Political signs everywhere - this house is divided!This day was such a treat for me (Amy) - I love cooking and have always wanted to take a cooking class! Well, this was everything I could have ever asked for and more. The day started out by Marco taking us to Sacsaywaman ruins in Cusco. More amazing Incan ruins where one just does not know how they got all those rocks in place and so perfectly fit together! A real mystery....from that vantage point we saw the entire city of Cusco.
Then we were off to the Central Market to pick up some fresh vegetables for the day's cooking class. We toured the whole market including the meat section - that was an experience of sights and smells! Marco knew many of the vendors which was a unique treat - we also found out that there are approximately 2,700 varieties of potatoes in Peru (and here I thought Idaho was the potato capital of the world!). We had a juice drink at the specialty fresh squeezed juice bar section of the market and they were out of this world - highly recommended!
Now we were off to Marco's restaurant, A Mi Manera for our cooking lesson. First, we started off by donning the chef outfits, then our first recipe was the Pisco Sour. We got behind the bar and were told the order and amount of each ingredient and added them to the cocktail shaker. Then we shook, and shook, and shook the cocktail to make sure the egg white got nice and frothy. We poured them into our glasses, added a dash of bitters and tasted them - YUM - I think it's my new favorite drink!
On to the cooking part - they had everything ready for us in the kitchen - it was like being on the Martha Stewart cooking show - such a treat and so much fun. We made Causa (with avocado filling), Lomo Saltado (the typical Peruvian beef dish), Quiona soup, and Tomato/Avocado salad. The Lomo Saltado was especially fun, because it includes white wine in the marinade, so when I tossed it into the pan it flamed up! I think they enjoyed seeing the look on my face when that happened... The chefs in the restaurant only spoke Spanish, so it was interesting when they were saying something obviously quite urgent, but we didn't know what it was - Marco would translate for us and many times it was something like "be careful with that knife or you will cut your finger off!".....thank goodness for our translator!
After all that cooking, we enjoyed the wonderful meal together with Marcos and then bid him farewell. The rest of the day we spent exploring Cusco on our own. That night, though not very hungry, we tried one of the most amazing restaurants in town. It's called Sara, an organic foods restaurant....and they have some pumpkin ravioli that is out of this world! Highly recommended!
After dinner, we were walking back to our hotel, when we happened across a political rally in the Plaza de Armas. All along the trip we had seen many of these and so many political signs on houses, boulders, anywhere that could be painted was covered! This night, we thought it would be fun to join in - so we started dancing to the catchy music and then all of a sudden we were "celebrities" - people started handing us signs and pulling us in to the circle to dance around. Then they would replace our sign with bigger signs or flags! We even got a picture with the mascot of the political party - the PAN party (pan means bread in Spanish, so the mascot was a piece of bread - pretty cute!).
We've used Adventure Life for several trips in the past and have always been very pleased with them. The staff is personable and professional at the same time. Erin put this trip together for us in just a few days, and it has everything we were looking for! I recommend them without hesitation.
benn
1 month ago
I served as the person responsible for planning a trip to Galapagos and Machu Picchu for a group of 14 people. Jane with Adventure Life was very helpful throughout the process. Making suggestions, offering insight, and in the end helped me overhaul an initial plan into something even better. Also, Jane makes all the plans including the flights within and between Peru and Ecuador. Thanks to her this is going to be a stress-free adventure. After making the final decision about the trip, Jane gathered the contact information for all the travelers and sent out the details to each traveler individually with links to pay deposits, upload passport info, and personal preferences. She also ensured a group email was sent out to the entire group welcoming us to the trip preparation process. Our trip is a year from now and we are excited to make this once in a life time trek. I am happy to have organized things through Adventure Life. However, two small issues came up that were a little off putting. First, Adventure Life adds $50 per person to the cost for each traveler as a donation to a Galapagos conservation fund. I think this should he offered as something that can be added at each traveler’s discretion. Instead, it is automatically added, and each person must ask to have it removed if they do not want it included. Second, although the trip deposit may be paid with a credit card without incurring an additional fee, the balance must be paid in another way to avoid a 3% credit card fee. Maybe this is standard with all travel agencies. In the end I would definitely go through Adventure Life for the next big trip.
Brenda Nielsen
1 month ago
I think it was very helpful that Franny and I spoke on the phone. I think she had a better idea of what we were looking for, and she planned a great itinerary for us!
Elizabeth
2 months ago
My representative Kevin was very responsive generally and in crafting our itinerary to our specific priorities.
Rocco Labella
3 months ago
Easy.
Great work on the follow up and details by Waru.