1. Learn how to cook Peruvian Food
Graciela showed me how to make the popular dish, Lomo Saltado. It is actually incredibly easy to do. First, cut up potatoes and fry them - aka, make french fries. Second, cut up the onion and tomato in decent size pieces. Third, once the fries are done, take out some of the oil and add in the beef (cut up in small-ish pieces). To the beef, add salt, pepper, cumin, garlic, dark (apple?) vinegar, and ajinomoto (I think it is MSG - says it adds umami on the package). Third, once the meat is cooked, add in the tomatoes and onions until softened. Fourth mix in some parsley and the french fries. Voila! Hecho. I think I could make this.
2. Visit Barranco
The whole time we were doing classes in Miraflores people were talking about Barranco and it sounded like a pretty cool place to visit. So we finally went. We talked not-so-spontaneous Wilfredo into coming with us. We went to the Bridge of Sighs. Unfortunately, we didn't do our homework before we went, so we got to the bridge and took pictures of us sighing. As it turns out, you are supposed to hold your breath and walk across the bridge while you make your wish. Once you get to the other side, you gasp for air, hence bridge of sighs. The bummer part is that the wish only comes true if you do it the first time you go. #missedopportunities. Oh well. We then walked down to where you could see the ocean - and back towards Miraflores. Was a pretty nice and Karen decided we needed to have a photo shoot, so we have lots of blurry pictures from the night. To end our trip, we went to dinner. We got a big grill of meat - hot dog, pork chop, beef steak, intestines, and chicken. I'm not big on the intestines, but the rest was pretty tasty. 3. Visit the Ruins of Pachacamac
We've visited ruins all over Peru, but hadn't made it to the closest ones in Lima, so that seems silly. We got there just behind all of the field trip groups, which meant we had to wait an hour for a guide or just go on our own. No one really wanted to wait, so we just headed out. Probably not our wisest decision. The ruins of Pachacamac are quite ruined. They are in the process of restoring them, so people can get an idea of what it looked like, but at the moment, there isn't a whole lot to see. You can see the stack of rocks that used to be the Sun Temple, the foundation where the women lived, and the structure covering where the painted temple is, but that's about it. A guide would have probably been a far superior choice to get more out of it. In the museum, we learned that Pachcamac was the most important temple of the andean coast and many people made pilgrimmages to this site. Pachacamac is the oracle that predicts the future, so it was very important to the leaders of the time.
No trip to Pachacamac is complete without a trip to the nearby Lurin for chicharron. We had 3 different types of chicharron - pork smoked in a barrel, pork steamed/cooked in caja china, and house chicharron. The smoked chicharron was my favorite, but they were all good. We also tried a juice called Jora - it is similar to chicha, but it is made with yellow corn and is fermented.
4. Playa Playa Playa
We have lived on the coast of Peru for nearly 9 months and we'd been to the beach ONCE. Melissa, coming from the land-locked state of Missouri, wanted to make sure we got in another beach day before it gets too cold. We were thinking it would just be us and Wilfredo, possbiliy Prudencio and Graciela. Well, as it turns out, Maundy Thursday is a federal holiday in Peru, so no one had to work. We ended up with a solid group of 10 people that headed to the beach (Wilfredo, Prudencio, Livia, Melissa, Carlos, Gladys, Mirtha, Rocio, Melissa, and me). We also thought we'd only stay for 2 hours max, but everyone was enjoying themselves and 4/5 hours just slipped away.
We played volleyball, some soccer, and of course in the waves. These were much calmer waves than last time, which was fine by me, less opportunity to get Prudencio'd. When we headed into the water you could see a huge flock of birds chilling out on the water. As it turns out, this is the place to get your pejerrey (king fish) on. When the waves came in, they were full of fish and then as the water went out the fish slapped all over your legs. It was a super weird feeling. After getting over the initial shock of being fish slapped, we attempted to catch some, but they be slippery suckers, though added fun in the water.
Well, that's a start to the Lima Bucket List. We are going to be in Huanuco for the next month, so we'll have to kick out the rest of the items when we get back. Somethings left are: Larco Museum, Bike Tour of Lima, Run at the Beach, Amaz Restuarant, and Ceviche by the Market. Gotta see the sites, eat the food, and get some culture before we head out.
~nos vemos~
P.S. We celebrated Karen's 23rd birthday last night. :) It was fun to chat with the family people and eat some yummy cake.
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