Day 7
The agency sent a new guide and driver to pick us up in the morning to take us Pachacamac archeological site outside the city. I really liked the guide we went with on this excursion. She new a lot about the site, but she also spoke a lot about contemporary Peru. While we were there, the country was finishing a very tight Presidential election and she gave us a lot of insight into the current political makeup of the country.
I liked Pachacamac, because it was very different than the ruins we had seen in the Andeans for the last few days. It is a massive site, and much of it has not been excavated, additionally there is a very interesting museum. This excursion only take half of a day.
We asked our guide and driver to drop us off at the Mario Testino Museum in Barranco. Testino is a famous photographer, and I had heard about the museum in the New York times. We happened upon it on a special day. Local schools had each adopted a museum and elementary students were acting as the docents for each room of the museum. It was cute, and each child presented something unique about Testino.
We tried to do a walking tour we found online, but it wasn’t very good. We explored the neighborhood and found our way into an art gallery/shop that we could not afford. Then we stopped in Artesanias Las Pallas for some souvenir shopping. The eccentric owner is proud of her wares and very knowledgeable.
We ended the night at Central Restaurante in Lima. Central is a restaurant owned by Virgilio Martínez Véliz and frequently mentioned as one of the top 10 restaurants in the world. We opted for the 17 course tasting menu. Each dish is is small (thankfully) and represents something that comes from a specific elevation in Peru. One course may be Octopus that represents -10 meters and the next may be quinoa representing 1800 meters. It is an extraordinary event.
I was fighting a cold, so I struggled with tasting some things. I would also suggest trying the 12 course version rather than the 17. This is not a critique on the price, but on the amount of food. I would have felt better leaving feeling full and not stuffed. I would recommend anyone to do this if you are in Lima.