Rocoto para relleno - Rocotos for stuffing! For sale in 'El Super', Arequipa

Rocoto chilis are something of a favourite in the  kitchens of Arequipa in Peru.  These fat bulbous peppers look a little like sweet bell peppers but they are firey hot.

Rocotos Grande and Rocotos Enteros

Although Rocotos come in many colours, red ones do look great! In the photo above above you can see two types, the large Rocotos are used for a popular traditional dish called Rocoto Relleno (Stuffed Rocoto), and the smaller variety is just used as an ingredient. If you slice a small rocoto you can just rub it on your food, meat, vegetables and they will be spicy. You don’t have to eat the chili itself.

Here you can see the distinctive black seeds of the Rocoto

If you go to Peru and buy some rocotos, you can slice and dry them. The air in Arequipa is usually quite dry and warm, and if you leave them in the sun after a couple of days they will be dried out.  Cut them horizontally into rings as this allows the water to escape faster.

You could try taking some seeds home (which is illegal in some countries so check first!) but you are probably wasting your time because Rocoto chilis are very hard to grow in other climates. They need to grow in hot places like Arequipa where the climate is quite stable. If you can get some seeds to grow in places like England, they will grow slowly and can easily die in the winter.

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La Iglesia de la Compañía, just off the Plaza de Armas in Arequipa.

Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru. It is often called ‘The White City’ because many of it’s building are made using a local volcanic rock know as Sillar.

If you look at a satellite image of Arequipa or even while you are walking around the city, one thing you will notice is that it is surrounded by large volcanos. One volcano, called Chachani produced all ths white rock during eruptions in the past. No-one is sure exactly when it last erupted but it is thought it was during the ‘Pleistocene’ era, but that is between 2.5 million to 12,000 years ago!

Sillar has historically been used in almost every type of construction in Arequipa, from simple walls around fields to houses and the city’s cathedral. You can see it everywhere and it gives Arequipa a distinct character, a bit like how Bath in England has a special character from its local stone.

Because it can be carved easily, many building have elaborate decorations all over them. You can see some excellent examples of this in the churches in Arequipa.

Banco International del Peru, with traditional Sillar carvings.

It is not just the traditional buildings that have this white stone. Many newer building have kept with the tradition and use Sillar which helps to keep the special character of Arequipa.

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Guinea Pigs, traditionally called Cuy in Peru, are a traditional food.

Yes, people do eat guinea pigs in Peru. For thousands of years people have eaten Cuy as they are called in the native language.

Cuy come from the Andes, the moutains that run along the west of South America. They have been domesticated since at least 5000BC.

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Cusco - Capital of the Inca Empire

Once the heart of the Inca Empire, at the centre of their universe they considered it ‘the navel of the world’. Cusco is an important stopping point on any journey to Machu Picchu, but it is worth some time to explore too if you visit.

Cusco (also spelled Cuzco) is a city located in Southern Peru in the Andes at 3,000 m (11,000 ft). It was considered to be at the very heart of the Inca’s world, where the four provinces of their empire met. After the arrival of the Spanish in 1533 the Inca empire fell apart and this great city of the Incas was gradually covered in colonial buildings, many of them built on the foundations of the Inca buildings and temples.

In 1950 a major earthquake hit Cusco, and damaged many buildings. Interestingly the Inca’s stonework, long believed lost was revealed in many places as plaster fell away. The Incas extraordinary skill with stone meant that their buildings were stronger, often with no stright lines that are weak in an earthquake and so they remained.

It was decided that many of the buildings would be kept with the old Inca stonework on view and in many streets you can see the strange combination of Inca stones and Spanish Colonial buildings merged together.

There are also many ruins nearby that are worth visiting, such as Pisac and Sacsayhuamán, where you will be impressed by the huge stone walls built by the Incas and their predecessors.

