The Amazon!

Since we'll be doing the Amazon trip before Machu Picchu perhaps I should concentrate on that first.  I'm reading one of OAT's recommended books:  Life in the Treetops, Adventures of a Woman in Field Biology by Margaret D. Lowman.  It is my kind of biography:  only 214 pages and no footnotes to speak of, although my inner child would have liked more photos and  illustrations.  I'm reading it to prepare myself for the Canopy Walk which is on Day 6 of the trip:  We take an early morning boat trip to the somewhat primitive ExplorNapo Lodge where we have breakfast and then hike for about an hour to the Amazon Conservatory for Tropical Studies (ACTS) and to the Canopy Walkway, a system of aerial platforms and cableways more than 1,500 feet long, the longest treetop walkway in the world.

Canopy Walkway

Meg Lowman is one of the advisors for the Canopy Walkway and you can learn more about the canopy in this Scientific American video.  Each July Meg Lowman takes a group of Citizen Scientists on an Amazon workshop in the Explorama Lodges to help her do research in the canopy, in case you'd rather sign up for that instead of the OAT trip.  But some of the nights are spent at the more rustic ExplorNapo Lodge and ACTS campsite.

Explorama Lodge

Fortunately we are staying at the more civilized Explorama Lodge (with flush toilets and running water) and then the Ceiba Tops resort (hot water and air conditioning), if things go as planned.  I hope they don't change the accommodations at the last minute.  Exporama has a video about its lodges and the related activities that is fairly informative and pretty much covers everything OAT has in its brochure.  Google Maps also has a lot of photos of each lodge.  Don't expect the Hilton and do expect high humidity.


Here's a map of where the various lodges are located relative to Iquitos.  If you look them up on Google Maps, there's just a lot of green and no roads.

Lima's Food Scene

Appetizer at Central

The New York Times has chosen Lima, Peru as one of its 52 Travel Destinations for 2020, citing its extraordinary food, so it is good that we are going to have a couple days to visit, although I don't think we can afford to eat at Central (where we could have a 17 course tasting menu for $130) or Maido which is Nikkei cuisine (Japanese-Peruvian) so you know it will be expensive. We have a day in Lima at the beginning of each trip (the Amazon and then Machu Picchu), probably to wait for tour members to arrive.  On each of these days we have the morning free, then meet up with our guide and other tour group members to have a Peruvian lunch and an orientation walk in Miraflores.  Then we have the rest of the afternoon and evening free and need to find our own restaurant for dinner.  We also have a day in Lima to visit the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History in the colonial center but have to find our own lunch and then have the afternoon free.  I'm doing research so that we know where to go, what to order and what we can afford.  Peru has its own vocabulary for its dishes so I'm going to keep a glossary of terms on my iPhone.

The Culinary Institute of America has short (2-3 minute) YouTube videos on Peruvian food.  So here's a culinary lesson and a nice overview of Peruvian food and what we can expect.

Peru Part 1: Exploring Peru: Land of Contrasts and Crossroads
Peru Part 2: Peru's Kitchen, Where Cultures Merge
Peru Part 3: Dining in Lima, Peru, from Humble to Haute
Peru Part 4: Where Ceviche was Born
Peru Part 5: Causa, An Exercise in Creativity
Peru Part 6: Anticuchos, Peru's Favorite Street Food
Peru Part 7: Pisco
Peru Part 8: Peru's Influences from China and Japan
Peru Part 9: Culinary Treasures of the Amazon (most of the sound track is missing)
Peru Part 10: Cooking in the Peruvian Andes
Peru Part 11: Pachamanca, a Peruvian Harvest Feast

I also unearthed a Peruvian cookbook that Fernando brought back for me ten years ago:  Cocina Peruana:  nuestro sabor para el mundo, a collection of contemporary recipes from various restaurants.  Ten years ago I probably felt the chefs had taken too many liberties with traditional dishes but there still is a thread of Peruviness running through the dishes.  The recipes in the book are from restaurants in Lima, some of which are near our hotel:
Segundo Muelle (in San Isidro)
José Antonio
Brujas de Cachiche (about 10 blocks from the hotel)
El Señorío de Sulco
Huaca Pucllana Restaurante (by the archeological site of Huaca Pucllana which I would like to see).
Unfortunately I don't think we can afford to eat at any of these either: they have tablecloths and require reservations, but I'm sure we can do just fine at more modest establishments like the ones below.  And we can always just have a gelato for dinner at Gelato Mío a few doors down from the Casa Andina hotel.  Or we could go out for pastries at Pasteleria San Antonio or for wood-fired rotisserie chicken at Villa Chicken.

