Lunch at La Rosa Nautica

 

As many of you know, Liz and I just passed our 25th wedding anniversary.  We celebrated it earlier this week by going to lunch at La Rosa Nautica restaurant, which, having been founded in 1983, was one of the forerunners of the current boom in higher-quality restaurants.

 

We had never been there before, and we quite enjoyed ourselves.  Even though we found the food to not be exceptional in Lima's current gastronomic climate, the service, appointments, and setting of  the restaurant did make for a very nice --and even romantic-- dining experience.  Just the thing for an anniversary date!

From top left:  spiced potatoes with  shrimp, marinated octopus, seafood salad, scallops in cocktail sauce

"Corvina a lo macho" - fish fillet smothered in a piquant seafood sauce

"Hunter-style Rabbit" - cooked in a cognac and port sauce, with smoked ham and tarragon

La Arenilla

A relatively new, and somewhat unknown or overlooked, attraction of La Punta -the tip of the peninsula at the north end of the bay of Lima- is La Arenilla.

A few years back, after one-too-many instances of inundation and wave damage to the streets and homes of La Punta, the authorities dumped a number of boulders offshore from the southern side of the peninsula, to create a breakwater.  An unforeseen result was the accumulation of sediment behind the breakwater, forming a lagoon and a coastal wetland.

Soon enough, the new wetland became a haven for seabirds and even began attracting migratory waterbirds who use it as a stopover point along their flyways.

With encouragement from environmentalists and local birders, and with corporate sponsoship, the wetland at La Arenilla has been designated an ecological reserve, and have even provided signs to help visitors identify some of the birds they might see.

It was actually a very pleasant place to visit, to sit on one of the benches and listen to the sea and to the calls of the gulls and other birds out on the sands.  This aspect of La Punta was new to me, as it did not exist when I was a kid, and I don't think it was there the last time I visited La Punta -or at least it hadn't yet gained much notice.   

Now, it its an evident source of local pride -the park next to it is kept immaculate, and it was mentioned to us a as a must-see at the restaurant we ate at.  In fact it has become an almost obligatory stop for birders in Lima, along with San Isidro's El Olivar park and the wetlands of Villa El Salvador.

Callao and La Punta

Last week (I've been a bit remiss about posting updates, I know) Toya and Orlando took me to Callao, Lima's port district.

Officially, Callao is a province, independent of other jurisdictions, and whose existence has been built into successive national Constitutions for years. In practice, it does depend quite a bit on the metropolitan government of greater Lima (although arguments do arise, as is the case now over reform of the city's transportation system).

Until the middle of the last century Callao was a separate city from Lima, although it has served as the capital's port for hundreds of years.  Long ago, however, its fortunes faded and it acquired a reputation as one of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods -which it does, I think deservedly, retain to a degree.

Today, Callao's former glory can still be glimpsed in its crumbling early Republican architecture

All of it, presided over by the Real Felipe fortress, erected to defend the city from pirates and English privateers.  Its construction was begun under Viceroy José Antonio Manso de VelascoViceroy in 1746 and completed in 1774 during the administration of Viceroy Manuel de Amat y Junent.

At the far end of the peninsula that comprises Callao, and the northern end of the bay of Lima, lies La Punta, which -as its name implies- is a point of land extending into the pacific.  On its northern side lies the deepwater anchorages that serve the port, and on the southern side, the bay which is overlooked by the city of Lima.

At La Punta's very end, there is a beach which is still used by artisanal fishermen -many of Italian descent-  who supplement their income by giving boat tours when the weather is good.

Off the coast, lie a set of islands, comprised mainly by the large isles of El Fronton and San Lorenzo.  The latter harbors the last of Lima's sea lion population,  a myriad seabirds, and even Magellanic penguins on its far side.  It has also been found to contain Pre-Columbian ruins and traces left by pirates and English privateers - including gravesites.  

El Fronton (at left), San Lorenzo (at center), and the Naval Academy at La Punta (at right)

Unfortunately, the powers that be have dreams of building a causeway between La Punta and the island and turning it into a deepwater port for larger ships or building an airport on it, either of which would devastate the ecology and archaelogy of the island.

