Some other pictures from Huaraz

Llanganuco lagoon - high and tough (3850 m)

Procession for the Easter in Huaraz with painted streets

Procession for the Easter in Huaraz with painted streets

Procession for the Easter in Huaraz with painted streets

Walk!

Stop!

Street theater

 

Street theater



Pastoruri

Water fountain on the way to Pastoruri

Water fountain on the way to Pastoruri

Almost there - 4800 meters

Finally there! 5000 meters high!

As you can see, some people need help from carriers!

And there are a lot of them!

Did you notice well this picture?

A very important conversation

"It looks like... but it's not!"

This is a very famous brazilian saying coming from a TV advertisement. In it, a consumer comes into a store and see a new refrigerator with a nice design and full of places to sort things inside. The issue is that the refrigerator wasn't a 'Brastemp', a very high quality brand in Brasil.

Thus, the advertisement said "It looks like (a Brastemp)... but it is not"!

Many people have asked us if the Montezuma's Revenge has attacked us. The Montezuma's Revenge is some sort of half joke half serious related to the diarrhea that some foreign tourists suffers when in South America. The joke part (I suppose you got the serious part by now) is that this is a revenge from the europeans conquestors from some centuries before.

One of the best ways to avoid it is to keep your hands clean but sometimes, the issue is that it can come from the things you are eating and drinking. So answering the question, yes, Montezuma has attacked us.

It is also said that one of the main sources of it could be the water (and consequently, raw products such as salads, washed in this same water) so we have been very carefull with it just buying industrialized water and washing salads with purifying pils (the taste is not as good but at least we know that it is clean).

 When we had the Montezuma's attacks we thought that we were eating the wrong things or drinking the wrong water but even changing it, the attacks continued. Until we found that what was causing it (at least for me and Juli) wasn't the water but the milk! Once we stop to drink certain types of milk, the revenge stopped as well.

As the advertising said, it looks like but it wasn't!!

Yes, we can do it... in our way!

There is one thing that really makes me proud of Peru, which is the way they have created new identities for things that have come from out of Peru.
This goes all across the way people express themselves, so through the way they related to themselves, culinary, folcloric dances, cinema and others.For many years, this was seen as something of less importance but lately there was an effort to value these fusion and it is now very trendy. More than trendy, it is something special as it is a way to narrate the way this country is.
The most proeminent fusion happens in the culinary, there are several examples of foreign culinary that were somehow embedded and then potentialized by the peruvian way.

Chifa - Chinese Peruvian flavour
One of the best examples is the "Chifa" which is a mixture of chinese and peruvian cuisine. It doesn't exist in any other place. It is somehow exquisite: they serve huge plates with chinese reciped and peruvian ingredients. I tried onw wantan that tasted like the brazilian  pastel but the filling was very different. The Chaufa is a huge (huge!) plate of fried rice with all kinds of things you could potentially mix in a plate of rice :)

The Peruvian Japanese Cuisine - taking the fusion to another level
One of my favourites is the way they have adapted the Sushi Maki to their culture, they have taken it to a new level and new chefs are creating more and more varieties.

When bitting one of those a new world appears in front of you, there is a mix of unexpectancy with surprise. The flavours are so exquisite that recalls the sense of creativeness with understanding of local potentialities(hopefully, we will also post something about the creativeness of Peruvians in the future).
Difficult to describe, it's something to be tried.We have tried so far:

Chocolate Maki with Maracuya - innovation that is not widely available as we tried in a product fair but is very, very good and not too sweet.

 

Maki Acebichado which as the name says, it has cebiche on top of it. The filling is also very good.



This one was one of the best - filling of avocado and crispy prawns covered with a white fish quickly cooked by the hot butter sauce with ginger.

Comida Criolla - the start of everything?

The criollos are the denomination of descendents of Spanish but the comida criolla is what is commonly understood as traditional peruvian food. So far, we have tried some weird stuff but also some very good ones. It takes a bit of a courage to try some of the things but in general, the experience is good! The grilled Anticucho (cow heart in the stick) is good and many times served with Cau Cau (cow intestine) and other visceras (inner parts).

For the anticucho, take a look into this website here.

But the comida criolla is also one of the food's fusion starting points, it has acquired a lot of the peruvian taste and today is one of a kind, totally integrated to the Peruvian cuisine. Some of the foods we have tried,  we are still looking for the name! :)

Patita de Cervo in the traditional Santiago Queirolo restaurant (this is pork's feet)



Carapulcra - meat prepared with a dry potato powder, ají and other spices, extremely good!



This is a root (like some sort of potato) with some meat

White beans cooked for some hours

Meat cooked with several herbs

 

Sangrecita - this plate is made out of cooking blood and few other spices. Although the idea might sound a bit weird, the taste is also extremelly good! (at least the one I ate - thanks Regina!)

The fusion goes forward with other means of artistical expressions and representations, from cinema to dancing (see the post related to the presentation we saw from Brisas del Titicaca)

And here we are not even talking about the original peruvian food, which is so special that will deserve not just one but many future posts!