Cooking Class

Rusty and I walked Layne to her cooking class Monday morning. I have no patience for cooking so I do the washing up. I enjoy seeing clean plates appear in my hands from a soapy mess especially when we have unlimited water at a campground sink. 

Rusty took a long circuitous walk home and I followed on the end of his leash. Past the Chinese car dealership that has moved..,

And along the riverfront which we cannot actually access because there are walls everywhere. 

Another breezy hot perfect sunny day at the campground at Las Mercedes Hostel. A Kindle and a chair. 

Layne meanwhile was playing with fire. 

And producing piles of spicy Peruvian food, bell peppers stuffed with spicy ground beef…

And a pile of potato avocado and shrimp. She brought home samples and they were quite delicious. 

They also made Peruvian ceviche with the big soft corn called “choclo.”

21 Germans showed up all at once at the campground in a rolling hotel. They travel with bunk beds in the bus, cook their food and spend three weeks together. 

Layne got friendly with the leader/driver/cook who works twenty days on and twenty days off and said he might be organizing a trip to Ushuaia at the southernmost tip do he might see us there…the occupants were a mixture of all ages and quite friendly though they were gone in 36 hours.   

We left Rusty at home aboard GANNET2 and took a stroll into the Plaza de Armas, the main square, which was concealed by the Spanish as it was where they drilled their soldiers in public. Nowadays it’s where lovers and families and street food sellers gather. 

We bought some chicken tamales and some beef skewers with potato grilled on a  street corner. We take street food home for dinner many evenings. 

We aren’t alone in thinking Arequipa is the prettiest town in Peru. 

And at 7400 feet is quite breathable. 

There is a bar nearby called the Pisco Museum so after we collected some cash at the ATM we stopped by and tasted four different Piscos which is the national firewater of Peru. 

Pisco is a grape distillation which if it were French might be called brandy or if it were Italian, grappa. They grow eight different varieties of grapes in Peru and make brandy from all of them. It’s known as Pisco for no known reason, possibly from a Quechua word meaning “a pot” but it became known abroad because barrels of the stuff were exported to Spain from the port of Pisco which we drive past on the coast, and which has nothing to do with the actual production of the spirit. It’s a bit like Tupelo honey coming from Tupelo blooms and not from the Mississippi town of that name. Robert our guide:

Pisco is about 42% proof and I actually enjoyed it more than I appeared to. 

Then she told me to smile. 

This is a slightly perfumed sipping Pisco that I quite liked. 

And so home to bed. No worries walking Arequipa by night.