El Fronton, for its part, was infamous as an island prison over which lurid tales were spun.  In the 1980s it was used  to house prisoners from the Shining Path.  The prisoners rebelled on June 18, 1986, and by the next day, courtesy of the Navy, most had been killed and the prison reduced to rubble.  The Navy demolished the cell block even with wounded prisoners inside, precipitating a scandal and crisis for the government of President Alan Garcia.

(From L to R) Orlando, myself, Mr Peñaflor

Of course, being surrounded on three sides by ocean, La Punta is known as a prime locale for quality seafood meals.   And, of course, we took advantage of that, at La Caleta, a restaurant run by Mr. Rodolfo Peñaflor its friendly and talkative owner.

Cebiche

A bowl of parihuela, a Callao classic

Huanchaco

I spent last weekend -my second in Peru- away fro Lima again, this time up north, visiting Susana who is living in the seaside town of Huanchaco and working in nearby Trujillo during her summer break from school.

Huanchaco is a quiet little town at this time of year, when many of the businesses are closed for the winter. It was once principally a fishermen's town and a port for the loading of sugar cargoes from the hacienda owned by the Larco family - the former loading pier has been turned into a pedestrian walkway with a gazebo at its end.  Today, it seems mainly to subsist on tourism, as the weather is mild all year round, it has a very pleasant beach, and is part of Peru's surfing and backpacker circuits.

Fisherman using a caballito de totora

Huanchaco is also rekown for the locals' building and use of caballitos de totora (lit. "little totora horses"), reed boats that have been in use for centuries.   In fact, depictions of caballitos have been found in 1,500-year old Moche pottery.

The totora plant grows in wetlands and standing water, which is possible to achieve even in northern Peru's coastal desert plain because in the area of Huancacho the water table is only a few meters below the surface of the ground.  The ancient Moche dug pits where they grew the totora, and many of these are still in use today, maintained -often by the same family- over many centuries.  Though the totora plant is crucial to family substistence for many of the locals, the totorales are increasingly threatened by urbanization.

The caballitos themselves are handmade by local craftsmen and fishermen, who gather the totora stalks, dry them, and tie them into bundles.  Each one has his own style and preference of materials, which -in addition to its placement- allows each fisherman to easily recognize his own boat.

Being a seaside resort Huanchaco, of course has plenty of establishments form which to choose from for dining, thirst-quenching, and just plain sitting and enjoying the view.

On the beach front, near the pier, is a place called Jungle Bar Bily, which has a sort of jungle/tiki bar ambiance.  It is open late and draws the more bohemian -and hard-drinking crowd- in  the late hours of the night.  They do serve a mean caipirinha.

One that has turned into a favourite of Susana and her companions is a small place a few blocks from the town's Plaza de Armas, called My Friend.  At My Friend there is offered a selection of several dozen spaghetti dishes -on the menu it's labeled a "Spaghetti Festival", which has become a catch phrase for Susa and her friends- for a very reasonable s/. 10, and on Thursday nights drinks are only s/. 3 each. We ended up there almost every night of my visit, as we found ourselves feeling "festive".

There is also, of course, no lack of seafood choices of varying price and quality, in terms of both flavour and ambiance. (The three examples below are from a restaurant called El Mochica.)

I arrived in Huanchaco on Thursday evenning and stayed until Sunday night.  In the intervening days, besides enjoying Huanchaco, I was able to meet Susana in Trujillo and tour that city for an afternoon, take a tour of the nearby archaeological sites of Chan Chan and the Huaca de la Luna, and take part in a cleansing ceremony by a local curandera, or traditinonal healer.  I'll write about those experiences in future installments.

In Spanish: "Madre Mar" documentary

Madre Mar is a documentary created by a quintet of Peruvian friends to warn the rest of us about the pressing need to conserve Peru's marine ecosystem and resources in the face of the growing pressure put on it by indiscriminate fishing practices and pollution. (Unfortunately it's not been subtitled in English.)