The first thing I did today was pretty spontaneous. My original plan was to go to Cusco, stay for about a week, and do activities from there. But, I found a cool company called Peru Hop which essentially operates a hop-on hop-off bus service that stops at several important sites along the way from Lima to Cusco. I booked a ticket for this trip that will last 6 days total starting Saturday morning. I am excited for this. There is a lot to see and do between here and Cusco. Tour guides help you find hostels and activities at each stop and it will be fun to travel with the same group and make some friends.
Afterwards, I started my day’s outing with a walk down to the coast from my Barranco Airbnb. Along the way, I saw an engineering school with some goofy-looking right-angled structures and math-nerd looking benches outside. I guess we engineers all think the same, no matter the country. I also saw a neat restaurant extending over the coastline. There was also a spot where people were surfing. There were so many people renting out boards and wetsuits from the back of their vans and offering lessons too. Such a surfer vibe I loved it. Overall, I just felt like walking and wandering. It was cool out, a nice breeze, I was wearing my favorite jacket and pants, and the sun even peeked out for a little. It was going to be a good day.
Here is a cool panorama of the Lima coastline. By the time my phone reached the other side of the platform, the same wave had already receded. The climate and city layout reminded be a little of Chicago with the breeze, clouds, and tall buildings next to water.
I made my way back up from the coast to the neighborhood of Miraflores. I walked along a path that connects several city parks, one of them being Parque del Amor. There was a central statue in the middle of the park with many artistic benches along the side each displaying quotes about love.
Other fun pics along the same path included below. There must have been 5-6 separate parks in a mile stretch. Also found an Irish pub with very enticing signs out front. Miraflores definitely looked like an upper-scale neighborhood with many modern builds and nice roads.
I stopped for 30 minutes to grab a quick empanada and coffee. The waitress recommended a Frappe which was refreshing and much needed.
Finally, I reached Kennedy park, a main tourist hub here in Lima. Something I found surprising when I first arrived was the amount of cats walking around. I noticed that there were little water and food trays spread around the park, and after Googling, I found that the city actually takes care of stray cats left at this park. They help feed and sterilize them. It was fun to pet them and watch them try to hunt the pigeons. Toward the far end of the park, I found a cluster of people gathered around these circular stone blocks. It took me a bit to realize that they were actually here to trade FIFA player cards. Similar to baseball-card fanatics, these people had huge binders filled with decks on decks of player’s cards.
The outskirts of the park were filled with malls and plenty of American fast food restaurant chains. There were also several backpackers hostels: clearly one of the more touristy spots of Lima.
For the actual cooking class, I made my way to an office building where the host of the tour met me in the lobby. He took me to the 7th floor where they have their larger cooking space. Turns out, no one else signed up for this slot of the tour, so it was just me, the head chef Rue, and the sous chef Manuelo. Apron on, music playing, vibe set, let’s cook.
They already had all of the ingredients prepped when I got there. But, I got to cut all of the vegetables, cook them, season them, and pretty much do everything while they gave me instructions. I learned about the food itself, the process involved, and the history of the food we were making. Also, Manuelo told me that over 4500 different types of potatoes exist in Peru alone, which is wild. We did most of the cooking in traditional clay pots too.
We first prepared a snack of toasted/seasoned corn nuts and plantain chips accompanied with a sweet mango salsa and spicy rocoto salsa (yes, my bff rocoto was back for more, but this time in more manageable quantities). Then, we made a potato-based appetizer called “causa.” The main dish was called “Lomo Saltado” which is essentially rice with sautéed veggies and beef. The drink of choice was called “Chicha Morada” which is made from purple corn and additives such as passionfruit and sugar. I was told that “Chicha” is actually a Quechua word. This was one of my favorite things about the trip so far. It was so personal, so fun, so informative, and delicious.
Manuelo also told me that part of all tour proceeds go towards social projects in Peru. One project they are almost finished with is a school house designed for adults who never finished high school. In the past, they have also built Wi-Fi hotspots for kids that needed virtual education during Covid. Very refreshing to hear that money coming into the country helps the tourism industry/jobs bit also the quality of life for people.