footsteps in peru

Last Saturday my friend Jason, another PCV, and I got together for lunch. As many of you know I do not eat meat so our options were a little bit limited, but fish is abundant in Cañete so we headed off to a fish place in the market that Jason recommended. When we arrived there were not two open seats, a good sign, so we occupied ourselves around the market. Jason wanted an apple manjar churro and I needed a phone charger since I accidently left mine at a hostel. When we returned to the fish place there were two stools available so we sat. This place is open air and has a make-shift canopy above the tables which are set up in a “U” shape. At the open end the stove and pots are boiling and frying up fish. Jason feeling a little under the weather and expecting to eat lunch again when he got home ordered the soup and me not having interest in the head of the fish ordered the plate. There are three options at this menu spot, soup, plate or soup & plate. Jason got his brother with a large fish head floating in it and I got a plate with a hunk of fried fish with rice, yucca, sweet potatoes and a few sprigs of lettuce, standard Peruvian fare. At the end of the meal I had yucca, rice and some dark fish meat left on my plate and Jason just ate the meaty part of the head. As we sat and enjoyed the market ambiance a man standing behind us started mumbling at Jason. After we turned to interpret his speech he reached over Jason’s shoulder and took the fish head and then moved to my plate and snagged the yucca and dark fish meat. Jason and I just looked at each other and took in the moment. That was the first time that had happened to either of us. We figured it was time to move on and I had a hankering for one of those apple manjar churros after seeing them earlier. We got the check and it came out to S/ 4.50 total (about $ 1.70), for three people.