From Cusco to Machu Picchu

Of course, many people visit Cusco as part of a journey to Machu Picchu. You cannot travel directly to Machu Picchu from Lima or even Cusco, but from Cusco you can take the train to the village of Aguas Calientes (meaning ‘Hot Waters’ due to some hot springs there which can be visited). Then from Aguas Calientes you can get a bus to the tourist entrance for Machu Picchu. The train journey is about 3 ½ hours, travelling up over the hills outside Cusco then down the Urubamba river (Machu Picchu is at 2,400 m or 8,000 ft. – so is lower than Cusco).

If you have not organised a specific trip do not worry, many people will sell your trips to Machu Picchu or other sights, select carefully and ask for ID if you are not sure. Your hotel may be able to recommend someone. I have used a service through the hotel I stayed in and we got our tickets for the train, a hotel in Aguas Calientes and entry into Machu Picchu for a good price.

Travel to Cusco, Peru. Some helpful travel tips

Cusco can be reached by road or air from most major cities in Peru. If you are travelling from outside of Peru you will most likely need to fly to Lima and then get a connecting flight to Cusco. However many international flights to Peru arrive in Lima too late to travel onwards to other cities by plane or by bus. So you expect and plan to spend a night in a hotel in Lima before starting your journey to Cusco.

The bus journeys are very long and often involve sleeping on the bus. They are very affordable and saves a night in a hotel or hotel. A good choice for back packers who want to see the land close up.  See ‘Bus Travel in Peru‘ for more details about the bus services.

I recommend selecting companies with modern and well maintained buses, such as Cruz del Sur who also have comfortable reclining chairs to sleep in.

Bus from Lima to Cusco:
Cruz del Sur – operate two services each day. Journey times are about 21 hours (travelling overnight). Have an excellent 1st class section.
Ormeño – from Lima via Arequipa or Ayacucho – 22 or 24 hours respectively. (No online booking when I checked)

Bus from Arequipa to Cusco:
Cruz del Sur – at least one departure daily. Journey time is around 10 hours.

Flights to Cusco are more expensive but very quick and can show you some amazing views of the snow capped Andes and the deep valleys around Cusco. Be warned the journey from the coastal climate of Lima to the high altitudes of Cusco is so fast that your body may struggle at first to cope with the thinner air. Altitude sickness can affect tourists, although many just find they are breathless when walking. When you step out of the pressurised airplane you will notice almost immediately. Just do as the locals do and try the Coca Tea to ease your symptoms.

Flights from Lima to Cusco:
LAN Peru – several flights each day to and from Cusco, flights from Lima are approx 1 hour 15 minutes.
Star Peru – two flights each day from Lima to Cusco. Flight time is also 1 hour 15 minutes.

Flights from Arequipa to Cusco:
LAN Peru – You will need to change at Lima, which makes a combined flight of about 3 hours 30 minutes.

International flights to Cusco from Europe, United States, etc:
All international flights will connect through Lima, then onto Cusco with LAN Peru or Star Peru.

Flights from La Paz, Bolivia to Cusco:
AeroSur – From La Paz there is a 55 minute flight to Cusco. It is possible to fly AeroSur from Madrid to Cusco via La Paz.

Links:
LAN Peru airline – www.lan.com
Star Peru airline – www.starperu.com
AeroSur, Bolivian airline - www.aerosur.com
Cruz del Sur, Bus company – www.cruzdelsur.com.pe
Grupo Ormeño, Bus company – www.grupo-ormeno.com.pe
Peru Rail, trains from Cusco to Machu Picchu – www.perurail.com

Colonnades in the Plaze de Armas, Arequipa, Peru

Arequipa is where I was born. A city located in Southern Peru, with a population of almost a million people. Its cathedral and many of its buildings are built from Sillar, the local volcanic rock. This is why Arequipa is known as Cuidad Blanca – the White City.

