What I remember!

Thinking of Lima, I'll remember a few things about Miraflores and Barranco:
- the craaazy driving in the streets, the smell of car fumes.
- kids doing handstands and acrobatics at the intersections to pan handle money
- our driver Manuel, who showed up whenever we needed a ride.
- our trip's war cry, "menos fuerte"!
- Ricardo, "el rey de lima" ... with his womanizing ways... ha! he had an extra bathing suit? who is this guy? How many girls has he taken paragliding?
- Jose and our trip to Las Brujas Cachiche, where we met those pilots from outside toronto... They actually said Taca was a good airline, and that prices were going to rise soon.
- One week after talking to the pilots, we grabbed a newspaper and saw a picture of the Taca crash in Tegucigalpa, Honduras...
- mediocre food overall in Lima, until we found Ceviche at Punto Azul. which singlehandedly changed our minds.
- Tasty Ostrich and Aji Amarillo at Cuarto y Mitad.
- Looowra, the british gal at Kusillo's who came out with us to Mango's
- The couple from Vancouver who also came out to Mango's with us.
- The brits who said Prem-eeee-year league.
- Gotica and Aura, the two clubs near the beach
- Bar Tosca, Tequila Rocks, and Bier Haus
- The 100 lb tough guy bouncer at bier haus.
- 10 bars/clubs in a row that played salsa music in Barranco and on Pizza Street, where we were approached by women "for hire".
- Pisco Sours and Maracuya Sours ... both delicious and dangerous. ;)
- Photos on display in the central park from all over the world. (JFK / Parque Central)
- Cerro San Cristobol and it's foggy views of Lima's city center
- Inca Cola
- Terrible haircuts

Thinking of Puno, I'll remember a few things about the town and lake titicaca:
- more gas fumes and poverty on the way to Puno from Juliaca Airport
- a beautiful plaza de armas, which we could see easily from our balcony at conde de lemos.
- excellent Trucha (trout) dishes at the local restaurants
- Coca Mate tea
- Tuc Tucs everywhere
- Leaving a caltrain ticket at Positive Raeggae
- The island of Uros, and our tour of lake titicaca
- Alex vomiting on the plane in a tiny bag, and me holding it in as best as I could.

Thinking of Cusco, I'll remember:
- Our theme song, donde estan? donde estan? corazon!
- New meaning to the words "double dutch"
- Inca brotherhood, inca dancing, and inca protection
- Fallen Angel for great food, new friends, and awesome decor
- The ultimate dance move : "Tie Hard" ... for those with hoodies
- Alex's experience with ropa interior!
- Attempting to learn salsa
- Mama Africa, Mama America (closed), Mythology, and uptown.
- Shady meetings with Eddie, our Cusco friend.
- 24 hours in bed (and the bathroom) ... man was I sick
- Amit's postcard.

When I think of Machu Picchu, I'll remember:
- The worst pizza ever in Aguas Calientes
- Extremely slow food service
- Horrible chicken curry... what were we thinking ordering it?
- "happy hour" uttered at us every ten steps.
- Our morning trip to the ruins
- Playing the longest game of pool ever with some german travelers we met at a machu picchu bar.
- The vistadome and backpacker train rides.

When I think of the Sacred Valley / Ollantaytambo, I'll remember:
- getting screwed on the cab ride to Ollantaytambo, paying 3 times what we should have
- great coffee and relaxation in a restaurant's courtyard
- The "cuy" farm (guinea pigs)
- considering tuc tuc rental for about 100 feet of travel
- Coca beer
- buying Alpaca sueteres, and chakana charms.

It was a great adventure for the 3 of us, and some of the most fun I've had on a vacation with friends. I really can't imagine things being any better than how they turned out on this trip. (aside from losing a day to sickness) If I could do it all again, I wouldn't change a thing!

Dine about town is back on!

We hit up azie, and French asian fusion restaurant. The food was
good, but quite small. Here's amit, raj, and santosh. It was fun to
tell stories about Peru and catch up with friends.

Alpaca and Risotto!

