New Thing #88 - Peru (Day #7)

September 5, 2017

Dang, have I really only been gone a week? My stomach hurts, I'm exhausted and sore as hell. You'd think I'd been gone for a month. I pre-planned a tour for later this afternoon, but purposely left the morning a blank slate. I figured I would spend some time walking around Miraflores, the more upscale section of Lima that I was staying in. But, given the sweet silence and my current physical state, I opted to just say in, read and snuggle with B's kitten, Lemon.

My morning snuggle buddy. Hard to pass up time with her.

After a quick lunch in B's apartment, I headed outside to walk to the Choco Museo (Chocolate Museum) for my afternoon tour. It's gorgeous outside and was just a quick 10 minute walk. I arrived a bit early, along with a girl from NY killing time until her flight home and a mom and her two kids from the UK. I walked around the museum soaking in all the chocolate making information I could.

The coastline in Miraflores is gorgeous. Yes, those are tennis courts.

Turns out the cacao bulbs look much different than I ever would have anticipated and there is a white film inside it that surrounds the cacao beans. They go through a fermentation and drying process before even being ready for the chocolate making process. Who knew? Our guide started by showing us a pile of cacao beans in their husks and asked us each to pull out 20 that were similar in size and shape.

Chocolate art.

Next we started roasting the beans in a clay pot over an open flame. We took turns stirring to keep them from burning. It took around 7-10 minutes and she said she knew they were ready because they started popping like popcorn. And it totally smelled like brownies in there! Our guide then gave us each a pile and asked us pick out 20 that looked similar in shape and size again and remove the husk.

Just roasting some cacao beans!

Removing the shells. The beans are used for chocolate and the shells are used to make cocoa tea.

The yellow sheen on the bean is actually the cocoa butter.

Kind of looks like a bug carcass.

Then she asked us to each grind some of the beans into a fine paste. Easier said than done! You definitely have to put some elbow grease in to this process.

Starting to look like a paste, but notttt quite there yet.

She gave us a taste of the cocoa tea made from the shells. Not bad!

About a billion years later I think this is ground fine enough. I also can't feel my hand anymore.

After we had all ground our cocoa beans, she mixed the pastes with honey, a bit of red pepper flakes and hot water to make a traditional Mayan chocolate drink.

We each helped mix it up.

Looks like hot chocolate. Does NOT taste like hot chocolate.

I wasn't a fan of this. It was way too bitter for me.

Now she's taking more of the paste we crushed and mixed it with cloves, a cinnamon stick, a little sugar and hot milk to make a Spanish hot chocolate.

Now THIS, I liked! Yummmmmmmmm

While she was cleaning up our pulverizing attempts and the drinks, she explained how the cocoa butter is removed from the powder and how dark, milk and white chocolate are made.

Left is Dark Chocolate: Cocoa beans, cocoa butter, sugar.
Middle is Milk Chocolate: Cocoa beans, cocoa butter, sugar, and milk powder
Right is White Chocolate: Cocoa butter, Sugar and milk power

Fun fact: If you buy white chocolate and there is no cocoa butter on the ingredients, then it's not truly chocolate.

They were making some chocolate bars to sell. The black dots are coffee beans.

Next, we each got to make our own chocolates to take home. I didn't really care for any of the molds (we got to pick our own), but I chose the T-shirts because they made the largest pieces. We also got to pick from one of the chocolates that was already made and in warm, liquid form: dark, milk or white.

I chose milk chocolate, knowing I would be sharing these with friends and family. They had an abundance of items to fill with. From top left to right: puffed quinoa, Oreos, coconut, peanuts, salt (from Maras) and mini M&Ms.

Filled them with chocolate and she put them in the fridge to cool, so we could take them home.

While I waited for my chocolates to cool and harden, I tried a variety of chocolate liquers and spreads.

I purchased a few of these as souvenirs for friends and family.

Love the graffiti.

Fresh fruit cart on the way back to B's.

Very photogenic lighthouse.

You can't beat these views. And they make up for the rest of Lima being kind of a bummer.

I beat Brenda back to her apartment by about 5 minutes, and when I reached WiFi again, my phone started blowing up regarding the imminent hurricane barreling down on Miami, set to make landfall around Friday/Saturday. Did I mention that's when I'm supposed to fly home? Through Miami? Lovely! We walked down the coast to their mall for dinner at Mangos, while I figured out what to do about my flight.

Pisco Punch. Damn tasty.

Chaufa (chow-fuh), or Peruvian chicken fried rice (that's a thin layer of egg on top). Holy crap, this was good.

Dessert: Suspiro (egg yolks caramel, Opporto meringue and cinnamon). Actually, it was a smoking cinnamon stick next to it. Not sure what the hell to do with that. But this was fantastic!

Once we returned, I was able to call American Airlines and switch my flight to a different layover with no additional fees. They were offering the switch for free because of the hurricane. I switched to Dallas, but the earliest flight I could get was two days later, so it looks like I have two more days of vacation! (Thank goodness for a very understanding boss, too!)