The Adventures of Rob & Lauren

As many of you know, we looooove food. I suspect we’ll be blogging about the food here quite a bit, since it gives such a great look into the culture! Also, our food experiences in the first two days have already been nothing short of incredible, so I know there’s a lot of exciting stuff to come! So let me tell you a bit about Peruvian food.

Our second day here was spent wandering around. And I literally mean wandering. We would simply walk in whichever direction seemed interesting. It’s a really great way to see a city, as you often find yourself well off the beaten path, in some fascinating places.

For instance, we set off in search of some lunch. We saw some touristy places around a square, but decided to keep going. We eventually found ourselves quite lost, and quite hungry. So we literally stepped into the first clean looking place that smelled great. We followed our noses. 

And guys, I can tell you it was one of the best lunches ever. Our waitress spoke no English, and we speak very very very little Spanish, so we eventually just gave up trying to communicate and told her to bring us anything. Out came a warming soup, and then an incredible mix of fried chicken, rice, potatoes, and a tangy salsa to throw on top. Unreal. I’ll tell you right now, it’s the best way to experience some local flavour. Sure, it’s probably a crap-shoot some days, and you can’t be a picky eater, but it was a really incredible experience, packed shoulder to shoulder in room full of locals, not knowing what was going to come next. 

We love to take photos of what we’re eating, when the light allows. First up, some photos from our dinner last night. This was our lovely coca tea. They use the coca leaves to help treat altitude sickness. You can buy leaves, tea, candies, coffees, pretty much everything! It has a very unique earthy flavour, but has been really lovely.

And these sauces. My lord, I almost just drank them up. The white one was a garlicky one, and the red a spicy one. I put them on everything I ate for dinner! 

As we were walking out I spied some pretty sweet light on some drying pasta. I’m lucky that Rob is a patient guy, and he took out the camera for me, after just putting it away! But these were some wicked cool shots, so I think he was happy to do it. (The wood stove is what they roasted the alapca in, yum!)

I’m finding the people here to be incredibly friendly. They might give us a wary glance at first, but when I throw them a smile and a “Buenos dias/tardes/noches” they instantly smile right back and return the greeting! I had stopped to take a photo of these funky looking fruits. The lady selling them said a whole lot of stuff to me in Spanish, and then started to cut one open for me to try. She gave one to Rob as well. It was a really great flavour, and really interesting texture. I tried to pay her for the fruits, but she wouldn’t take it. Heart = warmed.

We also tried our first pisco sour today. It looked and smelled fantastic, but I’m not going to lie, none of us really enjoyed it. But I’ve heard so many great things about them that I’m not going to give up! The hunt for a great pisco sour continues.

And finally, we have someone to introduce you to! Our friend Drew is actually traveling with us for this whole adventure. He’s a young photographer from Edmonton as well. We’ve had fun hanging out at home, so we suggested he come along. He’s never really been traveling before, or done much portrait photography, but this kid is an all-star. Rob and I are still a bit shy about doing street photography of people, but Drew just jumps right in there. He definitely pushes us to be more bold, and is going to be an awesome travel companion! Make sure to be checking out his blog as well: http://drew.myfotojournal.com, he has already posted some insane shots!

I’ll leave you with a shot of Drew, a shot of myself, and the both of us sitting on a ledge, checking out the rooftops of Cusco.