Peru Finally

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I arrived at my hotel, the Casa Andina Miraflores, shortly after 11:00PM to the warmest welcome and the warm presence of my dear friend, Marta Nuñez,i who had been planning the Lima leg of my first trip to her home country. Pedro de Aguinaga, a friend of thirty years, flew in from Mexico City not only to accompany me on what I knew would be a fascinating trip but also to take the photographs for my posts.

Pedro is thin, very thin, and is always hungry so we set off for the only place Marta knew would be open at that hour: the 51-year old Cafe Haiti, where she has been going since she was a child. We had what would turn out to be one of our favorite meals. Pedro had a fantastic club sandwich and I tried the Peruvian classic salad called solterito.It was almost 3:00AM when we got to the hotel.

As we set off the next morning for our tour of the market, lunch and later city tour we discovered that the drop dead gorgeous Eric Ripert of Le Bernadin in New York and Anthony Bourdain, the mega television star, were also staying there and would be shooting a segment on anticuchos, Peruvian meat skewers. (Later on we ran into another great chef-friend Stephan Pyles in Machu Picchu.) We had all come to explore Peruvian food which is fast becoming the “hot” new cuisine in the US.

It has been quite disappointing to discover that restaurants we either walked in to to ask about their choice of menu were frank in telling us that they are geared towards whatever they think the tourist wants. The upshot is few restaurants have ingenious menus so this is fertile ground.

But I also came to know the country and its hospitable, generally courteous people and Lima is beautiful as are Cusco and Arequipa. Here are some of Pedro’s photographs that capture the spirit of the different cities.

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