Pre Tour Day - Lima Peru
Day 1 - Today we arrive in Lima at 4:00am. We will need to get to our hotel on our own. We opted to make our own flight plans as I allowed us to fly business class, this was not an option with the travel company.
Wyndham Grand Costa del Sol Lima
We will be staying at the Wyndham Grand Costa del Sol Lima Airport hotel in Lima Peru.
After a quick nap, we headed down to breakfast before they closed at 10:00am. The hotel had a great spread. I had an omelet form the egg bar and a cappuccino. We have the whole day to ourselves. The tour does not start until tomorrow. Today is the day for all the people on our tour group to arrive.
Miguel, our concierge, helped us plan our day. He set up a private Gastronomic Tour for us and made dinner reservations at a Peruvian restaurant.
Our driver, Franco , picked us up at the hotel and drove us into the city where he picked up our tour guide Alexandra. She is from Chiclayo , a northern city in Peru. Such a coincidence, is sounds like Chicago when she says it. Our tour started at 1the Guarguero Restaurant. Here we stared with the bartender making us the local drink, a Pisco Sour. We got the whole demonstration and instruction. Very fun
Pisco Sours!
Next the chef demonstrated hot to make traditional Peruvian Ceviche at our table side. It had “Tigers Milk” (fish bones cooked with veggies), cilantro, red onions, seasoning and chili peppers. Presentation was just as important to the chef. She was careful to make sure it was “pretty” and had plenty of color. Then we were presented with Lomo Saltado. This is a Peruvian dish that is a fusion of Chinese and Peruvian culinary traditions.
Alexandra also told us of other traditional Peruvian dishes, such as guinea pig and alpaca. She used her iPad to show us pictures of a cute guinea pig, then scrolled to a cooked guinea pig! She also told us her childhood where her grandmother used a guinea pig to heal her when she was ill. There were no hospitals or clinics in her town, so they used old traditional medicines. Her grandmother would wave the guinea pig over her body to absorb the illness.. Then they would kill it and open up its guts to release the illness. I prefer modern medicine.
We also visited a Fishing Terminal where the fishermen would bring in fresh fish everyday. We were able to walk out on the pier to see all the old wooden boats. The fishermen here use nets to catch most of their fish. We saw many crabs walking about the rocks along the pier.
Next stop took us to a traditional farmers market. We were able to sample many varieties of fruits that I had never seen before.
We returned to our hotel and took a second nap. Still adjusting to the redeye flight!
After our nap, we got our free hotel drink in the lobby. You guessed it, it was a pisco sour!
Next we headed out to dinner to Huaca Pucllana Restaurant for dinner. Our concierge highly recommended this place and got a reservation for us. It is a unique traditional Peruvian restaurant that overlooks some Inca ruins. The food was good and the atmosphere was amazing.
Inca ruins at the restaraunt.
