, I know never to schedule another flight on their airline. LAN, though more expensive, is far more reliable and better run.

Rant over. Still, there’s not much to report here because I simply didn’t have time to do anything special. I just ate. And only two meals. Ay caramba.

I was actually a little bummed to be leaving Trujillo. I was a little worried that I’d made a mistake traveling here rather than to Iquitos, which is said to be a beautiful and fascinating city on the Amazon River, but in the end I was happy to have come into contact with such a charming, colorful little city that was full of well-preserved colonial architecture and was for the most part walkable. It was also really nice to be able to spend one night in Huanchaco, which is only a 15-minute drive away but utterly different from Trujillo. My feeling is that if Peru were safer it would be crawling with foreigners.

In any case, in the morning I didn’t have any place special to go in Trujillo – one of the museums I wanted to go to was closed on Sunday, which is also true of almost every business here, as all the giant colonial doors were shuttered throughout the city – so I wandered around and found myself at the Plaza de Armas, where something slightly ominous seemed to be happening. I quickly noticed was that the streets around the plaza were cordoned off, lots of police in riot gear were standing on the corners of the plaza, and gathered in groups around the square were soldiers in camouflage.





I hung around for a bit and watched people filter in and out of the big church in the plaza, seemingly oblivious to this gathering of soldiers and riot police, then headed back to my hotel for breakfast. After I’d ordered I was told that this happens every Sunday: it’s a municipal event, apparently. I have no idea what it was about or if what she told me was correct. Anyway, there was nothing for me to do at that point but eat breakfast and prepare for my trip to the airport.

When my breakfast arrived I nearly hit the floor. Another guest started laughing and said, “Es muy grande!” Hey, no kidding, muchacha. Ten of the pancake breakfasts I ordered could have fed the entire army that I’d seen gathered in the plaza.



The pancake itself was no smaller than a football – it was certainly heavier – and it came with two fried eggs covered with a slab of ham, two large rolls with jam (because everyone knows that bread goes great with pancakes), orange juice, and tea. All I can say is that I did my best. I couldn’t touch the rolls, but I ate the entire pancake, which was great, and most of the eggs and ham, which I didn’t want to let go to waste. I wish Adam Richman were a genie one could summon whenever necessary; I’d have requested that he take half my meal, including all the bread.

After that I dragged my overfed stomach around Trujillo for a couple more hours, mostly taking photos of churches and the city’s beautiful doors and windows, but also stopping in a nice cafe for a quick coffee, then headed to the airport.



I have to retract a statement I made earlier about Lima. I said something to the effect that it was grimy, treeless, and basically unattractive. I was basing this off of an airport ride to Central Lima, which I now know is a relatively poor and dangerous part of the city. Since I was staying in Miraflores this time I took a different route from the airport, and even at night this part of Lima struck me as quite attractive. (More on this in my next post.)

By the time I arrived at my hotel it was already 8 p.m. So I asked the receptionist for a restaurant recommendation and then promptly went in the other direction. I have no idea why I did that. But I came across a fairly active area and found a restaurant with the word CHIFAS spelled out above its entrance. I wanted to give this another try, so I went inside. A nice older waiter – all the wait staff was Peruvian, which surprised me a little – sat me down at a table and told me which items from the menu were the restaurant’s specialties. He pointed to numerous things and rattled off various explanations in Spanish, which I didn’t understand. I pointed at two things he’d pointed at and said I’d try those. Then I ordered beer. And then he left.



The first thing I ordered was soup.



It was basically egg drop soup with snap beans, shrimp, chicken, and button mushrooms.



I have no idea what made this soup Chifas. The Chinese part of the dish I understood, but the Peruvian part of the dish was lost on me. It was good, but nothing special.

Then my entrée arrived: I thought I’d ordered chicken with mixed vegetables, but a mix of chicken, shrimp, duck, pork, quail eggs, vegetables, and cashews arrived.



It was a huge amount of food, and again I wasn’t clear on what was Peruvian and what was Chinese about it. To me, all the ingredients were Chinese, and before I took a bite I half-guessed that the taste might be somehow Peruvian. It seemed that I was right. The entire meal had a uniform, salty taste, which by the time I was halfway through the dish had gotten a little tiresome. When the waiter came by I asked him if Chifas basically meant using Chinese ingredients but cooking them in a Peruvian way – with certain oil often used in Peruvian cooking, for example – and he said yes. The idea is to cook Chinese food but give it a flavor that is recognizably Peruvian. Good enough, I thought. But in fact it wasn’t very good. Not bad, but certainly nothing I’d think would result in so many Chifas restaurants around the country. Maybe I just went to the wrong place.

