Lima

My arrival in Lima was not as uneventful as I had hoped. The tour company I had just paid a ton of money to for this whole Peru adventure missed the airport pickup! Apparently, they thought I was coming in on the evening flight. I will properly address with my travel agent, but for now, all is well. I ended up getting in a cab and surprisingly was not kidnapped. Jose Luis only charged me $20 to get to my hotel, and he gave me a chance to practice my Castellano (that is the Latin American word for Spanish).

I am, however, dead tired after all that flying. Tonight is a chill night as I have a flight to Cuzco en la mañana. I am hanging out and reading Death in the Andes by Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa. For dinner, I checked out a local eatery and had some chicken, rice, and beans in a reddish sauce, along with one of the local brews, Cuzqueña (by the way, I love how I can easily type tildes on this Spanish language keyboard). This meal was a treat as my favorite food is the Indian raajma (kidney beans in a spiced tomato curry) and rice. Every culture, I feel, has this beans and rice staple meal. Even red beans and rice accompanies a good slab of Memphis ribs. Yet another thing that shows we humans are all the same.

Beans and rice, beans and rice; together they´re nice.

A great cafe idea is an all beans and rice place, but having options for the type of dish from five to ten different cultures. All you would need is a few types of beans and rice, some curries and spices, and some various vegetable pastes. This would be pretty healthy and a lot more appealing in my local food court than the Khyber Pass or Mr. Wok.