(Mostly) Edible Peru

Being slightly obsessed with ceviche I decided that when we docked in Salaverry, Peru I would take a class in making ceviche and pisco sours. In the event it wasn’t the best bowl I had in Peru, but it was pretty darn good. But in order to get to our class from Salaverry port we traveled

on the Pan American Highway. Yep, this is it. It’s absolutely nothing like what I had envisioned the 19,000 mile long highway, which stretches from Alaska all the way to Ushuaia, Argentina, to be like. Actually, it doesn’t go quite every mile of that distance, taking a break at the Darién Gap in Panama, the site of so much recent and tragic news.

On the road I took a few pictures through the window of the moving car. They reveal in a hurry that the whole country does not look like Lima.

Passing through Trujillo we headed for Huanchaco, on the coast. Starting from their pretty church

we wandered through the open air market. Food markets are among my favorite travel sights, so I assume that you’ll also be thrilled to see what was on offer in the Huanchaco market.

Surprisingly there were blueberries everywhere, and they were gigantic, almost the size of grapes. Really delicious too. That’s guanabana next to them, which are sometimes called soursop in English.

I really wanted to buy some of these salsas to relieve the blandness of the ship’s food, but alas, we aren’t allowed to bring stuff like this on board. The lady selling them just spooned whatever you wanted into a plastic bag, and I saw people getting small amounts of several kinds in the same bag, not all mixed together but nestled alongside each other.

There was a small butcher shop, and although the sign says that they sell all sorts of meat, they weren’t selling guinea pigs. Normally I like to try just about any food, but for some reason the idea of guinea pig just doesn’t appeal to me, so I was glad not to see them there. Apparently they are mostly eaten in the Andes, and in tourist restaurants where they are fried and served whole, with their little faces and feet right on your plate.

You could also buy various types of chorizo as well as dairy products.

And since we started with transportation I’ll toss in a couple of other examples:

a little tuk-tuk type of vehicle called a mototaxi,

and the ubiquitous and iconic reed boats that the local fisherman use to bring in their catch.

These are woven entirely by hand, and apparently need to be replaced about every 6-8 weeks, so fragile are they.

And that’s what I saw of Peru, which I have always thought of as being all about the mountains. That’s a funny thing about traveling by ship, you get to visit mainly ports, seldom having time to venture far inland. After Peru we struck out into the vastness that separates it from Easter Island, more than 2300 miles away. But that’s its own story.