Daniela had an appointment at the dentist so we were supposed to be there at noon however we didn't quite make it on time. Her dentist is a best friend she has had since college days named Fernando. I haven't been to a dentist in a long time and we decided to have me get a cleaning which unfortunately really took a long time and we didn't quite get to Daniela's reason for visit before he had other clients. We have to go back on day 6 in order to get hers done. So I sat in the dentist chair for a very long time.
After we finished up there we headed to the Museo de Larco which is the former home of the Larco family (you will have seen the name in this blog a few times before if you have been reading it). Daniela had never been to it before but her passengers always said it was great and the restaurant in the museum was excellent too. We decided to have lunch/dinner first as it was around 4pm and we hadn't yet eaten. So we bought our tickets and then ate in the museum restaurant. First off I should explain that the house is huge and the grounds are beautiful with flowers everywhere and very nice landscaping and gardening. We sat away from the large noisy tour that was already there and I ordered a beer and Daniela ordered a lemonade. This was the first time I tried the beer Cristal. It was ok. I probably still like Cusquena best (sorry to Daniela as she is a Callao chica). For a starter we had a sampler platter that had a beef and corn pie that was very good, a tamale that was also very good, grilled beef sticks which were meh, the potato and fish stacked thing which has a name that escapes me that was good and fried yuca which was also good. After the starter I had aji de gallina which is shredded chicken in an aji (chili, though not hot) sauce over potatoes with rice on the side. It was very tasty and enjoyable. Daniela had a Seco de Cordero which was a braised lamb shank which was gigantic but very tasty also. It was served with beans and rice. We did not have dessert we were so full but I had a coffee and she had a tea. It got dark while we were eating which actually made the grounds of the museum different but very nice as well.
After we finished dinner we visited the museum. We started by the collection of erotic art pieces that are separated from the rest. The main contents of the museum are pre-Colombian pieces of art that have been found around the regions of Peru. It deals with different cultures from far before the Incas through to the beginnings of the Spanish conquistadors. There were literally tons of pieces in the main museum which closed at 10. We probably started going through at 7:15 or so and finished when it closed. The last thing we visited was the collection of 'non-remarkable' pieces which were just in a gigantic room categorized and behind glass on shelves that stretched to the ceiling. It was very impressive. There was information about a lot of the techniques used by the cultures. One interesting point towards the end of the museum is that the natives here were great with gilding techniques and much of the gold the Spanish stole to melt done was actually just gold leaf on copper cores. Same with the silver. So the Spanish didn't really steal as much gold as you might think at least until they started to mine it.
When we finished the museum we took a taxi to the market and did a little bit of shopping before heading to the apartment where we called it a night.
The pictures from today can be found here.
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