The guides showed us how to take the bus to downtown Lima where we saw the central square. As you can see from the pictures, it is quite impressive.
This is one of those tourist type churches where you can walk by and go inside. Well, there just happened to be a wedding going on that day. Must be interesting to know your wedding will be part of a tourist attraction.
Didn't have a chance to go inside of there, but our guide said it's got catacombs. You can't see it very well, but there's a ton of pigeons around.
The walking tour ended with a wine tasting of a Peruvian drink called "Pisco." They are very proud of it. Supposedly it's made from grapes, yet it's not considered wine. And it's supposed to be very, VERY concentrated. Sounds like the equivalent of Everclear.
They tried first pure Pisco, then Pisco Sour which has lime juice, sugar, pisco, and something else. If you buy it at a bar they put in egg whites to make it foamy, but they don't in the bottled kind. Then there's another drink made with passion fruit and pisco that I keep forgetting the name. Finally it ended with a drink that's a combination of Pisco and coffee.
Of course I didn't try any of it, but from the look on Carly's face, the first shot of just Pisco was really potent. I guess she brought a bottle back for her dad when she was last in Peru, three years ago, and he said it was like drinking gasoline.
After a four hour walking tour downtown Carly wanted to head to a food festival Gabi had told her about. It's a huge festival that happens every year right on the beach. Like, you can ask any public transportation employee that's manning the gate and they will automatically tell you how to get there.
Well, it was quite an adventure to get there, but we eventually did. I'm having a lot of flashbacks to my time in Costa Rica. Carly doesn't speak Spanish that well, so Anna and her were happy to have me along to translate.
Carly and mines goal was to try some Ceviche, a notable Peruvian food. Our walking tour guide Arturo said that every one says Ceviche is just raw fish. Apparently it's not. It's cooked by the acid in the lime juice it's put in. Arturo says the limes in Lima have a higher acidity level compared to other places and that we don't need to worry about the food being bad.
I went for just plain fish ceviche. I translated for Carly and told her there was another type that had octopus and snails in it. She went for that (brave woman!).
Authentic Peruvian Ceviche. It also has onions and a potato with it.
Carly proudly showing off her dish. She got it with Octopus and snails
Us waiting in line at the festival
It was fun, but it was a very crowded festival. The Ceviche tasted fine. It's just one of those dishes where I take 4-6 bites and then I was done. There was a small part of a pepper in my dish that was red. Course I'm thinking of the sweet bell peppers that I usually eat at home. Totally clueless, I pop this thing into my mouth.
Fire. Totally on Fire. Oh my goodness, did that pepper burn. Later as I was telling Mari about it she said they are very spicy. And to make matters worse, I don't like spicy food to begin with.
When we got home, we were ready for a good nights sleep. But Carly proved to be a great travel buddy.
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