Started the day with breakfast of fried eggs, bread, more fresh fruit, orange juice, and cafe con leche. At 8:00, our driver Borr-Borr arrived to take us to Moyobamba.The drive, again, was beautiful as we wound our way higher and higher into the mountains. We crossed the rivers Hullaga and Mayo, and we shared tangerines Borr-Borr bought from a young girl when we were stopped at a construction zone. But I was reminded of how worrisome these roads can be when I noticed that Borr-Borr made the sign of the cross every time we crossed a new city limit. Of course, that probably had something to do with the fact that he routinely drove 50 kph over the speed limit.
We're staying at the 3-star Hotel Marcoantonio. I can't believe that, yet again, we're in the middle of nowhere and my room has wi-fi. Peru has changed a lot since my first visit here.
Ate lunch at a restaurant Borr-Borr recommended -- La Olla de Barro (literally: The Mud Bucket). It's the first Peruvian restaurant I've seen that has a vegetarian section on the menu, and they served my favorite, favorite, favorite Peruvian dish - lomo saltado, but with tofu ("lomo saltado con carne de soya!"). Lomo saltado is normally made with beef, so this was a treat, and it tasted like bright, shiny magic.
Went straight from lunch to the Instituto Nacional de Cultura (INC) where we met the director for San Martin. Her staff archaeologists gave us a private tour of their museum; afterwards, the director arranged for a friend of hers who's a botanist to take us hiking tomorrow in search of caves!
2 comments:
See, Peruvians understand how unnatural vegeterianism is. Even when they offer meatless stuff on the menu, it's described as the "meat of the soybean." Or something like that...
Yeah, but if you saw the chickens roaming around the street, you wouldn´t be so excited about the carne either!
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