I woke up at 6.15 the next morning with my hair still damp from the shower the night before, feeling exhausted and full of cold. I was glad I hadn’t made things worse by going out.
The same couldn’t be said for Alex; when it got to 6.45 and there was still no sign of her, I went into her room to wake her. To say she looked a mess was an understatement: her hair and make-up was all over the place, she was bleary-eyed and, to finish off the look, completely covered in UV paint. I said softly, “Alex, what happened to you?” She said she’d had some mosquito bites, so I’m not sure she fully knew what was going on.
There was no sign whatsoever of Eleanor. Matt was the only one composed and ready to go, but since his flight was later than ours, he said he would wait for the other two. In the meantime, I helped Elise shove all her things into her bags and grabbed us a taxi to the airport.
When we’d checked in and had breakfast, there was still no sign of the other three. Finally we saw them enter the airport, only to be turned away from the check-in and disappear from sight. There was nothing Elise and I could do but go through to the gate and hope the others were ok, because if we missed this flight, we’d miss our flights back to the UK, too.
Eventually, with five minutes to boarding, we spotted the others across the hall. They’d had to wait for Eleanor, who’d left at 6 to go to the market, and then when they’d finally arrived at the airport, Alex had been refused entry onto the plane until she sobered up and got rid of the paint. Apparently it had been an amazing night, but poor Alex was definitely feeling the effects of it now.
When the plane landed at 10.15, I had to rush to retrieve my bag and make my way to the entrance to meet Doris, who was picking me up. Doris is a friend of my Pily, my Peruvian mamá, who had asked her to look after me whilst the family were away in Mexico. Doris was a lovely, tiny Peruvian lady, about fifty years old. We phoned Rafael and he arrived within fifteen minutes to pick us up and drop us off at the house.
Once Doris had let us into the house, opening all the various doors and locks and turning off the alarm, I freshened up and grabbed some breakfast (once I’d convinced Doris that I could actually do it myself). Then she walked me to Plaza San Miguel, where I needed to find presents for my Peruvian family.
A couple of hours later, I’d accomplished my mission and was on my way to Mistura, an international food festival held in Lima every year, in Rafael’s taxi once again. It’s been quite handy having my own personal taxi driver, I have to say. Anyway, when we pulled up at Mistura at around 3.30, it was already packed, despite apparently being the quietest day of the festival.
I thought it might be quite lonely on my own, but within moments of entering, I stopped to ask someone to take a picture of me and ended up tagging along with him and his family. His name was Eche and he was from Sweden but had moved to Peru eight years ago and now had a wife and two young daughters, who he was with that day. He was fascinated to learn all about me and my travels, and had a fair amount of stories to tell himself. The whole family, including their friend Ronnie, was lovely and pretended I was one of them so I could stay with them in the family queue for the aquarium.
The aquarium was, according to Peru’s president, the main attraction of the festival - and it was pretty impressive. The amount of work and investment that’s gone into it is amazing; it’s a proper building with tanks, interactive features and videos. It’s not surprising, then, that we had to wait over an hour to get in. The visit was short, as it was only a small building, but it was interesting to see it from the inside, as well as to observe the purpose of the construction - which was to raise awareness about caring for sea life.
As we were leaving the aquarium, we were offered a free photograph, which would be sent to our email addresses, so I asked Eche if he would have one with me. We had two taken - one for him and one for me, as a memory of one another. He’d already taken a short clip of me on the family camcorder. He gave me his email address and told me to stay in touch, before I said I should probably go off on my own so he could spend the rest of the day with his family.
Once I began to explore the rest of the festival, I realised how incredibly huge it was. It was divided into sections, the food split up into: Amazonian; Andean; anticuchos (grilled skewered meat); ceviche; dishes from Lima; chifa and nikkei (Peruvian versions of Chinese and Japanese food); grill; sandwiches; dishes from the South; dishes from the North; and desserts. There were also tavernas and bars, as well as the Gran Mercado (market), and the Mundos (worlds) of bread, quinoa and coffee. To top it all off, there was an exhibition on chocolate and a huge conference hall hosting talks from South American chefs.
It took me ages to choose which meals to try, especially since being a vegetarian severely complicated matters. I eventually settled for an Amazonian dish called rumo juane or juane de yuca, made from mashed yuca and an expensive fish called paiche (which lives in the Amazonian rivers) all served in a bijao leaf. It was good, and I was glad I’d tried something new.
After that I decided to go for a dessert I knew I loved: mazamorra (made from purple corn) and arroz zambito (like rice pudding with cinnamon). By this time it was nearly 7pm and I thought I’d better call Doris, since she wanted to know an hour in advance when I’d be back at the flat so she could get back in time to let me in.
Since there were far more people waiting for taxis outside the festival than cars to accommodate them, I decided to follow the steady flow of people walking up the steep hill to central Miraflores. On my way to catch a taxi I stopped to take photos and got chatted up by a policeman (classic Peru).
I got back to the apartment building only to discover that Doris was going to be another half-hour, but luckily a kind woman let me into the building, where I was able to pass the time looking through the photographs of the last few days. When Doris finally arrived, I rushed upstairs to pack and write all my ‘thank you’ notes to my Peruvian family to accompany the presents I was leaving for them on the kitchen table. Before I knew it, my last day in Peru was over.
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