Day 1
Well, six years later I conned the same two friends, plus two others, to join me in Peru for my birthday. The two newbies are taking the foillowing week off to do the Machu Picchu stuff that we already did, but for the three of us it is a bit of way too quickly earned nostalgia. There won't be too much downtime, so I'll largely be writing these of memories in lazy afternoons, late nights or on my flight back home.
There are many differences from this trip and the first one, from us being 25 year old travelers fit to stay in a youth hostel (Loki), and now old enough to intentially stay in an AirBNB, where not only would we not be mingling with other youth hostel-ers, but not even by chance running into random hotel passers-by. THe other difference is this groups love of food.
Lima is notably home to two of the Top 10 restaurants in teh world (per San Pelligrino's widely somewhat accepted list), Maido and Central. When we went in 2016, none of us had ever eaten a truly world-class tasting menu meal, but we scored a reservation at Maido and were astonished. I feel like we attempted to go to Central but couldn't get a booking. Since then mutliple of us have eaten at Gaggan (though all separately), we've eaten as a group at Azurmendi and Belcanto last year in Spain & Portugal, and have also risen up our respective job ranks so we can splurge a bit more.
Maido would be on the first night of the trip (my birthday), with Central on the Saturday. But before we could even get to Peru, I first had to deal with two foreign countries. More notably being my first time hitting the soil of Colombia, if only in an airport, and more sadly, having to brave the experience that is JFK Airport for the first time in 3.5 years.
I used to love JFK airport, specifically Terminal 4 which until it became essentially a Delta hub around 2015 or so, was a lovely international terminal that had a large stretch of it, with good restaurants, bars, shops, clubs, all pre-security. It was the international-focused terminal that New York deserved. Delta then took it over, and while the terminal is still nicer than Delta's old T2/3 spots, it is become an overcrowded, security-ridden mess.
My flight from JFK to Bogota (a new airport for me!) takes off at 12:25am. Right around that time there is a flight to Dubai, Tel Aviv, and a London flight at 11pm. So the terminal isn't empty. I guess someone forgot to tell the JFK people, as every restaurant and bar was shut by 10pm (i.e. before I even got there), and ever concession was closed by 11pm. Anyway, my friend and I were in no mood really to imbibe as we both wanted to sleep on the flight.
Avianca did treat us well, with them flying their new A320neo, which had newer economy seats, still tightly bunched up as always, but with a much helpful USB charger (really should be standard in 2022). The flight to Bogota was uneventful. The stay in Bogota was short, but eventful in its absurdity. We ended up at the last gate of the terminal, with a good 8 minute walk to the central head-house where security was set up to allow us back to the departure area for the connection to Lima. Of course the flight to Lima happened to be on the exact same plane we took to Bogota in the first place. I was planning some witty joke in spanish to tell the flight attendants when I boarded, but instead found that a new crew had come in for this flight.
The flight to Lima was even less eventful, same plane but no pillows - but with the tradeoff of having a whole row to myself that allowed me to sleep some more. For essentially a broken red-eye, I was able to get roughyl a good nights sleep, which posited us well for our first day-to-night in Lima.
Day 2
Driving from Lima airport to our AriBNB in Miraflores was interesting. At various times I saw myself comparing what I saw to India - always favorably. The immediate area aroudn the airport had what I assume is their version of slums, but they are brick apartment buildings rather than tin roofed huts like in Mumbai. As we got closer to the city center, other than the everpresent fog that dominated the first day, the city brightened up brilliantly. We drove on the highway near the coast on the way to the airport which finally brought back some memories. You would think I would remember more about this place given we jsut went there six years back.
The Miraflores neighborhood is right in the middle of the city, in between the bohemian Barranco area (which we are planning to spend many a night) and the more urban, commercial area to the immediate north. It is a good place to stay, but for what we had planned on this first day was a bit mis-located. After luckily getting into the AirBNB early, we left around noon for lunch at La Picante, a well made mom-and-pop restaurant that quickly to me became somethign like the Peruvian version of Miller's Thumb.
It was a very fish heavy menu, with a selection of Ceviches, Tiraditos (sliced raw fished drizzled with stuff), Chaufas (fried rice), Calientes (hot entrees) where you pick a style and a type of fish. It was decorated really well, sadly with partitions up as Peru seems to take Covid way more seriously than any other country I've traveled to to date. We split a couple ceviches, both classic peruvian with Tiger's Milk, one 'Picante' with fish, the other more traditional with Langostino. Both were amazing. Then split a couple hot dishes, one being a braised beef short rib (really good, but still somewhat sad that we gave in and did order meat) and a stewed fish.
We then walked around that area from La Picante to the Museo Nacional Arcologico, which of course happened to still be closed due to covid. They had a side exhibit built into an old large house on the history of Peruvian independence, which was still nice and it was free, but we were all seething that none of us figured out it was closed. That museum was a late add to our list anyway as we were really on teh way to the Larco Museum (the Arcologico museum was half-way).
This whole area of Peru is very residential, and reminded me of a much cleaner, prettier, greener version of certain Bangalore neighborhoods or Bandra. I don't know why the India connection lasts so much but it really fits for some reason. All streets had well made houses, all with a random smattering of colors, with lush greenery everywhere. Seemingly every four blocks or so was a little park. It truly is what India should be.
The Larco Museum made up for not seeing the Arcologico museum, as the main exhibit of the Larco was a trip to Ancient Peru through to the Incas (so stopping basically as the Spanish conquered). It was a really nice trip told through pottery, jewerly, sculpture, with each region and time havign its own style that the Larco did well to explain. They also had two other exhibits that were, let's say, different. First was their 'storage' area which is basically four rooms with cabinets everywhere with just 'extra' pieces. It is astonishing in its largesse, just floor to ceiling, wall to wall, sculptures and stuff.
The other is a more interesting exhibit, and what the Larco is probably most (in)famous or, the Erotica Gallery, which explores the ancient Peruvians odd penchant for erotic scultpure, from actual scupltures to erotic carvings on top of normal water jugs. It was presented very tastefully but was still, openly, weird to see this in person.
From the Larco Museum we took an uber to the other end of town, again driving the road near the beach now much more crowded than in morning, to Barranco, to Red Cerveceria, one of the more well reputed craft breweries in Lima. Red Cerveceria served some really cold, really hoppy IPAs, among their more normal offerings (a lager, an ale, a weisse, etc.), in a really nice space. It was fairly empty when we came - but started to fill up with some foreigners and moreso post-work locals by the time we left around 6pm. At this point some returned to the AirBNB, while me and one friend took a walk around Barranco down to Dedalo, an art and craft gallery near the water.
Barranco is a really nice, if more artsy, neighborhood that had about five or six bars that we crossed on our walk, and this wasn't even the most 'bar-y' part of the barrio - that's where we'll be later tonight. But first was Maido, which was incredible and will be covered in excruciating detail in a separate post.
Post Maido we went to Carnaval, which is Lima's most reputed cocktail bar, and while it wasn't as magical and inventive as, say, Cause Effect, it was about 75% as close and made some truly great, if a bit too easy to down, cocktails with a great vibe as well. From there we headed back to Barranco, which was a bit quiet - granted the places that were open were crowded and jolly, but speaking to a few locals they told us that even as the city opens back up post covid, Thursday's are way less crowded than they used to be. It's all a process I guess.
