The final new country of my gap year: Peru. The fabulous Lenora – my eternal friend and
regular travel companion – again joined me for this leg of the tour. Peru is unlike many of the other Latin
American countries I had visited in that it has a high percentage of indigenous
people. While a few other countries have
higher, I mainly stayed in the capital cities in those places so I didn’t get
to see as much indigenous culture as I would have liked. Being at the end of my time in Latin America,
my Spanish was getting pretty decent, and I was surprised to find that it was
almost useless in some places in Peru where the local Quechua and Aymara
languages are much more common.
Despite having a similar amount of time as in Colombia and
in Chile, I feel like I saw a LOT more of Peru, mainly because I was on an
organized tour which whisked me, Lenora, and seven other random travellers
around the southern half of the country.
We started along the coast in Lima before moving into the desert, the
snowy Andes, and the Amazon rainforest.
Every day was something new. The
elevation in parts of the country was ridiculous – more so than in Colombia or
Ecuador – and I had to actively fight off altitude sickness by staying super
hydrated, drinking coca tea, and mostly abstaining from alcohol.
Also, Peru wins the award for worst driving in Latin
America. It wasn’t as bad as most of
Asia, but it could give a few of those countries a run for their money.
I usually finish off blogs for any particular country with a
talk about the food, but I’m defying the trend here and starting with the good
stuff. Mainly because the one question I
keep getting asked is: “Did you eat guinea pig???”
The answer: Yes, yes
I did. Come on – I’ve eaten worms and
ants on this trip so why say no to guinea pig?
Cuy asado (roasted guinea pig) is a popular dish so I had to try it
once. Luckily, one was ordered for our
whole group to share so I didn’t have to eat a whole one (or pay for a whole
one) by myself. It came out whole just
like I expected and it looked gross just like I expected. I got a leg piece. I could see its tiny little foot with its
tiny little claws on my plate. I had a
few bites, but there wasn’t too much meat on it. Maybe it tasted like chicken, but I’m not
entirely sure. It’s hard to determine
the taste when you know exactly what you’re eating.
Alpaca is another common meat for tourists to try. And only tourists. Locals don’t eat alpaca. It’s sort of like Fosters in Australia: nobody knows where to even get it but
tourists manage to find it, drink it, and think it’s cool. Anyway, I had alpaca meat cooked a variety of
ways. Some of the more interesting meals
I had were alpaca ravioli, alpaca meatball pizza, and – the best – an alpaca
burger.
Breaking away from the weird animals, a lot of the meals I
had were pretty basic and pretty similar to other Latin American foods, mainly
consisting of grilled chicken with rice or French fries. While there are some very typical Peruvian
foods, the locals (especially those outside the cities) really only have access
to the basics. We made fried bread
during our homestay at Lake Titicaca. It
was sort of like a sopapilla. Aside from
this bread, the other bread we had almost everywhere around the country wasn’t
all that great. Another great thing we
had in the homestay was fried cheese. It
was almost like haloumi and when I asked what type of cheese it was, I was told
it was just “fried cheese”. I’m ok with that. Rice is common, and quinoa is a very popular
grain as well, often cooked into a soup.
They eat lots of vegetables, and lots of corn. There are dozens of types of corn
available. If you think that seems excessive
then let me share this bit of information with you: Potatoes.
Lots of potatoes. There are
something like 4,000 types of potatoes grown in the Andes of Peru. FOUR THOUSAND. So, basically, in summation: fuck you, Idaho.
Potato is the main ingredient in the causa – a big chunk of
peeled, cooked potato with toppings like chicken and vegetables. I think this is their equivalent to the baked
potato in the USA, but obviously without all of the butter and cheese and bacon
and other things that transform a somewhat basic and healthy food into an
artery-clogging masterpiece.
Trout is a common fish in the country and is abundant thanks
to it being introduced into Lake Titicaca.
I tried my first ceviche in Peru.
Most ceviche includes shellfish which is a no no for me, but trout
ceviche is quite common and Phill-approved.
My absolute favourite dish in Peru is aji de gallina. I had my fist aji de gallina in Santiago,
Chile (Peruvian food is super popular in Chile) and I thought I was going to
die from how heavy the dish was. It’s a
chicken dish served with huancaina sauca, a spicy, creamy, thick yellow sauce,
over rice. Some of the fancier tourist
restaurants play with the recipe and make it into a fusion dish, such as aji de
gallina ravioli, but the traditional aji de gallina is delicious without the
gimmicks. The aji de gallina in Peru
didn’t seem as heavy as in Chile, which means that either it was cooked more
authentically or I was just getting used to it.
Every meal deserves a drink, and I had a few good ones. Inca Kola is a popular soda, but it is too
sweet for me (how old am I???) It sort
of reminds me of a mix of bubble gum flavour and Mountain Dew. Mate Inca is a tea that helps with altitude
sickness, as is coca tea – made from the same leaves that are processed to make
cocaine. Apparently I’ll probably fail a
drug test now that I had a lot of the tea, but it doesn’t have any effect like
cocaine when you chew the leaves, drink the tea, suck on the coca-infused
candies, or eat the coca-infused biscuits and chocolates. Pisco Sour is a common cocktail made from
pisco – a brandy made by distilling wine.
Every city seems to have its own beer, but I had only two of them during
my time in Peru: the Arequipeña
(from Arequipa) and Cusqueño (from Cusco).
Very creative naming. Finally, my
favourite is chicha morada, which aside from being a fermented purple corn
drink, would also be a great name for a drag queen. And just like the drag queen, the chicha
morada drink can be alcoholic or not.
For fruits, I tried a granadilla which is reminiscent of a
passionfruit but sort of looks like a cross between a red apple and an orange
and a coconut. Or something like
that. Lucuma is a popular tropical fruit
that tastes like caramel and therefore I only consumed it in milkshake and ice
cream form. And speaking of dessert, I
have two words for you: queso
helado. It translates to “cheese ice
cream” but it was not cheese ice cream.
It’s only called that because it looks like cream cheese. It is actually flavoured with honey and
cinnamon and happiness and is a specialty of Arequipa.
Finally, it wasn’t all about Peruvian food, but it sort of
was. Peru has a large amount of both
Chinese and Japanese immigrants and their cuisines have evolved and merged with
Peruvian cuisine. Chifa is the name for
Chinese-Peruvian cuisine which consists of a lot of stir-fried noodles and
rices. I had a lot of this. Nikkei is the Japanese-Peruvian cuisine but I
had a ton of sushi in Chile and was sort of out of the mood for this in
Peru. Sad. Of course I had Mexican food, which was
decent in Lima, but everywhere else insisited on making tortilla chips out of
wontons. WTF? Peruvians:
you are surrounded by dozens of types of corn and you make Mexican-style
chips out of wontons? Ugh. I guess the Asian influence extends deeper
into Peruvian cuisine than I thought.
Last (literally our last meal in Peru) but certainly not least: CREPES & WAFFLES! I had it in Panama and Colombia and Chile,
and I got to go to Crepes & Waffles one last time in Peru. I had my favourite Mexican chicken crepe and Colombian
coconut lemonade, and got a sweet manjar blanco (Peru’s version of dulce de
leche) waffle for dessert. YESSSSSS!!!!
Ok, that’s all for the introduction and food. Next up, details of my travels around
Peru. But first, let me take a selfie.
I took a selfie with a 5-month old alpaca named Mateo. What cool things have you done with your life?
That’s what I thought.
Links to more photos of my time in Peru will follow in the
next blogs.
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