Peru Pt. 2
7/18/2008
We got up around 0700 and wandered around the Miraflores area and found a few geocaches. Yay, another continent checked off. And we've completed our hemisphere collection. We walked down to the coast and wandered down the cliffs, stopping in a couple of little city parks, including the Parque del Amor, which was pretty neat. Eventually, we ended up at Larcomar, a sort of mallish thing sunk into the cliff. It seemed like a pretty nice mall, but it was still like 0830, so few things open. The ones that were seemed pretty expensive, since i suppose it is the touristy places in town. After we got bored looking around there, we hiked across town to have lunch at the Cebicheria La Mar. We wandered through the auto repair district on the way. It seems that Peruvian cities are divided up into districts by types of businesses, but anyways... We actually got there a few minutes before they opened, so we sat around and waited for a while and had a cookie from the Cookie Factory so we wouldn't be the first ones in, avoiding the full attentions of the staff. The food was extra delicious. We had a sea-creature ceviche and a Mancora ceviche, which seemed to have tomatoes and mango in it. They also had some free appetizer things that were sweet potato and other kinds of chips and some almost, but not quite popped popcorns. These were cancha, which we had several other places as well. They are tasty, but they were best at this restaurant. The meal was a bit expensive, but still quite cheap by US standards. Also, there were many ferreterias in the area. k said they were hardware stores, but i prefer to believe they were ferret stores...
Later in the afternoon, we stopped at the Haiti Cafe and had some cocktails and a cookie-ish dessert thing called an alfajora. We had our first taste of Pisco. It tastes to me sort of like tequila, but without the strong smell. I had a pisco sour and k had an Algarrobina, which was kind of foul. We wander backed down to the coast area to see the sunset and then back to the hotel for the orientation meeting for our Inca Trail trip. We met all the rest of our group and found out what we needed to know for the next day. Afterward, we teamed up with Becca and Jamie and headed out for dinner at the restaurant in the Huaca Pucllana ruins. It was a neat place, but i was hoping we would be able to look around the ruins more. Maybe if we had come earlier in the day... We had more pisco sours and some traditional Peruvian dishes, Aji de Gallina and Rocoto Relleno. Both were pretty good, although i had hoped the rocoto would be spicier. Becca went ahead and ordered the Guinea Pig and shared a bit with us. It tasted OK, but seemed to be way too much work and expense for such a tiny amount of meat...
Lima Coast in Morning
Lovers Statue in the Parque del Amor
Huaca Pucllana Ruins
We got up around 0700 and wandered around the Miraflores area and found a few geocaches. Yay, another continent checked off. And we've completed our hemisphere collection. We walked down to the coast and wandered down the cliffs, stopping in a couple of little city parks, including the Parque del Amor, which was pretty neat. Eventually, we ended up at Larcomar, a sort of mallish thing sunk into the cliff. It seemed like a pretty nice mall, but it was still like 0830, so few things open. The ones that were seemed pretty expensive, since i suppose it is the touristy places in town. After we got bored looking around there, we hiked across town to have lunch at the Cebicheria La Mar. We wandered through the auto repair district on the way. It seems that Peruvian cities are divided up into districts by types of businesses, but anyways... We actually got there a few minutes before they opened, so we sat around and waited for a while and had a cookie from the Cookie Factory so we wouldn't be the first ones in, avoiding the full attentions of the staff. The food was extra delicious. We had a sea-creature ceviche and a Mancora ceviche, which seemed to have tomatoes and mango in it. They also had some free appetizer things that were sweet potato and other kinds of chips and some almost, but not quite popped popcorns. These were cancha, which we had several other places as well. They are tasty, but they were best at this restaurant. The meal was a bit expensive, but still quite cheap by US standards. Also, there were many ferreterias in the area. k said they were hardware stores, but i prefer to believe they were ferret stores...
Later in the afternoon, we stopped at the Haiti Cafe and had some cocktails and a cookie-ish dessert thing called an alfajora. We had our first taste of Pisco. It tastes to me sort of like tequila, but without the strong smell. I had a pisco sour and k had an Algarrobina, which was kind of foul. We wander backed down to the coast area to see the sunset and then back to the hotel for the orientation meeting for our Inca Trail trip. We met all the rest of our group and found out what we needed to know for the next day. Afterward, we teamed up with Becca and Jamie and headed out for dinner at the restaurant in the Huaca Pucllana ruins. It was a neat place, but i was hoping we would be able to look around the ruins more. Maybe if we had come earlier in the day... We had more pisco sours and some traditional Peruvian dishes, Aji de Gallina and Rocoto Relleno. Both were pretty good, although i had hoped the rocoto would be spicier. Becca went ahead and ordered the Guinea Pig and shared a bit with us. It tasted OK, but seemed to be way too much work and expense for such a tiny amount of meat...
Lima Coast in Morning
Lovers Statue in the Parque del Amor
Huaca Pucllana Ruins