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Dental Adventures in Georgia

I’m in the middle of a dental adventure! I discovered I had cracked a tooth on the evening of August 27th, here in Tbilisi Georgia. I called our travel insurance and happily it’s covered! I asked the insurance people if they could recommend an English speaking dentist here, and while they did, the one they recommended is closed till September 10th. Not so helpful. So I went on the local expats forum to ask, and found a recommendation from just a few days ago! Those folks apologized for being closed that day due to the big religious holiday (The Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God) and asked if I could come in the next day at 3pm. I have never gotten a dental appointment that quickly from any of my regular dentists. I’m liking this.

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La Paz Street Food

Our friend Elisa, who we met in Lima, introduced us to her friend Coral who does street food tours in La Paz! So we went out last night and even though it was a bit cold and a bit rainy we had a great time. She came by in her car, with her son to translate, and took us to a half dozen street food places. It was interesting that all of the shops and stands are run by women.

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Machu Picchu

Before you go

I always thought that Machu Picchu was only for young fit people. That you had to trek in and walk up a mountain to get there. Not true. Even old less than fit people can easily visit. You don’t have to sign up for an expensive tour either, it’s easy to do on your own as an independent traveller. A cab or Uber from Cusco to Poroy (US$8), a train from Poroy to Machu Picchu Pueblo (US$70 p/p), a comfortable bus to the site itself (US$12 p/p), and leisurely walking around the site (US$50 p/p). All prices are one-way.

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Cusco

Cusco is a beautiful World Heritage city. We decided we’d spend some time here on our way from Lima to La Paz. Besides being the gateway to Machu Picchu, it’s the former capital of the Inca empire and arguably the cultural capital of Peru. We stayed for nearly a week not doing much because it’s also at 3400 meters above sea level (over 11,000 feet) and it’s quite hilly. We visited the pre-columbian art museum (artifacts from Larco Museum in Lima) and the natural history museum.

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Colca Canyon

Arequipa

On our itinerary between Lima and La Paz we knew we wanted to spend a few days in Arequipa. It’s sometimes called “the white city” because of the beautiful buildings made from the local white “silla” volcanic rock. The architecture is beautiful in a very Spanish Colonial sort of way, it reminded me of some of the Andalusian hill towns we visited while in Spain.

I noticed our bus company offered a tour to “Colca Canyon, the second deepest canyon after the Grand Canyon” which sounded interesting but not compelling. Until I read the more detailed description. Colca Canyon is one of the places you can see Andean Condors. Ok, sign us up!

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Nazca

The Nazca “lines” are a group of lines and geoglyphs carved into the desert plain outside the city of Nazca. They’re about 2000 years old and were constructed by the Nazca culture (who also made some pretty awesome ceramics.) Most of them are lines and geometric shapes, but the most famous and most interesting ones seems to be images of animals and people. Monkey, condor, whale, person, hummingbird, parrot, tree, and some harder to interpret. We don’t really know what their significance is, but current consensus is that they had religious significance.

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Huacachina

Huacachina is a natural desert oasis, just outside the city of Ica. There’s a small lagoon, surrounded by high sand dunes. There are maybe a hundred residents and thousands of visiting tourists each year. It was once a getaway for Peru’s elite, a secluded garden to enjoy nature and relax. It’s a cup like valley in the midst of massive sand dunes. Most people either ride dune buggies, sandboard, or ski down the dunes. None of those really appealed to us, so we just chilled in quiet nature. I climbed up to the top of the biggest nearby dune to get a view of the surrounding desert, and look down on the lagoon. The hike itself isn’t too bad, maybe a couple hundred metres of elevation gain, but walking on the ridge line was more nerve racking than I expected. Those dunes are tall and steep. It looks like you could easily fall, and if you did you’d tumble all the way to the bottom.

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Paracas: Islas Ballestas

The bus we’re taking, “Peru Hop,” stops first in the town of Paracas a few hours south of Lima. There’s not a whole lot there, a couple of fancy beach resorts, a main strip of restaurants for tourists, and a couple of low and mid-range hotels. Peru Hop promotes a trip out to the Ballestas Islands, a two hour boat tour to islands that are sometimes called “the poor man’s Galapagos” and are primarily known as a source of guano. I didn’t put much stock in the “Galapagos” comparison, but it sounded interesting and it might be a good chance to see some interesting birds. Plus it was cheap, only 50 soles per person - about US $15 for us in 2018.

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Panaderías and Pastelarias

Lima has an active bakery scene both pastelarias or pastry shops, and panaderías which are bread shops. There’s a standard repertoire that includes alfajores de manjar, a sandwich cookie made from cornstarch and filled with manjar (dulce de leche) caramelized sweetened milk.) The cookie came to Peru from Spain, and came to Spain from al-Andalus. The name comes from the arabic الفاخر, al- fakher. But I digress. There are also tarts, cakes, and pies. The panaderias generally sell a francese roll which is a simple white bread divided in two, a sweet pan de yema which is a soft egg bread, and various baguettes and loaves. There were a few standouts, and one amazing bakery that I saved for last.

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Maido redux

The food

The first time we went to Maido we had their “Nikkei Experience,” a multi-course degustation menu. We saw some dishes go by that looked pretty interesting but weren’t included so we decided to go back and try the a la carte menu. (Getting in to the #2 restaurant in South America is a little more complicated than “we decided” but managed.)

We decided to try sashimi, sushi, appetizer, and a main.