Sangrecita

But back to Peruvian specialties.  For an introduction to the various dishes we may encounter, read the Wikipedia article on Peruvian Cuisine.  Reviewing the menu at La Vaquita, I can see that I'm going to have to find translations for some of the dinner entrées:  Entraña (skirt steak), Picaña (sirloin cap or rump cap), Anticucho (beef heart kebabs), Panceta (pork belly).  Also for the breakfast items: untables (spreads like butter), choripan (chorizo in a bun), Peruanos (a sandwich of pork and fried sweet potato that is a breakfast staple).  Fernando will want to try the Sangrecita (made with chicken blood) and the Relleno (made with pork blood).

Tamalitos verdes piuranos

Del Mar has Tamalitos verdes piuranos which are a special unfilled green tamal made with fresh corn and cilantro (culantro) from the northern region of Piura.  Also Choritos a la Chalaca, mussels with a relish on top.  And of course, variations on that national potato dish, causa, with seafood.
Panchita (with $$$ and no prices on the menu) has a fiesta del tamal for a piqueo (starter) that offers 5 different tamales:  Corn tamal, creole maize filled with pork, cilantro tamal filled with cheese, Marthita quinoa tamal, and artichoke tamal; served with salsa criolla.  Panchita also has a selection of "platos criollos de toda la vida" among which is one that Fernando should really like, called the "classico":  Sabroso dúo de cau cau y sangrecita con yuca y sarza.   That is tripe soup and chicken blood rice with yuca and salsa criolla.

Salsa Criolla

Salsa criolla or sarza criolla, by the way, appears all over the place in Lima.  It is a fresh relish with red onions, fresh chile, cilantro and lime and its spiciness depends on the chile pepper and the maker.  They serve it with tamales, on top of sanguches, along side tacu-tacu (leftover rice and beans mixed together and fried into a patty and then topped with steak and a fried egg).  I hope the Peruvian red onions are milder than the ones I find in MY supermarket...

In any case, this is just the tip of the iceberg of Peruvian food and I haven't even explored that national raw fish dish:  ceviche (or cebiche as you will often find it written).  I read somewhere that before the Spaniards brought limes to the New World, the indigenous peoples would use fermented passion fruit (curuba) juice instead.  That sounds even better to me.

Peruvian Fast Food

Like looking for different flavors of potato chips, we need to discover what kind of fast food concoctions the Limeños have come up with.

Peruano at El Chinito

For instance, we could go to Sanguchería El Chinito,  a few blocks northeast of the hotel. It has  "Los más ricos chicharrones y sánguches tradicionales de Lima".  Sanguches??  I think they mean "sandwiches"...  And it is not "chinito" as in a little boy but "chinito" as in Chinese so you can get sandwiches with Pollito Pekín and cha siu.  Chicharrones in Peru are not pork cracklings but a meatier pork belly. A Peruano is a sanguche with pork belly, sweet potato, and an onion relish.  They also have chicken and pork (chanchito) tamales.  Worth checking out...
There's a lot of influence from the Chinese.  Chinese restaurants are chifas.   Arroz Chaufa is Peruvian stir-fried rice.  Lomo Saltado is a Peruvian stir-fry with beef and soy sauce but also with tomatoes, peppers, onions, cilantro and French fries, served over rice.

Chicharrón with camote and salsa criolla

Travel and Leisure Magazine has a review of La Lucha Sanguchería, a location of which is about 5 blocks northwest  of our hotel in Miraflores.  The New York Times 36 Hours in Lima, Peru also featured this sanguchería that uses "algarrobo wood to grill meats and native huayro potatoes to make thick-cut fries."  The sanguches also come with a variety of dipping sauces.  Although the sanguches at El Chinito look a bit more tempting with more of the fresh relish on top, I'd like to try those huayro potato fries.  Peru has lots of different kinds of potatoes but some are really different tubers not part of the potato family, like oca, hibias and cubios, and the camote (sweet potato).

Fast food at Salchipapería

Chorizo and frankfurters seem to be a big favorite (as in choripan).  At the left are some selections from La Salchipapería where hot dogs are served with french fries (salchipapas).  Evidently dishes "a la pobre" come with a fried egg on top (and sometimes a couple of strips of fried platano).  You can get a fried egg sanguche for only 2.50 soles or 75¢.  La Salchipapería also serves almuerzos (lunches) from 11am -5pm and these are more traditional Latin meals with rice, most of which are 12.90 soles ($3.88), a pretty cheap meal.  You can choose from Pollo a las Finas Hierbas, Salchichaufa Clásico (fried rice with frankfurters), Pollo Saltado (stir-fried chicken), Lomo Saltado (the classic Peruvian beef-stir-fry with french fries and rice), Mostrito (a combination of fried rice, french fries and fried chicken - pollo broaster), and Chaufa con lomo (a combination of fried rice, french fries and stir-fried beef).  With all that fried food, what's not to like?