My last meal in Lima was a peruvian staple... Alpaca Saltado (sauteed alpaca) It's a bit tougher than beef, but has a great flavor and is actually very low in fat. (menos grasa)

Calle Pardo

A long walk down Calle Pardo takes you completely across the entire neighborhood of Miraflores. It's a nice walk that made for some good people watching.

Western influence knows no bounds.

Walking around all day, I was surprised to see a Papa Johns pizza and had to take a picture because it seemed so out of place. I saw a few motorbikes driving around with papa johns boxes on the back.. finally, I found their home base. It's not that surprising I guess, as we had seen a few starbucks stores, a chili's, and a TGI Fridays nearby...

Eating right on my last day in Lima

I walked around almost all of Miraflores on my last day in Lima. Deciding to sample as much local food as I could before leaving, I stopped by Cuarto y Mitad, a local chophouse famous for it's high quality meals. I enjoyed a half bottle of Peruvian wine, which was delicous, and an ostrich (ostreza) filet with grilled vegetables. The food looked incredible, and tasted great... I also got a chance to observe a lot of white collar limenyos eating lunch as part of their workday. The ostrich tasted great, and was quite lean... the highlight, however, was the yellow dipping sauce made of Aji Amarillo (a local yellow pepper that has a great spicy flavor) ... I talked to my waiter for quite a while about its origins, and he eventually gave me a cup of their dipping sauce to take home. :) Ridiculously, my meal only cost around $11 including the wine! I'm tempted to move to lima because of how affordable it is to eat well... (the delicious ceviches were only around $7 each and could probably feed 2)

One last visit to the roof of Kusillo's hostel.

Bar Tosca

Giving up on finding good music in Miraflores, we eventually settled at Bar Tosca, a small bar attached to Flying Dog Backpacker's hostel close to the central park. We met some interesting travelers there and some locals, who were able to point us in the direction of some bars with better music. Las Ochentas were a welcome find. (the 80s!) They had an emergency stash of red bull installed on the wall next to the fire extinguiseher... nice.

Exploring Barranco!

We found the ultimate party nightlife of Barranco to be pretty overrated. There's a couple streets (Bolognese and Av Grau) that are filled with bars and clubs... we didn't care for the music, but had a good time at Bier Hous, a german themed bar. We bailed pretty early after watching some raeggaeton in the park and visiting this train car ice creamery. Funny enough, we found ourselves at another Bier Hous in Miraflores within a couple hours. (it's a chain) We saw the toughest bouncer in town, who was about 100 pounds, but walked like he was 300.

coffee to go... a foreign concept!

Even with our inca chakana charms, we stuck out like a sore thumb when we asked for coffee to go. They took a while to find cups that were suitable for carrying out.

The coffee was great, and warmed us up for our walk through the park. There were artists selling their paintings, some protesters fighting for "teamwork and unity", and a photo exhibit with amazing photos from around the world.

Back to the beach for some dessert and coffee!

The restaurant was playing lounge versions of heavy metal songs... I was interested so I asked which singer was on the radio, and they showed me the CD. Apparently, Break Loud is very popular in Peru right now.

In search for that special song.

Our final couple nights were at a nearby hostel, Hostal Diana, as Kusillo's was overbooked because of an "internet error" ... we think Ricardo gave our room to some girls though. ;)

Amit heard a song in a cab and we spent the last 2 days of our trip asking strangers if they knew the song and/or the lyrics. All we knew was the chorus, "Donde estan, donde estan corazon?" ... Finally we had wifi on my iphone (near the window in our hostel!) and searched the internet for a longshot find on the lyrics. As it turns out, almost every song in spanish has the words donde estan and corazon in them! miraculously, the music video came on our television set and we quickly saw that it was a song by enrique iglesias. We could now sleep at night. ;)

An eventful cup of coffee.

We decided to stop for coffee near the central park of Miraflores.


Feeling pretty confident about our spanish, I decided to pick up a newspaper and see if we could make it through a couple passages. To our horror and surprise, the first thing on the front page was a photo of a Taca airline crash in Honduras. After making jokes the entire time about our choice to fly Taca, (ridiculous expectations like sitting next to a Llama, or losing a kidney on the flight) we now had a more realistic reason to fear flying home in a couple days on our return flight.

