La Comida Peruana

Here in Peru, people are serious about their food! In fact, the first week that I was here, many students asked me if I liked the Peruvian food. I have liked just about everything I have tried - from ceviche to parihuela to chicha morada to anticuchos to pollo a la brasa!

Each day we walk to Daniel's house for our meals. His mother and their helper prepare each meal in their kitchen and serve us at the dining room table. We typically eat with Daniel, although sometimes his mother or brother Roberto joins us at the table. Depending on the meal and our conversation, we can be at the table for more than an hour chatting! I love our conversations, but sometimes we end up late for school because we were talking for so long! :)

Erin and Monique starting lunch at Daniel's house. We all sit around the table and chat for an hour or more each mealtime!

Breakfast is a larger meal than in the US and can include anything from yogurt to eggs to hamburgers! A typical breakfast is yogurt with cereal, a cheese or avocado sandwich, and warm milk that you can add powdered coffee or chocolate (like Quik!) to. However, as I said before, we have had eggs with hot dogs, chicken patties, and even hamburgers for breakfast! The drink can take many different forms, although usually we have the drink I described earlier. This morning, we had a very thick hot chocolate, and we have also drank a very concentrated coffee that dilute with hot water.

Lunches are our largest meal of the day. We return back to Daniel's for lunch - school is over BEFORE lunch so the school does not serve a meal! A typical lunch includes rice and potatoes with a side of meat, plus a postre (dessert) of course. :) I like the consistency of the lunches - that I generally know what to expect and love having something sweet at the end. For those of you who know me, that shouldn't come as a surprise. Usually I cannot finish the whole meal - there is a TON of food! We don't get a whole lot of exercise here so I have less of an appetite, although it is hard not to eat the food when it tastes so good. 

Another aspect of lunch that I LOVE is fresh juice. Cheverita, the Berrospid's family helper, makes a different juice almost every day! Chicha morada is a typical juice made from corn and pineapple. My favorite (so far) is jugo de maracuya - passion fruit juice. I could drink a whole pitcher, but I try to hold myself to two glasses.

A typical lunch for us - with potatoes, rice, and some meat. I think there is chicken with the potatoes here. YUM!

Another delicious lunch. Rice, veggies, and some very tasty meat. I LOVE this meat - it is very tender and has some delicious spices. It reminds me of Chipotle! Postre is served on the side - today, pudding!

Yesterday's lunch! Chicken, rice, corn (You can eat it off the cob! I'm not missing that part of summer :)), and yuca - similar to a potato. The long thing is a bean! 

Supper is a small meal and is served around 8 PM. A typical supper is some kind of soup with bread. Last Tuesday, after eating our whole bowl of soup, Daniel told us that Tuesday is Pizza Day! He then proceeded to order Papa John's delivery. When it arrived, we all sat around the table and had our second course - meat lover's pizza! :) 

Daniel also takes us out to eat - especially on the weekends. He loves taking us to restaurants that serve traditional Peruvian food, like ceviche, pollo a la brasa, and anticuchos. Sometimes we go together, and sometimes with his WHOLE family. It is a fun adventure trying to follow their conversations! :)

Ceviche is a VERY popular food here - all of my students asked me if I had tried ceviche. Ceviche is seafood that is prepared with lemon and spices; the fish or shrimp is cooked when it reacts with the lemon. I liked ceviche, but the texture and appearance of the fish were difficult to get past. However, it really didn't taste like fish at all!

Parihuela was a delicious, but kinda spicy soup that we ate with the ceviche. You can see the crab sticking out of the soup - there were many other kinds of seafood inside the soup as well! I liked this a lot, but preferred to stick with crab and shrimp meat. 

Last night, Daniel took us all to La Norteña. I LOVED this place - it is very popular with the native Peruvians. It isn't fancy, but they serve good food and lots of it! Their most popular dish is anticuchos... aka, beef heart. Yes, the heart of a cow, served on a stick! Maybe it'll hit the MN state fair in the next few years! :) I tried it and although it wasn't my favorite, it wasn't awful, either! I definitely was happy to eat my chicken, but I am glad that I tried it. This place also served many other types of organs of animals, including (I think... this vocab is all new for me!) liver, gizzards, stomach, and others. This is very Peruvian - people eat the WHOLE animal here. It tastes some getting used to. :)

The famous ceviche! Served with corn and sweet potatoes.

Parihuela, a Peruvian soup with seafood, obviously! There were shrimp and other seafood pieces in the soup, and it was a little spicy. 

All of the workers preparing anticuchos and the other meals at La Norteña.

Daniel with his anticuchos, potatoes, and corn.

Daniel´s family sitting around the table at La Norteña.

Picarones - our postre for the night! Fried dough with miel (honey) on top. I thought it tasted like a french toast sticks!

Finally, I do need to emphasize one amazing thing that I have tried here in Peru - Inca Kola. It is a very yellow-y pop that is served just about everywhere. Someone told me that Peru is one of the only countries where Coke is not the #1 pop - it is Inca Kola! It is very fizzy, like Mt. Dew, but it tastes like a big piece of bubblegum! 

The FABULOUS Inca Kola.  Daniel says it is best served in glass bottles - YUM.

I am looking forward to trying MORE delicious Peruvian food. Can't wait to share it with you!

The Fortaleza de Real Felipe

Last Friday, June 15, we arrived at school like usual. I taught my first class, a 5th grade class in the primary school. Students were learning about water by creating circle graphs (YES!! MATH!!), reading articles about potable water in the world, and completing listening activities about typical water usage. They thought I was pretty funny - acting out different activities such as brushing my teeth, washing my car, and taking a shower. :)

When I returned back to the teacher's workroom, another English teacher told me and the other teachers that Daniel was planning to take us on a trip for the rest of the day. We missed the remainder of our classes that day as he took us to La Punta, another district here in Callao.

