Okay, so I’m behind, because I just decided not to spend time while on vacation posting on the blog. For those who follow me on Instagram, you’ve probably seen a good portion of this. After three days in Lima, I headed up to Trujillo, where Henry’s from, to spend a little over a week with the family. Now, normally I don’t spend that long there – I mean, visiting the in-laws and all that, plus, over past visits, I’ve kind of seen most, if not all, of the interesting stuff to see and do in and directly around Trujillo. So, part of the deal was, we would do a couple, or several, day trips to see things slightly further away. We ended up doing one day trip and one two-day trip, respectively, to Cascas and Cajamarca.
The trip to Cascas was a bit over two hours – you can see on the map there aren’t a lot of roads connecting things – so we headed northwest out of Trujillo, then turned northeast up into the hills. Our reason for going? Henry’s nephew Michael said there were these great trout farms, where you could eat trout prepared fresh out of the pools, and, it’s the primary source of Peruvian wines in the north. Now, it turned out that the particular trout farm we headed to (highly recommended in several online places), Piscigranja Corlas Cascas, wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. First, it was basically unattended. There were the three of us, a couple of van loads of other tourists, and no staff. Just a small creek and some pools where trout of various sizes were swimming about. There was a building, and taking a look inside, we found that it was the kitchen for the restaurant (tables outside), with one person working. She said that because it was slow tourism season, she works by herself, and only makes one dish, fried trout.
So, it was fried trout for lunch! I made a video – because I speeded it all up the sound was eliminated and I couldn’t plug in an appropriate music track that YouTube would accept, so, it’s three minutes of semi-fascinating moments of the trip, mostly of the preparing of the fried trout, but, silent.
Our second trip was to Cajamarca, and was obviously, from the map, much further away. It’s also really up there in the mountains – the city itself is at 2750 meters above sea level, though we had to cross over a mountain that was about 1000 meters higher on the way. It takes about seven hours to get there, and that was with the person driving us going at fairly excessive speeds. Not my preference, but sometimes you’re stuck with what you get. Henry’s niece Lorena and her daughter came with us, and it turned out no one had really planned anything out, it was just “let’s go here”, so a lot ended up being left in the hands of the driver, a friend of hers, who had been a few times before. We ended up doing more touristy things than I’d have preferred, but, it was what it was.
The city isn’t the prettiest one I’ve ever been to, but it was moderately interesting to wander around. There’s a lookout area on the mountainside which we went up to to look out over the city. Oh, and the photo at the top of the page is from a nearby lake on the way up.
The city is known for this monument to the twelve most famous Incan rulers. We visited at twilight.
For me, of course, it’s always about food, and while there was a bit of resistance to trying new things rather than just going to casual spots that served familiar cooking that could be found anywhere in the country, since I was footing the bill, I kind of dictated where we’d go. The area around Cajamaraca is known for a few distinctive dishes, and four of them seemed to pop up as the most emblematic. I was only able to find places serving three of them. Two of them were at the same spot, right off the Plaza de Armas in the center of town, at Restaurante Salas.
Caldo Verde (a.k.a Yaku Chupe) is basically a warm herb broth featuring parsley, muña, huacatay, paico, and culantro. It’s served with a slab of local cheese that is similar to feta, a hard boiled egg, and a potato. It’s not overly filling, but it is quite tasty.
The other, Cecina Shilpida, is a quick sauté of chopped cecina, which is a cured pork, with scrambled eggs, and “dressing” of garlic, chili, pepper, and cumin cooked in oil. It’d make an interesting breakfast or brunch dish if fancied up a bit.
The last, we ended up at restaurant that had been spotted, also on the main plaza, called Fri.to. Definitely on the upscale side, as was the presentation of the local iconic dish frito cajamarqueño. Typically, it’s served up as a sort of rectangular block of hash made from chinchulines, or chitlins as we might call it in the southern U.S. (for those not familiar, small intestines, usually fried or sautéed or grilled) and potatoes. The most classic way to serve it is with a side of ceviche, though we did spot a little neighborhood joint nearby that offered it with a variety of sides. This version came as a big round puck, topped with a couple of good sized pieces of chicharrón de cerdo, deep-fried pork, and a decent ceviche on the side. Really good!
We also just had to have cocktails, and it turned out that the signature cocktail, the Caxas Jungle, a mix of Jack Daniels, Campari, and various preparation so sweet lime, pineapple, and passionfruit is prepared tableside by a rather cute bartender.
We also, on our way out the second morning, stopped in at Los Baños de los Incas, which are naturally hot water spring baths that were near to our hotel. In fact, the hotel’s hot water comes direct from the springs, no additional heating. Basically we paired off and soaked for 20 minutes in tubs that you refill yourself after they’ve been cleaned out from the previous customer. Although there were clearly locals using it, it was all a bit touristy feeling.
Then it was back to Trujillo. While mostly the only things of interest that happened were around food, I did pop in to two museums, the Zoologico, and the Juguete (Toy) ones, which are both a trifle weird and creepy.
Of note on the food end we went out for Caldo de Gallina, basically old-hen soup. There’s a stretch near the center of Trujillo that’s just one restaurant after the other that specialize in it. It’s sort of the old-hen soup district. Henry’s niece directed us all to El Palacio del Sabor, the Palace of Flavor, at Av. América Sur 162. It’s a decent chicken soup, with a lot of spaghetti, a side of corn and a hard-boiled egg. What was interesting to me is that there’s a free refill on the soup and noodle part (without the piece of chicken), and since it’s pretty filling, it seemed that most people just ask for their refill “to go”, which the restaurant does – ladling soup and noodles into a plastic bag and tying the top shut. So there was soup in the house the next day.
And, on the last night, after a forgettable meal at a local spot, we headed to one of my favorite street food spots for picarones, deep-fried sweet potato doughnuts soaked in dark cane sugar syrup. Doña Melva is located right by the city stadium and has been there basically every day from 10am-9:30pm serving up fried and stewed dishes to those in the know, for thirty years now. You just order from her, her assistants whip it up, and you grab a plastic stool to sit on somewhere on the sidewalk or street. Best picarones ever.
And, I’m going to end this here, with a morning spent learning how to make cuy guisado, stewed guinea pig. Now, I’ve tried the fried version half a dozen times in various spots around Peru. It’s never very interesting (other than the first time simply because it was new to me). It’s usually just a splayed out, whole guinea pig, deep-fried, and served with chili sauce. But there are several dishes that are unique to different regions in Peru, and in Trujillo, this particular stew is “the one”. I left out the squeamish bits in the video – but at the live market, they have a back room where the animals chosen by customers are slaughtered and prepped – in the case of our quartet of guinea pigs, that meant skinning and disembowling. I watched, because it’s good to be reminded where things like meat actually come from, but decided not to subject you to it. Not sure they would have let me video it anyway.
And then – back to Lima for Round 2, another three days of eating out!
