Hola Perú
My daughter Steph expressed the desire to visit Peru in an early celebration
to her final year at university. None of her friends were available, and as I
visited Peru in 2010 (see
blog Peru 2010
) perhaps I could be persuaded to revisit and act as her chaperone…
Daddy… Now who am I to refuse such a pleading call for assistance from my
progeny ? That was in February, and in June we’re off on a jet plane from
Melbourne to Lima.
It’s unbelievable how much flights have dropped in price and improved in
quality over that time (except the food – that has always been a lottery in
the lower cabin classes). We got a great set of connecting flights with one
hop of 13 hours from Melbourne to Santiago Chile, 3 hr layover (could of been
shorter, but I’m risk averse in this area) and then direct connect to Lima of
about 4 hours
Our freshness in the airport at Santiago was a trick. We were two tired little
bunnies after the 2nd haul to Lima. Given the smoothness of the Boeing 787-9
and comfort even in ”cattle class” of the first leg, it was much better that
the days of yore. No matter what the comfort, there is still a
requirement for the body to deal with a temporal shift. We are going back in
time 15 hours so when it’s 10pm in Melbourne, Lima is just starting to think
about waking up at 7:00am.
We stayed at the Flying Dog Hostel in the town Miraflores, Lima sharing a room with two beds. The hostel which was comfortable and mischievously named given that cats greeted us at the door. We said hello at 1am and promptly sought the refuge of our bed: no worries about waking though, we were up again at 7:00 am due to the fact our bodies still think its on some other time zone.
We stayed at the Flying Dog Hostel in the town Miraflores, Lima sharing a room with two beds. The hostel which was comfortable and mischievously named given that cats greeted us at the door. We said hello at 1am and promptly sought the refuge of our bed: no worries about waking though, we were up again at 7:00 am due to the fact our bodies still think its on some other time zone.
Our trip spanned just over 4 weeks, it was completely self managed (though we
did use local agents to take us to various excursions) Overall we were very
happy with our accommodation: we used Hostelworld, Airbnb and Booking.com as
sources for arranging accommodation – no complaints on any of the services and
information provided. Perhaps the only complaint I’d have is people’s
expectations in their reviews: it is wrong to expect high standards of the
modern world in a country where accommodation is price of a lunchtime sandwich
and coffee in many other countries. I was very happy with the friendliness and
cleanliness of all the places we stayed, okay the water might not by gushing
and hot and you need to put the toilet paper in the bin, we dealt with it and
had smiles on our faces every day.
We had to undergo another flight in the afternoon to Trujillo, we only intended Lima as a layover. It is a city that perhaps deserves a detailed visit, but I’m not a city person so I’ll leave that to Steph for future travel forays. We did, however take the opportunity to do a Peruvian cooking class, where we cooked an entrée, main and prepared a pisco sour cocktail. The class also included a trip to the markets to purchase the food. We did this with a company called Lima City Tours. It’s not the best cooking class we’ve had ( Pemulan Organic farm and Ketut’s Balinese cooking class Ubud, Bali are my favourites so far) but we had fun and it fulfilled our purpose to make our layover safe and interesting. The main improvements needed are: recipes, more interaction – we had to encourage participation and a printed overview of what we are going to experience in the markets (in the customer’s language). Many of the foods are novel to Peru and a perhaps a small information booklet or pdf would go well prior to our personal experience.
Here I am doing the pisco shake, on a high before I’ve even started consumption of the famed drink !
We had to undergo another flight in the afternoon to Trujillo, we only intended Lima as a layover. It is a city that perhaps deserves a detailed visit, but I’m not a city person so I’ll leave that to Steph for future travel forays. We did, however take the opportunity to do a Peruvian cooking class, where we cooked an entrée, main and prepared a pisco sour cocktail. The class also included a trip to the markets to purchase the food. We did this with a company called Lima City Tours. It’s not the best cooking class we’ve had ( Pemulan Organic farm and Ketut’s Balinese cooking class Ubud, Bali are my favourites so far) but we had fun and it fulfilled our purpose to make our layover safe and interesting. The main improvements needed are: recipes, more interaction – we had to encourage participation and a printed overview of what we are going to experience in the markets (in the customer’s language). Many of the foods are novel to Peru and a perhaps a small information booklet or pdf would go well prior to our personal experience.
Here I am doing the pisco shake, on a high before I’ve even started consumption of the famed drink !
Pimiento: that means hot and spicy. However, poco: only a little – lucky
we had a translator nearby.
The main course (of fish) tasted delicious.
Purple corn: superfood of the modern world’s century. The rest of world has
only just realised that this is the corn we should be eating, not the
super hybridised genetically modified junk we’re used to. (sorry – my opinion,
not necessarily anyone else’s).
and there is a few other fruits and vegetables to be discovered.
There are other areas photos of the market that are not for the
squeamish. Most of us are not used to seeing animals freshly slaughtered
so I’ll leave those pictures out. I’m guessing people in Peru like to
know their meat is fresh and a package covered in plastic on the supermarket
shelf is not that guarantee.
¡Salud!
¡Salud!
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