It’s very easy to get to by plane or by road. You can fly from Lima to Arequipa in 1 hour 35 minutes. LAN Peru offers seven to eight flights a day. There are also many bus companies that travel from Lima to Arequipa which takes about 16 hours, usually overnight. Travelling bus bus is quite comfortable and cheap too. Cruz del Sur and Orltursa have a safe and confortable service.  Read: Bus Travel in Peru >>

The climate is  dry and sunny almost all year long with the exception of the summer months, from January to March that is the rainy season, but after the rain there is plenty of sunshine. The temperatures are very mild,  generally between 10 and 25 C. In the winter it can be a bit chilly in the mornings.

Arequipa is called the White City because of the traditional buildings made with volcanic rock, the architecture is very interesting. In the historical centre thare are many buildings of the colonial era all made in volcanic rock and they are a mixture of  European and native building techniques.

The Monastery of Santa Catalina it’s very interesting and peaceful, it was built in in 1580 and it has an area of 20 000 square meters. It is like a walled village with its own streets where once women who became Nuns entered and remained inside – but life was not so bad, only the wealthiest women were accepted and they had a very comfortable life with servants looking after them. For the visitor today, it is a fascinating place with many attractive features to photograph.

Outside Arequipa, but still in the Arequipa region the main tourist attraction is the Colca Canyon, one of the deepest in the world, it takes 4 hours by car and there are many travel agencies that arrange mini tours according what the tourist want, some people want to do some trekking and another people just want to admire the canyon with the condors flying around.

There is another canyon called Cotahuasi that some people say is the deepest in the world , it’s a long way from Arequipa City but the views are very interesting for the most adventurous people.

Night life in Arequipa is very lively there are lost of bars and night clubs not far from the mainsquare, many tourists go there.

Links:
http://www.santacatalina.org.pe/

'El Beso' - The Kiss, sculpture in El Parque del Amor, Miraflores, Lima.

In the Miraflores district of Lima, where many tourists pass through on their journeys there are some nice parks. This is a park that no romantic couple should miss.

It is not too far to walk from the centre of Miraflores, if you walk down Av. Larco and turn right when you come to the Larcomar leisure complex. Just follow the costal path and you will soon see it.

The park overlooks the Pacific Ocean from the cliffs.

The park was opened on Valentine’s Day in 1993.  The sculpture at the centre is called ‘El Beso’ which means The Kisss, designed by the sculptor Victor Delfin. You will find the park a peaceful place to relax and many romantic couples go there to be together away from the busy city and to watch the sunsets over the Pacific.

Couples enjoying the sun and views over the Pacific from El Parque del Amor

The walls of the park are very curvy and covered in colourful mosaics, some of them have poetry about love and names of lovers. I have a special reason to always remember this place…

Papea Peru - Potatoes for Patriots!

In Peru the Ministery of Agriculture has launched a campaign to encourage people to eat more potatoes. This is both a nutritious choice and a patriotic act! With the massive increase in the cost of imported wheat and other cereals in the last year people in Peru found that the price of bread went up about 40%. In poorer parts of Peru this is a real problem because there is the risk of children not getting enough nutrition if the food is too expensive. The Peruvian response was creative as usual and the shops were soon selling ‘Papapan’, literally Potato Bread.

When I was last in Peru I tried some of this bread and it was nice, it is quite soft and tastes good, it is not pure potato but is a mix of wheat flour and about 30% mashed potato and tastes like French bread but has more iron. It would be nice to buy here in the UK.

Scientists believe that potatoes were first cultivated in the Andes about 8,000 years ago and there are now over 4,000 varieties (a few more than you will find in a british supermarket!) which allow potatoes of one kind or another to be grown in the very varied environments, high up in the mountains, in the valleys in dry or wet environments.

As well as proving a valuable source of nutrition for Peruvians and other Andean this incredible variety of potatoes could help feed people all around the world in very different climates where other crops would have problems.

