We spent much of this holiday waking up early to travel and then waiting in lots of lines. Monday morning was no different. We headed to the airport at the crack of dawn for our 9:44 flight to Cusco.
Our ultimate goal for this trip was to visit Machu Picchu, but there’s no easy way to get there. You have to fly to Cusco, catch a train to Aguascaliente, and then ride a bus up the mountain to the site.
The Lima airport defies logic. Most airports offer few entertainment options until after you get through security. In Lima, however, you can poke around in a variety of shops, wet your whistle in any number of bars, or fill up at the expansive food court before getting in line for the security check. Wise seasoned travelers such as ourselves know that you should get through security as soon as possible, so we did. Unfortunately, the other side of security was like Siberia. Not a single restaurant. One snack bar. One souvenir shop. And our flight was delayed for more than three hours.
By the time we reached Cusco and checked in to our cute little hotel, we were all famished. We met up with Ian’s father, Peter, who had flown from the States, and we all walked down the hill in search of food. We arbitrarily chose the restaurant, Morena. Reviews were mixed, but I loved my meal, and I was starting to see how easy it was to be vegetarian in Peru. In fact, the Incas in this region cultivated quinoa, which continues to be a Peruvian staple. I ate a LOT of quinoa on this trip and never tired of it.
Guinea pig is another staple here. Crispy tandoori guinea pig? No thank you!
Cusco was gorgeous. I was looking forward to spending more time here on our last day in Peru. For now, it was just a stopover.
Our hotel, Tambo del Arriero Hotel Boutique, featured a central courtyard, bold colors, and quirky decor. We were too tired and full from our late lunch to venture out again for dinner, so we met up for drinks and crashed early. We knew we had another dawn departure planned.
As Chile celebrated Dieciocho, Tony and I skipped town for a week in Peru with our friends, Ian and Stella, and their two girls. But first things first, we had to welcome our latest house sitters, Kathy and Leigh, with our customary pisco sour toast at our favorite restaurant, Tiramisu.
During our trip, these lovely Aussies sent several updates with photos of Ella, who clearly didn’t lack for attention.
For our first stop in Peru, we landed in Lima and stayed at a nice little Airbnb in the Miraflores district. A friend from our New Delhi days, Alicia, recently moved here to work at the The American School of Lima, so we basically spent 24 hours eating with Alicia and seeing nothing else of the city. For our first meal, we enjoyed delicious traditional Peruvian fare at Panchita.
The next morning, Tony and I found a local café for a light breakfast and then walked to Alicia’s incredible apartment. The vibrant Miraflores neighborhood sits on a cliff that overlooks the Pacific Ocean, so the walk featured stunning scenery. The district’s quaint streets were lined with restaurants, cafés, pubs, and shops. We paused to join spectators at a small skateboard/dirt bike park for a few minutes, and then strolled along the cliffside promenade.
At Alicia’s 10th-floor apartment, I couldn’t get over the view! Alas, we had to leave. Gluttony awaited at one of the world’s top-ranked restaurants, Astrid & Gaston.
Our story began in 1994. Upon finishing their culinary studies in Paris, Gastón Acurio and Astrid Gutsche founded their eponymous restaurant in a small house in the district of Miraflores. At first, the restaurant was quite French, as it was dictated by the global trend. Over time, it became decidedly Peruvian. We embraced our culture and flavors, experimenting with local ingredients and recipes with one goal in mind, to promote our cuisine around the world.
In 2014, on our 20th anniversary, we left Cantuarias Street to start a new project: to settle in Casa Moreyra, the 17th century San Isidro estate. Today, Gastón and Astrid, together with a young team of chefs, are in constant search of new flavors and ideas to offer.
We opted for the 15-course tasting menu, and Alicia and I added the wine pairings. This was the menu. Eeek!
With my recent (and unfortunately timed) adoption of vegetarianism, Alicia’s aversion to seafood and other slimy things, and Tony’s disdain for vegetables, we created some challenges for the chef. Somehow, it all worked. The servings were small but packed with deliciousness. Some of the presentations were a bit cheesy, like the first one, “an indecent bed,” which came on a sculptural plate shaped like a bed, but I had no complaints. Almost five hours later, we were comfortably full, a bit tipsy, and feeling giddy.
Back in Alicia’s neighborhood, we walked along the promenade. She hadn’t yet ventured down to the water since moving to Lima, and I certainly couldn’t NOT touch the ocean. We walked down a lot of steps and crossed the road on a pedestrian bridge to reach the rocky beach.
