Friday night I worked at the bar- which is fun considering I get to sit back and drink a beer or 2 on the job and eat pineapple jello shots. Serving my 'customers' aka friends is so fantastic. When my shifted ended at 1am I got changed and departed The Point around 1:30am (just the beginning of evening adventures in Peru) with my mixed posse of backpackers, hostel staff, and local youngins' to go to Circulo, a small bar just 6 blocks away with which the owner of the hostel has a partnership. BTW- the owner is Tamir- an Israeli...hollerrrrr. I think I won over some brownie points reciting the 8 Hebrew words I know. Circulo was small and crowded with a Peruvian rap/reggaeton band performing high-energy songs. After about an hour there, our group of 10ish people hopped over to a disco with bumpin music. I danced the night away with my traveling friends. While I was the designated drink-watcher during a dance break, I even met 3 (hot) Americans who have been country hopping for the last 6 months...we enjoyed a little dance! I will not disclose what time I went to bed Friday night/Saturday morning. Twas a pleasant evening with terrific friends.
Saturday was by far the best experience to date i've had in Lima. I went to Mistura, a food-based festival that samples many of the best chefs (the non commercial ones- no Rachael Ray here) in the country, even world. I even met a chef from Washington, DC!! My 5 senses have never been so stimulated. My ticket which I had to buy from a scalper was 25 soles, only about 10 more than face value (the exchange on Saturday, so you get an idea was 2.71 soles for $1). I then exchanged my soles for tickets which were either worth 12 or 6 points. I could buy 1 plate of food for 12 soles or a 1/2 portion for 6, allowing me to try a more diverse number of dishes. The 4 Chilean kids I went with are all professional chefs! They know their way around, have VIP entrance tickets, and 2 of the guys even wore their chef jackets, representing the prestigious restaurants where they work. I was showed where to find the most delicious cebiche, tastiest pisco sours, and whole roasted ducks with the heads still attached. Along with the nearly 100 different places to exchange tickets for tasty treats were tent-covered markets with rows and rows of more foods and products I have never heard of or seen than ones I was familiar with. This is where the 5 senses of stimulation came into play: the colors of festive gear were present as well as a plethora of people cruising the tables for a free taste, a picture, or a question regarding the strange items in front of our curious and somewhat blown-away facial expressions. I closely listened to spoken spanish all around me and even picked up on various dialects and vocabulary which vary from Spanish-speaking country to Spanish-speaking country. I tasted (boy did I taste) cheese from various farm animals scented with herbs and spices, fruits I've never seen before, so ugly on the outside but incredibly scrumptious on the inside. I tasted it all at least once, and sometimes even twice. Everything here is so natural and not very far removed from their origin. Nothing is processed or frozen and was possibly alive just shortly before consumed. I also touched it all: I closely inspected about 75 varieties of potatoes, cracked open a passion fruit, and held about 100 toothpicks of free samples over the course of my 5 hours at this festival. Mistura is a 10 day festival that's been around for just 5 years with a long track of fun-filled festivals in the years to come- no doubt. My Chilean friends made sure I didn't miss a beat or a sight or a free sample. We returned to The Point around 8pm as I was scheduled to work 8:30-1am. I was too pooped to go out to the disco after work so I listened to Chilean rap with my new group of gnarly dudes.
Life is GOOD =)