The ‘Papea Peru’ campaign not only encourages people to eat potatoes but reminds them that it is good for their pockets and their country, as more demand for potatoes means more money for communities that produce them. ‘Papea’ is a slang word meaning ‘eat’ like English people say ‘scoff’ that actually comes from the word Papa, meaning potato. So it has a double meaning, both ‘Eat Peruvian’ and ‘Peruvian Potatoes’ – it doesn’t translate so easily. In the television commercials people from different walks of life say ‘Este Pechito Come Papa’, this is also slang, literally translating as ‘This chest eats potato’ which is what you would say while patting your chest to show you mean yourself, like if you were saying ‘I was the one who thought of that!’ so it means they are proudly saying  ’I eat potato’!

In this video you will see people who eat potato – including in our modern society a ‘Gringo’ immigrant with his wife and baby!

You can see they have Pastel de Papa (a savoury potato cake), mashed potato, and a Peruvian favourite called Papa Rellena (a ball of potato stuffed with meat).

There is a lot of word play going on here, but the translation is something like. “Potatoes are nutritious and eating well  is good. Put potatoes on your Plate – Papea Peru!”

Holy Week is one of the religious dates venerated in Peru with great devotion there are processions, carpets of flowers, the aroma of incense, sorrowful hearts, slow pacing, grief-stricken by the death of Jesus, temples with candles welcoming devotees begging pardon for their sins. Just a few of the demonstrations of their faith.

Food is an important part of Easter, especially on Friday where eating meat is not allowed but people instead eat fish in a variety of preparations, my favourite used to be the typical Chupe de Viernes (Friday Soup) made with Crayfish, cheese, milk, potatoes and vegetables. People eat as well variety of desserts like Mazamorra Morada (Jelly made from starch and fruits and colured with purple corn) or rice pudding. On sunday it’s typical to eat in Arequipa the “caldo blanco or seven meats soup” made with beef, lamb, chicken, pork, charqui (dried meat), goats and potatoes and vegetables to celebrate that Jesus is alive again.

Very early on sunday morning the morning in my local square and in many parts across my city a puppet of Judas is burnt and he always makes a will that is usually very funny.

Inca Kola is very distinctive, as it tastes quite unlike the big cola brands, it is more like bubble gum flavour using a native herb called ‘Hierba Luisa’, but what you will notice before you even taste it is the colour; Inca Kola is bright yellow, like the legendary gold of the Incas.

It was originally created in 1935 by the Lindley family, immigrants from England, who had a successful bottling operation in Lima.

Inca Kola quickly became popular and Coca-Cola tried for many years to compete with it, even changed its recipe slightly in Peru to try and make the flavour more similar but could not succeed. Inca Kola was the most popular cola in the market and still is so Coca Cola knew they could never win and needed a new strategy…

Inca Kola was eventually partly bought by Coca Cola in 2005 for hundreds of millions of dollars. Now the Inca Kola company help market and distibute Coca Cola with total share of 60% of the market. For patriotic Peruvians this was bad news but Peruvian entrepreneurs are quick to spot an opportunity and many new cola brands have now emerged for the thirsty patriot.

Kola Real is made by a Peruvian company and is now the third most popular cola in Peru. They have also launched a golden cola called ‘Oro’. In 2002 a new drink arrived that was very proud to be Peruvian, called ‘Peru Cola’ which is like a traditional dark cola. Because Inca Kola is unsual in being yellow in colour, the same company also launched Isaac Kola, a gold cola to compete with Inca Kola.

Kola Real is available in many flavours such as strawberry, orange, pineapple, lime-lemon and cola flavour.

There are other colas that you will find in Peru that you never see in the UK. For a tourist fromn the UK maybe the strangest of these is Kola Inglesa (English Cola) and Kola Escocesa (Scottish Cola) which you cannot buy anywhere in the UK!

