Monday night in Barranco we went to this enormous bar called La Noche for free live jazz. We also tried our first Pisco Sours, which is a Peruvian beverage made with pisco (a white grape brandy), sour mix, sugar?, and egg whites topped off with bitters. It’s frothy on the top (mmm mmm good, gotta love that raw egg froth) but otherwise tastes almost exactly like a margarita. They are everywhere in Lima. Paco, a Católica professor and one of the directors of the program came with us to introduce us the experience of drinking Peruvian style.
Yesterday we meet at Católica and taxied to La Punta which is actually in Callao (not technically Lima proper) to the west along the ocean. There were tons of cevicherías (restaurants selling ceviche, the national dish of Peru) who offer myriad options of raw seafood marinated in lime/lemon juice with chili peppers. We tried two different types, both of which were served with raw onions, these delicious sweet potatoes that looked like chili peppers, and light yellow corn kernels of unusually large size (think a little smaller than your thumb nail). We also had fried calamari (Peruvian style) and this cake-like thing made of cold yellow potato stuffed with crab salad. The final dish was a breaded swordfish with scallops and prawns served in a red-orange sauce with onions and tomatoes over white rice. It kind of reminded me of something Mom would make. It was great to know that all of the seafood was absolutely fresh because we could basically see the ocean from the cevichería.
After lunch we took cabs to Waikiki a “beach” area where there were people laying out, swimming and surfing. I say “beach” because there wasn’t any sand – it was a beach of large dark round stones. We were told the water was not really good for swimming so we didn’t stay long. Next we climbed up more stairs than I care to remember and quickly became a group of sweaty gringos to reach Miraflores. We had to climb up a long way because Lima sits at the edge of a huge drop off and below is a road and thin strips of beaches. Our taxis keep taking us by the beach where the road goes in between the steep cliff up to the city on one side and the water on the other – it’s a pretty impressive sight, especially at night when this huge cross is lit up and shines out over the dark waters of the pacific.
In Miraflores I tried some gelato – white chocolate with Maracuya, everyone’s favorite new Peruvian fruit flavor. Then we walked to the center of Miraflores to el Parque Kennedy and relaxed in the park before taxiing home. Last night we all met up back in el Parque Kennedy for more gelato (this time mango and maracuya) and headed down la Calle Pizza (Pizza street). It’s called that because it’s a pedestrian walkway lined with pizzeria after pizzeria all of which also seem to function as bars and sometimes discotecas as well. Since there were ten of us on a Tuesday night, at every single restaurant we passed people came out to try to bargain with us and convince us to come into their particular bar. A round of free pisco sours and 2 pitchers for 25 soles was a typical offer. It ended up being a nice night of getting to know everyone in the program a little better. Ciao for now!
