Lima

I arrived in Lima that afternoon and went almost directly to a food-tasting tour. The idea was simple: sample a wide range of Peruvian specialties, including fresh tropical fruit and an assortment of unfamiliar snacks.

That was also my introduction to ceviche, one of Peru’s defining dishes. At the time, I knew little about it beyond the bowl in front of me: pale raw fish, sliced onion, a few green leaves, and a sharp citrus marinade. I later learned just how celebrated ceviche is. My own reaction was less enthusiastic. The acidity and raw onion were simply more intense than I enjoyed, and I did not think to take a photograph.

Next we visited a Chinese-Peruvian restaurant. In Peru, restaurants of this tradition are generally known as chifas. The cuisine grew from Chinese migration more than a century ago, and the name is commonly linked to the Chinese phrase chi fan—“to eat a meal”—adapted into local pronunciation.

The chef was not Chinese, but he handled the wok with confidence and prepared beef in a thick sauce. It reminded me of Panda Express. Compared with the Chinese cooking I knew, the beef seemed to have spent a little too long over the heat.

While moving through the city that afternoon, we also stopped at a well-known area for street art. This was the piece that stood out to me.

That evening I went to Juanito, one of Barranco’s most characteristic old bars. Juan Casusol founded it in 1937, and over time it became a gathering place for writers, artists, and the neighborhood’s bohemian community. Its exterior remains remarkably discreet, with barely a sign, and the Casusol family still runs it. The founder was known as Juanito—“little Juan,” using the affectionate Spanish diminutive.

Over the next several days, I joined a series of small group tours and saw a broad cross-section of Lima and its surroundings.

I began at the main square in the historic center, the Plaza de Armas, also known as the Plaza Mayor.

My visit coincided with Peru’s Independence Day celebrations and the approach of a presidential inauguration following the country’s five-year election cycle. The center of the square had been closed off, so I could only walk around its perimeter.

From there I visited the Cathedral of Lima. Construction began in 1535, when Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish conquistador who founded the colonial city, laid its first stone. His presence runs throughout the building. One story goes back to his second expedition, when his men were stranded on Gallo Island and many wanted to return to Panama. Pizarro drew a line in the sand; only thirteen men—the “Famous Thirteen”—crossed it and chose to continue south. According to the familiar retelling, his pitch was stark: follow him toward the possibility of wealth, or return north to the poverty they already knew.

I also passed through several smaller museums and collections. So many compact artifacts have been excavated in the region that some collections fill tier after tier of shelving. My favorite was this wonderfully abstract expression.

Museo Larco offered something entirely different. Its separate Erotic Gallery presents erotic ceramics from ancient Peru, especially works associated with the Moche culture. The museum itself describes the gallery as a major collection devoted to sexuality and eroticism in ancient Peruvian art.

Uber made it easy to move between widely scattered parts of Lima without planning much around transportation. The driving, however, was an experience in itself. Most taxis had manual transmissions, and their drivers threaded through gaps and overtook with a precision that repeatedly looked like an imminent collision. Somehow, it all worked.

Peru’s tourism infrastructure also struck me as far more developed than the country’s broader level of development might suggest. Almost every established business I visited—even a modest stall with a permanent storefront—could produce a card terminal. Sometimes it had been unused long enough to need charging and a restart, but it was there. I barely needed cash outside informal street stalls. Tourist-site restrooms were similarly reliable: flushing toilets, paper, soap, and running water, not merely empty dispensers mounted on a wall. I had not found that level of consistency even on previous trips to Australia and New Zealand.

Food became another recurring part of these days. I am still not sure I could define “Peruvian cuisine” neatly, so I outsourced some of the decision-making. At restaurants, I photographed the entire menu and asked ChatGPT what to order. It was shamelessly convenient; by then, I could not even be bothered to study an English menu.

The dish most unlike anything I would encounter at home was roasted guinea pig. In much of the world it is a pet; in Peru it is dinner.

I also ordered a sampler of Peruvian specialties, with ceviche in the lower-right corner. The accompanying drink was equally unexpected: iced Americano mixed with passion-fruit juice. It sounded implausible, but there it was.

That brought my time in Lima to a close. Next came Cusco.