Lima, no bean

After a late night because of the delayed train, we took a morning flight from Cusco to Lima. We only scheduled one day in Lima and needed a good way to explore the city. As we always travel on our stomachs, a food tour seemed the perfect idea. Even on little sleep we wanted a full stomach.

Lima is huge. 1/3 of the population of Peru lives here. The traffic is horrible. There are many districts, each pays taxes depending on what services are provided. There is almost no rain in Lima. Yet it’s humid because it’s near the Pacific Ocean. All the water that they use comes from the Andes or the Amazon. Any greenery is supported by irrigation and so only the wealthier areas have trees or grass.

On the tour, we stopped in three neighborhoods: San Insidro, Mira Flores, and Barranco. It gave us a sampling of a few different parts of the city.

The first stop on our tour was to a local market. It was mostly a produce market. We were amazed by the selection of fresh fruits available in the winter. We tried a sample of some of the local fruits including chirimoya, a creamy fruit with green scaly skin and a creamy white flesh. We also had prickly pear fruit, known as tuna in Spanish.

The next stop was at a restaurant called Limana. There was a lovely outdoor seating area. But first, we stopped at the bar. The bartender first gave us a tasting of two types of piscos, a local brandy. He took our favorite and demonstrated how to make a pisco sour, the most famous cocktail from Peru.

We took our drinks to a table where we had a hands-on ceviche demonstration. Instead of using fish, we used young coconut. After we devoured the ceviche, they returned with plates of broiled Amazonian fish and a portobello slider with a chimichurri sauce. It was all delicious!

The design of the restaurant was lovely. They had a piece of art made from the scales of an Amazonian fish, painted to be the shape of the Southern Cross.

Next stop was at Huaca Pucllana, a pre-Incan site with pyramid-like structures made of adobe that was shaped like books. The site was in ruins because too many people were using the structure for recreation. The community is trying to recreate the pyramids. The restaurant that we visited is supporting this effort.

For our main course, we had a feast! Skewered beef heart with corn and potatoes. Chicken chicharrones- which seemed like 5 spice duck only made with chicken. Tiradito, a fish dish similar to ceviche with leche de tigre sauce and avocados, and papas relleñas, potato croquettes stuffed with beef.

Then we headed to the Barranca neighborhood. There we walked around the area and viewed some of the famous murals by Jade Rivera. His art was beautiful with a perspective of his childhood. We also saw the bridge of sighs, a famous bridge that has a story of forbidden love, but we could not cross it since it is closed for restoration.

Finally, we stopped for dessert at a cafe. We had a dessert made from lucuma, a fruit that is hard to describe. It was super creamy and paired perfectly with the chocolate sauce.

We were stuffed after the food tour, so we returned to the hotel to rest. In the evening, we had a few soles left to spend, so we decided to get dessert instead of dinner. We were staying at the airport hotel, so we walked to the restaurants just outside of airport security. The displays were very tempting. We each ordered a dessert and one last chicha morada.