Lima to the Rio Canete Valley

We spent about 9 days in Lima at my mom's apartment. In Lima we basically watched movies, walked the streets and parks of Miraflores, ate a lot of good food and helped out around my mom's apartment.

I shaved my beard.

I got to spend some time with family too.

I'm showing my grandmother (Mimi) our pictures
of monkeys in Ecuador.

Lima was and always is good but we started to feel stagnant (staying at one's mom's house has a distinctly different feeling than backpacking). We said our goodbyes and hit the road for a town in the south coast called Lunahuana.

Lunahuana is along a curvy road in the Rio Canete Valley (about 25 miles west from the coast). The valley reminded me of agricultural descriptions of ancient Mesopotamia (the contrast of desert with rich agriculture). Along the river on both sides, plant life thrived but just a couple hundred yards out and thereafter is nothing but parched, sandy slopes.

Rio Canete Valley (near Lunahuana) 1/2
Rio Canete Valley (near Lunahuana) 2/2

Here the sun shines all day, all year long. It is beautiful!

Sheer and I went up and down the river valley seeking out pisco bodegas and other neat places. Pisco is a clear Peruvian liquor made from grapes. Although the big pisco brands don't come from this valley, the area is well know for its pisco vineyards and bodegas.

Along the Rio Canete Valley Road

Rio Canete

Locals

Uphill from Lunahuana

We found this one restaurant/lodge place that has an idea. The restaurant/hotel is called "Refugio de Santiago". We walked up looking for lodging on a bright sunny morning and found the owner working in the large garden area. We introduced ourselves and before we knew it, he was walking us through his garden. He would pick some herbs and hand them to us to smell. We talked about the names and uses. Some were familiar and others were very unfamiliar and awesome. He picked strange fruits off of his trees and handed them to us. Then we sat down and he offered some of his pisco (this pisco had coca leaves soaking in the bottles).

So the idea of the place (as I understood it) is to promote Andean agriculture that is/has been for the most part neglected by the Peruvian mainstream. There are many unique and tasty fruits, herbs and vegetables that are unknown to many Peruvians (let alone foreigners).

Here's the link to Refugio de Santiago.

Lucuma milkshake, so good.

He also served local meat like trout and crawfish from the river.

For dinner one night, I asked him what he recommended and he said the cuy. Cuy (pronounced kooy, in Peru) is guinea pig. It is common to eat cuy in the Andean mountains. It is not common to eat cuy in Houston.

I declined to eat cuy while in the Ecuador. Maybe the photo below will illustrate why.

Cuy BBQ in Banos, Ecuador

But I thought that this place would make it as good as it gets... so I went for it.

My cuy dish at Refugio de Santiago.
Those balls are potatoes.

It tasted more like pork than chicken to me (they're called guinea pigs, not guinea chickens after all). It was good but I kept thinking of that poor little furry guy.

We also went off-roading on some 4 wheelers (quatromotos or as Sheer says: quasimodos).

Quasimodo-ing Around Lunahuana

Vineyard
Farm

And we went river rafting which was totally fun. Sheer was screaming like a party girl at Mardi Gras.

River rafting

We were lucky to catch a local festival while in Lunahuana: the Nispero Festival. Nisperos are fruits. To celebrate this fruit, everyone drinks pisco (made from grapes) all weekend long.

The Nispero Fruit Tree

One day, during the festival, we sat down by some pisco stands and drank pisco sours with three Lutheran volunteers and two Peace Corps volunteers.

Pisco Stands in Lunahuana

The pisco sours and conversation were very nice. The volunteers were fascinated with our monkey tales. One of them told us, "You better tell us another story otherwise we'll know you guys as the monkey people." Some of them just arrived the previous month and some had been in the valley for almost two years. Sheer asked the Peace Corps volunteers, "What are you going to do after your term is up?" They replied, "I don't know. Do you know? What do you see me as? I'm taking suggestions!" It was a good laugh. As far as the future is concerned, we all had similar feelings: uncertain, completely open, ready to make it happen and... this pisco sour is good.

We had a really good time in the valley and hope to revisit more than once. After about four days of sun and pisco, we hit the road to continue southbound.