By the time I got home it was already 10 p.m. Since I wanted to hit the central market early the next morning, I turned in and slept right away.

Peru, Day 8

Trujillo at dusk.

This morning I was awakened at 5:30 by the sound of gunshots – about 40 of them over a period of maybe ten minutes. I had no idea what was going on, but I assumed people were either hunting near my hostal or someone was just popping off rounds because they’d run out of beer to drink and were angry about it. Of course, the shooting set off the neighborhood dogs, and it was also about time for the birds to wake up and start singing loudly and local churches to begin tolling their bells. I lay in bed until 6:00 in shock and awe, then dragged myself into the shower and went downstairs to have your typical Peruvian free-with-accommodations breakfast.

I ended up traveling into the countryside to see Huaca de la Luna y de la Sol and Chan Chan, as well as two lesser sites associated with the latter. It was nice to get off the beaten track and see more of Peru, but somehow I was disappointed in Huaca de la Luna (one doesn’t have access to Huaca de la Sol) and especially Chan Chan.

Although my guide at each destination was superbly well informed about the site where they worked, it was difficult for me to imagine how the places looked hundreds of years ago and in what ways, if any, these civilizations influenced the present-day way of life in the region. I know they have; I just couldn’t piece together how. It was interesting, I must say, if morbidly so, to learn just how extensive the practice of human sacrifice was in both Chimu civilization (~900 A.D. – 1470 A.D.) and in Moche civilization (A.D. 100 – ~A.D. 800), and how thoroughly the Spanish plundered these sites without regard for keeping any part of these civilizations intact. And Peruvians, too, even now, have been known to participate in grave-robbing.

The murals at Huaca de la Luna (Moche civilization) were brilliant – the artistry of their renderings of different animal deities, of soldiers leading prisoners, and of figures holding human heads – seemed strikingly modern.

It was also interesting to see how the temple was enlarged by the practice of simply building over the previous temple, which was constructed of mud and a series of other murals and contained the bodies of its former rulers and select followers. But maybe more of the site needs to be excavated – there are many mounds left to be examined, but there’s little money for it in Peru – before a sufficient story of the place can be told. I guess I felt like I left the Temple of the Moon with very little sense of its story.

Chan Chan, on the other hand, despite being a UNESCO World Heritage site, just didn’t do much for me. There weren’t many explanations posted, and even though I had a capable guide, I didn’t feel like I learned much by going here. Not much is left of Chan Chan, either, and the structures that have been unearthed were quite plain.

What designs there were – stylized cormorants, pelicans, and depictions of the moon and ocean – were repeated often, as were the diamond-shaped ventilation holes in many of the walls. Interesting, yes; but frankly, I wanted more from the hour I spent touring it under the hot sun.

It was good to get back to town and check in to my hotel in Trujillo. As soon as I did, I asked the receptionist for a recommendation of where to get good ceviche. She pointed to a place on a map that looked like a ten-minute taxi ride. I hesitated, but other staff around her chimed in to say it was the best. So what could I do? I got a taxi and headed over there – and inevitably found myself in another one of those pretend conversations in Spanish where admitting after five minutes that I haven’t understood a thing is certain to be taken as an insult. So I just continued to nod and smile and say, “Si, si, es muy interesando,” and even allowed the driver to give me a tour of the city rather than just take me directly to my destination. Why do I let this happen?

It was a big relief to leave the taxi and enter Mar Picante. These photos do no justice to this restaurant – absolutely none. (I was using a rather small camera here, not the one I normally use, and the quality of these shots isn’t as good.) Every dish the waiters and waitresses carried from the kitchen looked absolutely incredible. And my own dish, which was a kind of bento of sorts, excited me to no end. I ordered the Fantasia Marina: ceviche of fish, shrimp, squid, and cockles; rice with fried whitefish and clams; whitefish and crayfish in a spicy yellow ají sauce; and crispy fried fish nuggets with yucca.

All this food, and it was a lot, only cost 16 soles ($5.54)! I may have to go there tomorrow. If you ever get to Trujillo, this is a must-do.

