Allyson took me on a tour of Lima this morning which was good. I experienced again city traffic in Lima which isn’t as bad as Mexico City but a challenge. She took me to the catacombs beneath a Catholic cathedral, I managed not to bump my head as we passed the various collections of bones on view. The area counted as downtown Lima and had been pretty rundown and unsafe but now renovated. There were a lot of gaily decorated one-eyed statues, if I understood properly young unmarried girls could only venture out of doors if only one eye was visible. 

Peru is modern, most of the time I’m using my credit cards. Allyson used her watch to buy an energy drink made from natural ingredients to keep her going from one of the many street vendors who displayed an OCR code to help. Like Mexico vendors risk their lives walking in the traffic to try selling drink and food. We did another Catholic place where Pisarro the conquistador conqueror was buried before heading to Huaca Pucllana which was the high spot of this morning for me. I never managed to say its name properly.

Huaca Pucllana is an adobe brick pyramid which is still being excavated. Huge. At the Catholic cathedrals the nobles sought to be entombed in the depths, here the upper class preferred the upper levels. The bricks made me think of lego. The place in its way was like a labyrinth, the path snaked up to the top. 

I can only remember very little of all Allyson told me. Chifa is what Peruvians call Chinese cuisine, Peru is a rich mixture of indigenous cultures and immigration from Europe and Asia. Tambo is a Quechua word originally for an ‘inn’ to rest at on journeys, now used as a shop name where you can buy supplies. We passed a strange ‘orchard’ of olive trees twisted alien invaders into this land. It very rarely rains here, the rivers from the Andes provide water and power. Allyson was disappointed on a visit to Britain that it wasn’t raining.

I ventured out for lunch, trying Awicha which was great. I had ceviche as a starter which is a fish dish with nuts and chips, then carapulcra which was pork belly. Washed down with lemonade which I like. Tasty and rich. Paul was a friendly and helpful waiter. Plenty of places to eat at, the more famous I would have had to wait a long time for a table. Awicha is a blend of Peruvian and Japanese apparently. Nikkei seemed to be used as a term for this.

I walked to see Puente de la Pax a foot and cycle bridge between Miraflores and Barranco, dropped into Dédalo an artisan store, then waited for my Lima Gourmet food tasting tour to begin. I shared this tour with a large family group of friendly Americans and another American which was nice. It was déjà vu as the first place we stopped was to have ceviche again, and then we went to Huaca Pucllana again this time in the evening so I could see it lit up! That killed two birds with one stone. We saw a Peruvian cocktail being created and suffered chocolates laced with salt and fruit and worse powerful chilli as our just desserts. Russian roulette with chocolates? I deserted the tour then as the last place was only 3 minutes from Villa Barranco! Was I wrong to do so? Perhaps.