UPDATE:  If you want to see what Peruvian Comida Rapida (fast food) looks like, check out this video by a Peruvian/Canadian couple that go to eat 1) sandwiches at Lucha Sanguchería, 2) Pollo a la brasa at Pardo's Chicken, and 3) Peruvian hamburgers at Bembo's.  It is in Spanish and the subtitles are laughable but hopefully you can understand some of it.

Real Affordable Peru (RAP) - Updated

Penny has convinced us we need to make a trip to Machu Picchu with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT).   OAT also offers an optional pre-trip 6-day excursion to the Amazons, where I really need to go before I die.  I married Fernando expecting we'd spend time in the Amazons with his revolutionary priest and we still haven't been there.  Here's the Travel Planning Guide to Real Affordable Peru (RAP) from OAT with the day-by-day itinerary.  As usual, I need to add more links with more information for each day's excursion but right now I've got to figure out how much time we have in Lima, what OAT is taking us to, and what we don't want to miss.

Amazon Pre-Trip excursion.
Day 1: Flight from US. (9/21)
This day doesn't count since it is only the flight from the US to Lima and our flight doesn't get into Lima until 11:40 at night.  Some people might be up for carousing at a nightclub but not us...
UPDATE:  We changed our flights so that we are flying with Penny and get in earlier, at 9:35 pm (God willing).

Day 2: Lima (9/22)
We stay at the José Antonio Lima Hotel in Miraflores, a chic shopping district.  Unfortunately it is not a beach-front hotel (the beach is reserved for the Circuito).  Its breakfast buffet looks ok but I didn't see any Peruvian specialties in the photos.
UPDATE:  We are staying about 6 blocks northeast in the Casa Andina Select Miraflores.  I think their breakfast buffet looks better.
In the morning, if we can drag ourselves out of bed early enough, we can explore the area by ourselves, then our guide takes us to lunch at a local Peruvian restaurant, followed by a stroll down Larco Avenue, the neighborhood’s main street to Parque De Amor overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Afterwards we have the rest of the afternoon to explore and find a restaurant on our own for dinner, which reminds me I need to find out the exchange rate (1 sol equals 30¢ so a 50 sol plate (the cheapest) at Brujas de Cachiche would be $15).

Day3: Flight to Iquitos & Boat to Lodge (9/23)
Day 4: Yagua Village (9/24)
Day 5: Yanamono Clinic (9/25)
Day 6: Rain Forest Canopy Walk, Medicinal Gardens (9/26)
Day 7/Day 1: Birdwatching walk, boat to Iquitos, Flight to Lima (9/27)
Arriving in Lima is considered Day 1 of the Machu Picchu trip

Day 2 Lima • Discover Miraflores district (9/28)
UPDATE:  We are again at the Casa Andina Select Miraflores with a free morning, meeting with our guide for a Peruvian lunch, going on an orientation walk in Miraflores, a free late afternoon and dinner on our own.

Day 3 - Explore Colonial Lima (9/29)

Guided tour of the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History at Bolivar Square and then a walk through the colonial streets in the morning.  Lunch is on our own and so is the afternoon until we meet back up for a Welcome Dinner with the group.

Day 4 - Fly to Cuzco • Explore Sacred Valley of the Incas and Pisac Ruins (Cuzco) (9/30)
Day 5 - Raft the Urubamba River (Urubamba) (10/1)
Day 6 - Train ride through the Sacred Valley • First Visit to Machu Picchu (Aguas Calientes) 10/2
Day 7 - Second visit to Machu Picchu (Aguas Calientes) (10/3)
Day 8 - Train ride through the Sacred Valley • Explore colonial Cuzco (10/4)
Day 9 - Discover Izcuchaca • A Day in the Life of Chinchero village (Cuzco) (10/5)
Day 10 - Southern Valley of Cuzco • Sacsayhuaman & Kenko (Cuzco) (10/6)
Day11 - Fly from Cuzco to Lima   (10/7) UPDATE:  Now on a flight to US leaving at 10:55 pm
10/8 - Return to U.S.  

So, as you can see, we really don't have much time in Lima and it is broken up.  So we have to choose what to see carefully, or we could just wander the streets, which is also a great way to know a city.  I just have to figure out when I can get to a mercado.