One perk of international teaching for so long is we know people practically everywhere, and reunions are always special. Thanks for hanging out with us, Alicia!
It’s party season in Chile. Fiestas Patrias celebrates Chile’s freedom from Spanish rule, commemorating the first governing body in 1810 and also honoring the army. Collectively known as Dieciocho – Eighteen – because the official celebration occurs on September 18, festivities continue for more than a week with huge Chilean flags waving in the breeze, bunting and decorations in all the shops, children parading around in traditional clothing, and huge community festivals.
At International School Nido de Aguilas, the gringos traditionally host a Dieciocho party for the Chilean staff. Pisco sours and beer flow liberally, kebabs fill the barbecue grills, and we teachers take the stage to “entertain.”
My friend, Nancy, and I cracked ourselves up planning a skit modeled on a youtube video from a few years back. Remember the one with two ladies in a car who lipsync songs while wearing costumes from each era? Well, we thought it would be amazing to do the same thing with Spanish-language tunes.
Sure, we could have practiced a bit more. And, yes, we were scrambling for a car prop right up to the last minute when we miraculously scored the school’s golf cart. But we had fun, and it turned into a dance party, so you can’t ask for much more than that, right?
Tony and I just got home from Peru, and I was sitting down to write about our trip when I realized I never finished writing about our last trip. Such a blog slacker.
After our visit to Costa Rica, I ditched Tony and popped up to Florida to sign the paperwork on our new house and hang out with my family. We found a cute furnished home on the golf course, just a block from my parents, and we’re hoping it will be a hit with snowbirds seeking a seasonal rental. It was in pretty good shape, but the previous owners had rented it out for a long time without much TLC.
I did a cursory inventory of the house and hauled a lot of bedding, dishes, and random objects to a local thrift shop and the garbage. The sellers seemed to have dumped all their unwanted junk at this house before signing it over to us.
I have mixed feelings about owning a home in a 55+ neighborhood, even if it bills itself as a “fun and affordable active adult community where everything you could possibly want, need, or dream of doing in your retirement years is just a golf car ride away.” The town makes a few exceptions for buyers who are (just barely) too young for the ‘hood. When I got my Villages ID, the community center workers made me feel like a teenager. “You’re so youuuuuung!” they crooned.
We decided to task my mom with the job of getting the place rent-worthy. She found many ridiculous former “fixes,” such as shutters hung upside down and kitchen drawers reinforced with a paint stirrer and a broken yardstick. She swore she could make the repairs and decorate by the end of September. The only stipulation: “I have a vision, and you don’t get to say anything about it.” Hmmm… I don’t know many contractors that include a clause like that. But hey, she’s doing it for free and she has a knack for this. We call her “business” La La La Decorating. (You know, like when you hold your hands over your ears and say, “La la la, I can’t hear you!”)
Lucky for me, my whole family decided to spend spring break in The Villages. My sister, Kate, and her gang drove down from Michigan, and my brother, Mike, and his clan popped by Florida en route from Korea to their new home in Abu Dhabi. My other sister, Megan, and her family recently moved to Florida, so they drove about five hours to join the fun.
That was a whole lot of chaos at my parents’ house, so I hauled all seven nieces and nephews up the street to my vacant house. They played with legos and army men, made slime, wrestled, and colored. We had an epic pillow fight with the many trash-bound pillows left by the previous owners.
For my Super Auntie moment, I had planned a special presentation about Costa Rica. The little cuties all sat at my feet like they were in circle time at school while I shared fun facts about the different places we visited and showed pictures on my phone of the animals we spotted on our trip. At the end, I leaned down and whispered, “Guess what? I brought some of the animals back for you.”
They paraded to the living room, where my oldest nephew, Nico, had helped me set up an exhibit of stuffed animals. He made a sign and positioned the sloths, bats, squirrel monkeys, white-faced monkeys, armadillos, and a macaw on the TV cabinet. He and I had come up with a system for each kid to draw a number, and then they would go in that order to choose their animal to keep. I worried that they would fight over a specific animal or get upset if they didn’t get the one they wanted, but it all went smoothly. Their cherubic smiles swelled my heart and eased my distress at spending a cubic ton of cash on amazon to get those toys.
Of course, there was the requisite dancing in the Spanish Springs town square (accessible by golf cart from my parents’ – and, gulp, now our neighborhood).
We also went bowling one afternoon and got a lot of attention. “You guys sure have fun,” one bowling alley senior commented.
And Jack celebrated his 5th birthday poolside.
We crammed a lot of love into less than a week’s visit. Adios till Christmas!