At the end of my meal I even told my friendly waiter, “Este comida cambia mi vida.” He liked that. Or maybe he thought it was one of those pretend conversations that gringos like to have in Peru. At least he didn’t have to sit through 15 minutes of it…

When I came back to town – this time with a young taxi driver who was speaking lovey-dovey into his cell phone during my entire ride and nearly got us into two separate accidents – I decided to take a walking tour of the city. Trujillo is an extremely colorful, charming city of about 900,000 people. In the part of town where I’m staying – say from Plaza de Armas to Plazuela el Recreo, or about five blocks by six blocks – the colonial past is apparent in just about every building, especially the churches. The only thing that dampened my enthusiasm about walking was the taxis, whose drivers feel no compunction about running over pedestrians, and honk their horns incessantly at tourists. Most of the places I focused on during my walk were (in addition to churches) museums, cultural centers, a park, some old houses that are well-known examples of period architecture, a couple of “palaces,” a local market, and, at the end, the Plaza del Armas. Oh, and superheroes.

This evening, after being drawn out of my room by the sound of a parade – it was a festival for some local Virgin (note my capitalization) – I went out to give chifas another shot. Earlier this afternoon I saw a restaurant named Chifas right around the corner of my hotel. Although it was open at around 3 p.m., it was closed at 5:30. I scratched my head in wonder, then shrugged and walked back to the corner to a bar I was particularly interested in: Café y Museo del Juguete, which is owned by the Peruvian artist Gerardo Chávez Lopez. (I was less interested in the museum, which is on the top floor and contains figurines and toys and whistles and such from as long as 1000 years ago.)

Just to make sure you don’t think I’m some random alkie wandering through South America, I chose this bar because it’s supposed to have a gorgeous, old-school charm to it, and because it’s known to be a meeting place of famous Peruvian and South American artists, such as Mario Vargas Llosa. He wasn’t there – he moved to Spain shortly after losing the presidential election to Alberto Fujimori – but his photo was on the wall along with numerous other Latin luminaries.

I don’t go to bars very often – really, it’s true – but I have to say that this place, small as it was, has got to be one of the coolest little bars in the world. Everything about it – the color of the building’s exterior, the leather seats, wooden tables, hardwood floors, the piano in the back room, the artist photos on the wall, the muted light seeping through the windows, the antique cash register, the jazz playing on the stereo – made me wonder why at a little past 5:30 on a Saturday so few people were there.

In any case, I ended up ordering a mistela damasco, which is a kind of apricot wine. As you can see, there’s an apricot floating in my glass.

Why does the apricot look furry? I assure you that it wasn't. In fact, it was unbelievably good.

It was very sweet – like Japanese plum wine – and I liked how the glass tapered outward at the top. And for six soles ($2.07), that’s a nice price for an aperitif in a bar with so much history and charm.

I left after a few more people trickled in. The fading light outside made all the colorful buildings appear increasingly subdued – all the bright colors suddenly gradated into pastels – and the turkey vultures that had been soaring high, high overhead all day began to alight on the crosses atop the churches, and spread their wings as if to stretch sore muscles.

I could have stayed on the sidewalk all evening except I was too conscious of myself standing alone with a camera hanging on my neck. After a while I went to get dinner.

I settled for a sandwich shop called Café Amaretto because I saw chicarron de pollo on their menu.

I knew that chicha was a fermented beer made from different varieties of corn, and chicha morada was that delicious purple-black drink made primarily from maize that I’d had in Cuzco. A chicha-something chicken sandwich? Sounds interesting! Reading this, maybe you can see that I suddenly became dyslexic or something because there’s no chicha in chicarron. I ended up with fried chicken nuggets, greasy French fries, and ketchup that tasted like sweetened tomato paste. It was the blandest, most dissatisfying meal I’ve had in Peru – or probably anywhere in the last year or two. It’s my own fault, of course. There’s a photo of it below, not that it’s worth looking at.


Still, it was nice to sit there; a wedding was getting underway at a beautiful church across the street, and the lights on the street were starting to turn on and reflect prettily off Trujillo’s marbled sidewalks.

When I came home I discovered that my flight to Lima got delayed again. But rather than bemoan this, I was happy to learn I had another half-day in Trujillo, which really has a lot going for it.