Lima – the first days

So here I am in Lima. Quite a hot place and a T-Shirt or a camisa is definitely the choice of clothing. Days here in the hotel typically begin with Peruvian Continental Breakfast: Sitting at the veranda, having as first course fruit variety (sliced, chopped or whole), then some fruit juice (orange juice is just one choice of many), then some huevos revueltos (scrambled eggs), that are especially good with tomatoes and finally some café con leche y pan (coffee with milk, bread). Prepared in such a way, the days may come… and here´s what to find out in Lima:

• Pisco sour! Ceviche!
• Siesta
• Indian Market
• Walking the cliff top streets – Larcomar
• Pisco sour! Peruvian food – yummie!
• the journey to Trujillo

First day in Lima – so what to do? Hm, reading the travel guide in the morning is a good idea, since at 1 AM I have an appointment with Peter for lunch. So I read a bit about Miraflores, this district. Main attractions include a couple of private museums, the Indian Market and the seaside cliffs with the large shopping mall built right into the cliffs.

Then it was off to lunch and Peter took me to one of the best (secret) places here in Lima. Sorry gent`s, can´t tell you, you have to book for yourself 😉

Anyhow the food was extraordinary. Since I had no clue on Peruvian cuisine, Peter decided for us. The menu then was
Pisco sour as a starter – yummie, that is a drink! I think it reached a very well ex aequo final position in my list of favourite drinks right from the start, next to Mojito.
Squid in olive sauce: A rather unusual combination, at least for me, but it was not less yummie than the Pisco sour
Ceviche classico: raw fish, marinated and „cooked“ in a salsa of limettes, garnished with onions and chili peppers (ajio, as it is called here).

The whole thing then was accompanied by a bottle of beer against signs of being thirsty. What a mindblowing experience! If Peruvian cuisine is all about this then I hope there is at least one good Peruvian restaurant in Austria. Otherwise I will have to open one.

Unfortunately, the entrada and the beer had a rather unforeseen effect on me: I haven´t felt so, äh, dizzy for a very long time. Not even during the 4-day-fiesta I had just witnessed in Colombia. Gosh, I had to concentrate to walk back to the car in a straight line! It was only 3 PM and plans were to go to the Indian Market in the afternoon, then walk down to the cliffs and finally write a few updates on this blog. After lunch a minor change in plans had to be made and I had a good siesta until 4.15 to easen at least the worst effects of my encounter with PS.

But finally I could at least make it to the Indian Market, where I bought a nice Panama hat (I needed some replacement for the cap I had lost at the airport in Bogota). And after that it was only writing updates. The planned Pisco sour training session with Peter unfortunately had to be cancelled due to lost/non-delivered luggage of his lovely esposa, who arrived at the airport only late in the evening.

The second day then was dedicated to a long walk upon the seaside cliffs of Lima, watching the parks on top and the surfers beneath. Lima seen from here is really nice, but appears greener than it really is, according to Don Pedro. Larcomar as a shopping mall built into the cliffs rounded the morning. Then the compulsory lunch with Peter, this time in a restaurant that served a wonderful mixture of typical Peruvian food so I could get a small insight what it all was about. And at the same time, we could „test-eat“ at the restaurant for future travel groups of Peter’s travel ageny. In the afternoon I packed my gear together, since it was about time to go to the airport and leave for the North…