The article title reads "5 died, but could have been much worse" ... After seeing us panicking a bit over this, a british guy sitting nearby asked us: "would you gents care for a translation?" and then proceeded to translate the entire article for us like a forceful radio broadcast. He was a bit ridiculous, and seemed a little irritated with visitors who come to peru for 9 days and do our "tourist" itinerary. (he had been there for 8 years) anyway, we were thankful for the translation, and luckily both flew home safe.

Back on the streets on Miraflores

Fueled by ceviche, we hit the streets of Miraflores again.

Ceviche at Punto Azul in Miraflores

Our driver from Kusillos recommended a nearby cevicheria called Punto Azul, and after our travels through peru we were finally ready to take a gamble on eating some interestingly prepared fish.

One bite in and we knew.. Finally... we found Lima's incredible food that everyone had talked about.

We had heard that Ceviche was the ultimate thing to eat in Lima, and that the freshest fish tastes best as an early hangover cure. The best way to describe the ceviche was like a spicy lemon juiced sushi, and it was so delicious that Amit and I ate it 2 days in a row at the same place. (we tried a few variations)

Above is the standard Ceviche de Pescado (fish ceviche)

It's served with an interesting tasting sweet potato, and with mutant sized corn, which seemed to be in a lot of Peruvian dishes.

We also tried a Ceviche de Mariscos con Crema (creamy seafood / shellfish and fish ceviche) We didn't care for this as much, but the sauce was colorful and interesting.

Leaving Cusco!

After 2 days and 2 crazy nights in Cusco, we left to head back for Lima.

I wish we could have spent another day in Cusco, but I was truly glad to get back to standard altitude in Lima.

Taking its toll.

After a night of crazy inca dancing in the club, a whole lot of libations, and intense hiking at machu picchu, I donated the next 24 hours to the inca gods. (between the bed and the toilet) Here's an image I won't forget easily, the view from my bed at El Balcon, the hostel we stayed at. I'd rather forget the bathroom, so I'm not posting any pics of that. ;)

Mama Africa in cusco (the mother of all clubs)

Here we are at Mama Africa. Sonner and Wendy tried to teach us to salsa, but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. :) Even culture immersion has its limits!

Dinner at the Fallen Angel

My guidebook recommended checking out this place, called Fallen Angel in a corner of Cusco. The restaurant was wildly decorated and felt like it was right out of san francisco's hippest district, though it was positioned next to an old cathedral and museum of pre-colombian art. This was high class dining by Cusco standards (~$15 / person with drinks!) and we all enjoyed creatively prepared steaks and chicken on glass table tops. We were impressed to see fish swimming underneath most of the tabletops, as the tables were actually stylish aquariums!


The food was great, and we made some friends at the table next to us. The two girls on the right, Sonner and Wendy, were from holland, volunteering to teach english to students in Cusco. Their mastery of spanish was great and they were very friendly. They had some good advice on where to go for good dancing and music in Cusco, and we met up with them later at Mama Africa. (a club in Cusco)

Drinks in Cusco

Cabbing back to Cusco through the Sacred Valley

We caught glimpses of the Andes and slept a bit in the cab ride back to Cusco.

Some last pics of the ruins

a practical joke.

Nature Calls!

More ruins

On our way back down to the ruins!

Amit Deniro!

The way down Waynu Picchu was rough on our knees, and pretty challenging. Luckily, there were ropes and rocks to grab onto along the way.

Some views from the top.

Inca culture appreciation:
Alex taking it in!

There's a tiny cave-hole in the mountain we had to pass through to get to the top. I can't believe we fit, and it was definitely claustrophobic for a sec.

Log chucking!

Climbing Waynu Picchu

Getting to the top of Waynu Picchu is a pretty strenuous 1 and a half hour hike. The hike is at altitude, so we were all huffing and puffing our way to the top. Here's a view of Machu Picchu as we approached the top.