The drive there was very interesting. We passed by many sections of Callao, including a very poor area where most houses were shacks made of woven straw or pieces of wood or cardboard. Carmen de la Legua, where we are currently living, looked luxurious compared to the conditions in these neighborhoods.

Our first destination was Fortaleza de Real Felipe, a large fort that was built in the 1700s by the Spaniards. The main purpose was to guard the coast against pirates. The whole fort was in the shape of a regular pentagon, with points that extended at each vertex of the pentagon. We took a tour of the structure, and some highlights are shown below!

My favorite part was the pirate who came to life after posing as a sculpture. The kiddos that were in the same tour group as us just loved it! We each received an eye patch and posed with the pirate. He was quite the ladies man. :)

Posing with the guards at the entrance to the Fortaleza.

Aimee and I watching the pirates come in...

We found the pirate!

In front of the Memorial to the Unknown Soldier. 

Another highlight of the tour was the view on top of the King's Tower. We were able to see two islands in the distance, as well as Miraflores to our south. Typically, Lima is cloud-covered and very grey. We have had very good luck with the weather since we arrived! As you can see, the weather is just about perfect. Friday was in the low 80s and blue skies everywhere!

An interesting part of the fort was inside the King's Tower. They showed us a room where the Spaniards kept 70-80 indigenous people. The room looked like a long hallway - about 3 feet wide and 20-25 feet long. Because of the dimensions of the room, the prisoners had to stand at all times. The Spaniards gave them food and water once a week, but there was not enough to go around. Most of the prisoners passed away of hunger. So sad.

Monique and Aimee on top of the King's Tower. You can see one of the islands to the left of them.

Leaving the Fortaleza. You can see the entrance in the middle of the picture, with the King's Tower
to the right of the entrance.

After we left the Fortaleza, we drove to La Punta. This area is the nicest part of the province of Callao. In fact, there is an entrance and exit to this area, and it is walled in! There are many shops and beautiful houses. We walked along the coast and stopped to listen to the waves crash along the rocky beach. I was able to skip a rock that Monique found, just like back in Minnesota! 

This area was a stark contrast to the neighborhoods that we passed by on the way there. It is incredible how differently the rich and poor live here in Lima. Like I said, this rich neighborhood was closed off with a wall! Here in Carmen de la Legua, the district is still developing. Some streets are very clean and "pretty" to our American standards, while others are full of construction equipment and have lots of stray dogs or garbage strewn through the street.

I will talk more about this in the future, but this strong contrast between the rich and poor here became very apparent to me while on this trip.

Walking in La Punta. It was so beautiful!

Aimee, Erin, Monique, and Daniel sitting on the "beach" in La Punta.

Rock skipping on the beach. :)

YOLO has made it all the way to Lima! The name of this ice cream shop translates to Where YOLO = Where You Only Live Once. My students would LOVE this!!

A recent excursion

Lima is a very large city of more than 8 million people! In fact, it is very difficult to put a number on its population, as it is increasing exponentially with people from the sierra moving to the city each day. Lima is comprised of more than 50 districts! I consider these like large neighborhoods, much like the burrows of NYC. We currently live in the province of Callao, which is like a suburb (I think!) of Lima. In the province of Callao, there are five districts: La Punta, La Perla, Carmen de la Legua, and two others I don't remember. 

Some districts are known to be more beautiful or tourist-friendly than others. One of these is called Miraflores, where we traveled last Monday, June 11th, with Daniel.

We live in the top left corner - Carmen De La Legua Reynoso.
We traveled to Miraflores, the district located in the center, towards the bottom of the map. 

We first stopped at the Parque de Amor (Park of Love) in Miraflores, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean. It is beautifully landscaped with flowers, grass, and many palm trees. My favorite part was the bench that wrapped all around the park. The bench was a mural with different quotes about love written in tile. Some quotes were very sweet, others funny, and of course, there were sad ones as well. One of my favorites said something like, "I love everything that is not mine. You, for example." :)

In the center of the park is a... well, an interesting sculpture. You can see it below. I don't think I need to explain it!

We walked through the park and made it all the way to the lighthouse called El Faro de la Marina. Along the way, there were families walking together, boys skateboarding, and couples imitating the scuplture. :)

 

 

 

 

 

Aimee, Erin, me, and Monique in the Parque de Amor in Miraflores.

The interesting sculpture in the center of the Parque de Amor in Miraflores.

Working on my fitness! Exercise equipment in a park?! Don't mind if I do!

A lighthouse in Miraflores overlooking the Pacific Ocean. For you, Mom!

After visiting the park by the ocean, Daniel took us into the center of Miraflores. Here there are many shops, restaurants, hotels, and parks. This area very much caters to the tourists - I saw KFC, Pizza Hut, PinkBerry, Starbucks, Burger King, McDonald's, and other very American restaurants. Below you can see one of the parks that we walked through in Miraflores, along with a beautiful old cathedral.

Yet another park in Miraflores!

They offered free Wi-Fi in the parks. So cool!

 

 

An old church in Miraflores. The architecture is typical for Latin and South American catholic churches.

At the end of our trip, Daniel decided that he needed to stop for a Big Mac at McDonald's. Since we were not hungry, we decided to instead visit the coffee or ice cream counter.  Yes, you read that correctly! There are three different places to place an order: the coffee shop, ice cream shop, and typical food counter. All of the coffee drinks were served in real glasses or mugs and with a saucer and the food was delivered to our table by a server. It was the most elegant McDonald's I have ever been to!

Erin's fancy americano at McDonald's! In a cup and saucer and everything!

I need to update you on all of the places we have visited lately! So stay tuned... there is more to come!