Kola Escocesa is very tipical from Arequipa and I haven’t seen it anywhere outside there,  it’s made using natural mineral water from Yura outside Arequipa, it has a very nice taste and you can find a no added sugar version as well. It doesn’t have caffein or phosphoric acid (used in many fizzy drinks specially cola with negative effects in bone calcium and kidney health) , it’s a fizzy drink but it feels kind of “natural” and it goes very well with traditional spicy food from Arequipa.

www.incakola.com.pe 
www.kolainglesa.com.pe 
www.kolaescocesa.com 
www.perucola.com.pe 
www.ajegroup.com (Kola Real)

A Wong supermarket at Ovalo Gutierrez, Miraflores district of Lima, Peru

In Peru we have many companies that are based in a large town and do not have branches all over the country. Unlike the UK where you can find the same shops in most of the larger towns and cities, Peruvian towns and cities still have a lot of individual character. There are a few chains stores in Peru which I can tell you about.

One chain of supermarkets is called Wong, founded in 1942 by Chinese Peruvians (there are many Peruvians whose ancesters went to Peru 100 years ago). They started business in the San Isidro district of Lima which is one of the more wealthy areas and the second store is the one in the image above in the nearby district of Miraflores. There are now 14 Wong stores in Lima, which are very smart inside with all the staff wearing nice uniforms and helping you with your packing and even taking things to your car. They have a strong focus on customer service and make the customer feel important.

Wong also own another supermarket chain called Metro, which is cheaper and where you have to pack your own bags! There are now 17 Metro supermarkets in Lima.

The main competition for the Wong supermarkets is a company called ‘Supermercados Peruanos’, who own Plaza Vea and Vivanda supermarkets, a total of 52 stores across Peru. Compared to the Vivanda is more like Sainsburys while Plaza Vea is more like Asda. One difference someone from the UK would notice is that there are even long racks of car tyres in Plaza Vea – unlike Adsa – or even Aldi!

Another company you may not have heard of is Topitop. They are a clothing company started in 1983, that have stores in Peru, Colombia and Venezuala. They sell clothes for men, women and children, which they also make in their factories in Peru. Topitop also manufacture for other companies with export being a large part of their business.

Saga Falabella store in the Cayma district of Arequipa

Saga Falabella is a department store, maybe the best comparison in the UK is John Lewis or Debenhams. They have everything from clothes to washing machines to kitchen ware. They originally began in 1953 as the Peruvian division of the US company Sears, as Sears Roebuck del Perú S. A. and was later renamed as SAGA. During the economic problems of the 1980′s Sears pulled out and 10 years ago a Chilean company bought the company renaming it Saga Falabella. They now have stores in Peru, Chile, Argentina and Colombia.

You will also see Bembos, a Peruvian fast food company selling mainly burgers that started in 1988 and now have 30 outlets all over Lima. Bembos are 100 % quality, McDonalds or Burguer King are not competition for them.

InkaFarma is a Chilean owned chain of pharmacies that sell medicines, shampoos, nappies and things like hair dyes a bit like Boots. InkaFarma also have telephone ordering with delivery men that go out on scooters to peoples homes. They have expanded very rapidly in the last few years and you will see them everywhere. Other chains are Boticas Fasa and the Peruvian owned (still) Boticas Arcángel which is also all over Peru.

There are small chain stores in some cities,  for example in my city there are two El Super (small supermarket, like the Co-Op) one in the city center and in another in Cayma district near my house or Artika Ice creams with three stores in Arequipa or Pollos a la Brasa El Pollo Real (Roasted Chicken with fries) that have at least three restaurants in Arequipa.

One very good example is  small Chain Store Estilos that you just find in Arequipa, they sell the same stuff like in Saga Falabella, they have three shops in Arequipa and they are still in business because their customers are very loyal to them because they are a local company. And there are many examples like that in Arequipa.

Some links for you to explore (open in a new window):

www.ewong.com
www.vivanda.com.pe
www.plazavea.com.pe 
www.topitop.com.pe 
www.sagafalabella.com.pe 
www.bembos.com.pe 
www.inkafarma.com.pe 
www.boticasfasa.com.pe 
www.boticasarcangel.com