"G" is for Gastronomy both Good and Gruesome.

We arrived at the Lima airport once again, but the line ups were minimal, the security was quite lax, we are allowed to bring in our water bottles, large shampoo bottles...none of this "3 ounces or less" concern over here.

We were told there would be an hour delay as the flight from Bolivia was late and they would need to clean the plane, but the delay was only about a half hour...not sure if they cleaned quickly or not at all. The snacks on the plane were a type of salty plantain chip, and the most delicious shortbread/carmel square I have ever had. Bakery quality goods, apparently Peruvians have a sweet tooth, so I should fit in nicely.

The flight was only an hour, we landed on time, gathered our baggage (I am the only one with just a carry on...yikes, hope I haven't packed too light) and once again were shuttled off. We were at our hotel by noon and before we could even breath we were hustled off to the breakfast area where we were given coca tea and told to drink it. It wasn't a suggestion but more of an order. We had gone from sea level, which of course is more or less 0 elevation (I think Lima is actually 200 feet) to almost 12,000 feet. Altitude sickness has nothing to do with how fit you are, your age, your health, it's just one of those things that can affect anyone, and coca tea and/or chewing the coca leaf is a proven and natural preventative. That, and hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Water is 2 soles a bottle, which is about .75.

Our hotel is called The Prisma, and it looks like its a great place. Lots of little hallways, nooks and crannies, little sitting areas scattered throughout. I have 2 beds in my room, so lots of room to spread out my stuff.

The local hotels don't have central heating so the beds have a feather duvet as well as two of the heaviest, thickest woolen blankets I have ever seen. If I lay down under all of that it's like I'm being smothered, I don't sleep with blankets anyhow, so I do the frantic kick & struggle to untuck them and fling them away. Although with no central heat in the hotels, and the fact that it cools down to maybe 6 or 7 at night, I might start to regret that.

We got ourselves somewhat organized and took a walk to the Plaza de Armas to orient ourselves a bit, exchange some money, stretch our legs, and of course to start trying the Peruvian food.

Our hotel is at the end of a small street which has a dentist, a couple of small stores that sell water, pop, candy and souvenir type things, and about 20 mattress stores. We are apparently in the mattress district, and who knew there was such a thing? The mattresses are jammed in these tiny little stores, all propped up on their end, so you certainly can't lay down on one. There must be thousands and thousands of mattresses on our street. And I mean that literally. And I literally mean literally, not figuratively.....one of my peeves is when people use "literally" wrong.

So we wandered down the cobblestone street, the entire city is cobblestones. Beautiful to look at, but you need to watch where you walk, it's easy to roll an ankle. Especially when you're a gawking, camera toting, water guzzling tourist.

The stop lights are the type that have the countdown so you know how many seconds until the light changes. When it goes green, the little man does the salsa. OK, that's not true, but it really looks like it, his legs flash and move, as in "walk", but I prefer to pretend its the salsa.

The lights are also surrounded by beautiful wrought iron in an art nouveau style, like the metro stops in Paris. Probably nothing makes a Peruvian shake their head more than a tourist who stands in the middle of the road and takes pictures of the lights. Most crosswalk give you 30 seconds to cross, although some are 45, and when the lights changes, you'd better damn well be out of the way. Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way. Like in Rome, try to follow a nun, no one will run over a nun.

Eddy wanted to show us a restaurant that wasn't too touristy and that had some good, local dishes, so we walked into a T-shirt shop, tacky T-shirts no less, and continued to the back of the store which opened into a little courtyard, where we walked up a flight of stairs that looked like it was going to someone's house, but we ended up at a tiny place that had everything going for it but the name...Inkalicious.

I wasn't really hungry, but the menu looked so tempting...I really wanted an alpaca burger, but I knew I couldn't eat a whole burger, as I was deciding they brought the tray of...bread? No. Corn chips? No. Peanuts? No. They brought a wicker basket of tiny gooseberries still in their loose skins that you need to peel off, and a dish of corn nuts....but not the packaged North American ones that smell like dogs feet, but warm, salty, crunchy kernels of corn. Of course I ate those and was even less hungry, so Esther, who is another woman traveller who is travelling solo, and myself decided to share a salad and ceviche. The salad had avocados, grilled zucchini, roasted tomatoes....so good. The ceviche was trout, and quite spicey, but it was also excellent. It also came with two types of corn. Corn and potatoes are major staples here.

After that we went to a local market. It took us quite a while to walk there, between stopping at little stores, markets, money exchange places, gazing, photo-taking and the like. Just as well as it gave our lunch a change to settle because the local market was...quite an adventure.

As we walked away from the centre of the town, the area became a bit more dirty, and, for lack of a better word right now because it's midnight and I hiked up half mountain earlier today, I'll say the streets were disheveled. A lot of garbage bags on the sidewalk, but I found out later that the vendors put the bags out at the end of their day and they are collected later in the evening. Meanwhile, the stray dogs, of which there are many, many, many and it breaks my heart, scavenge. But it's all cleaned up by the following morning,and the streets are even hosed down. We just happened to be there near the closing of the market.

I just want to mention that from the amount of stray dogs you would expect dog poop to be everywhere but you never see it, never. And that's because of the hosing of the roads every night. Its not always "hosing" either, I saw people dumping buckets of soapy water on the cobblestones and scrubbing the street with a broom.The people are very proud of their city and they seem to work very hard at keeping it looking good.

Anyhow, back to the market. There are quite a few vendors outside selling everything from popcorn to wheels of cheese to street-meat-kabobs to fresh squeezed juices. The market itself is HUGE, hundreds of stalls inside a gigantic building. It's one block wide and three blocks long, a buzzing hive of activity. When you first enter the doors you can turn left and there is the meat/fish area, selling everything from feet, heads, windpipes, innards, snouts and skulls, as well as the more common things like chops and steaks. It's gruesome. No refrigeration and flies and dogs are everywhere. Can't possibly be safe to eat, certainly not for non-Peruvians.

Beside that is the milk and yogurt stalls, non-pasteurized of course and sits there from early morning to late evening, again, not refrigerated.

And beside that is the "restaurant" and I use the term lightly, but the locals can get a hot meal with a vegetable and a drink for 1 sole, which is about 70 cents. And obviously their system is used to it.

The rest of the building has everything you can imagine....everything, fruit stalls, dozens of them, veggie stalls, grains, potatoes....hundreds of varieties, flower stalls, tiny little "stores" no bigger than a bathroom, a small bathroom that is, where you can buy canned goods, liquor, some candy and comics, things like aspirin and shampoo, like a mini 7-11. Shoeshine places, barbers, hair salons, toy stores that are full of cheap Chinese toys that are probably banned in North America.

The building seemed to have built over the road because the floor was exactly that, cobblestoned road...and quite filthy too, But it was vibrant and colourful, loud and bustling. Dogs and little kids running all over.

Outside are more vendors sitting on the ground with their wares laid out. Lots of food and many, many with blankets loaded with herbs and other naturopathic healing meds. Some probably work, others, like the snakes in alcohol in an old Coke bottle probably don't. That was gruesome too. I guess the only good stuff was the fruit, veg, and grains, many things I'd never heard of, but on the culinary day, the chef will explain many of them, and let us taste. Looking forward to that!

Well, since pictures don't don't seem to want to download very well. I think I'll publish this and then. Add the pictures later.