A funny thing happened

When I travel, I let my appetite lead the way. It's been like this for at least my entire adult life, and probably from way back when I was a little, hungry thing. On road trips from New Jersey to Virginia, my little sister and I would insist on hitting up our favorite rest stops for fried chicken and cinnamon buns, often adding a couple of hours to the typical 4 to 5 hour drive. Even short family jaunts up to nearby Bear Mountain or to my beloved Natural History Museum meant outdoor grilling and classic New York hot dogs gussied up with sauerkraut and plenty of hot mustard. (Respectively, of course - I'm not sure museum curators would have appreciated a cookout under the T-Rex.)

The trend continued as I grew older: There was the 1997 trip to Switzerland, the first journey my sister and I made by ourselves at the ages of 14 and 12. I remember the gooey cheese crisping and crackling on the raclette pans set up in the middle of my Aunt Rafat and Uncle Karl's dining room table, the freshly fried frites that I have come to know as Karl's specialty. I remember the too strong smoked salmon and pasta dish that made me woozy on our first afternoon in Lugano, followed by a wine and cheese party (who's 14?) in the garden of our hilltop hotel. And then there were the McDonald's fries that Sandy and I treated ourselves to everytime we were let loose on our own in Zurich.

And ever since, my list of travel food memories has come to include the fresh seafood of San Juan, Puerto Rico; thick, rich beef in Tuscon, Arizone; clotted cream in Cambridge, England; fish and chips in London; fish and chips eaten from a newspaper while stones dug into my back on a galet beach in Brighton, England; macarons and falafel in Paris; marzipan in Lagos, Portugal; perfectly crusted pizza in Milan; miniature green princesstartas in Stockholm, Sweden... and ice cream everywhere. The list is endless, as is the list of people with whom I shared these snacks and meals.

Last month, Sandy and I traveled to Peru. She had a friend living in Lima and I had a hankering to get out of the office. We found cheap flights and made our way down, no plans whatsoever. Ten years since our Switzerland trip, and presumably 10 years wiser, we decided we could figure it out when we got there. I knew I wanted cebiche and roast chicken, and maybe even the deep fried guinea pig. (The most valuable lesson my high school history teacher Mr. Dunn ever passed on was that everything tastes better when it's deep fried. Of course, he wasn't a fan of fresh veggies and referring to dumping whole heads of lettuce into the fryer his wife bought him as a Christmas present my junior year, but I told myself that this principle was sure to apply to rodents.)

And then a funny thing happened: I lost my appetite.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I didn't think it was possible. Of course I still ate, and ate well, but... I don't know. It just wasn't the same as when I devoured the most beautiful paella known to man (the sangria may have played a part in this particular memory) in a little shack of a restaurant in Barcelona.

So imagine my surprise as I labored through the cebiche and tacu-tacu as well as the lucuma tart and chocolate souffle at hyper-trendy La Mar our first day there.

I know it doesn't look bad, but I swear (!) it was, and the situation only worsened as we set off on our travels outside of Lima. Apparently, higher altitudes (we hit close to 15,000 feet on our hike up the Andes) have an adverse effect on even the heartiest desires to eat. (I have a feeling that marketplaces smelling of rot and rickety, overstuffed minivans serving as inter-city mountain buses didn't help.)

I was surprised to say the least, and even devastated at times. Then I looked around, and I found a country unmatched by my previous travels in the fallen, almost gothicly romantic beauty of its cities; the immensity of its historic monuments; and the grandeur of its natural landscapes. In only six days, I saw so much.

The Lima cityscape is marked even in the richest areas by unfinished construction, old cars, abandoned buildings and animals, the fading facades highlighted by colorful foliage and a dank, ghostly fog that envelops the city in the "winter" months...

The Cordillera Blanca, a range in the Andes where a one-day hike offers a glimpse of a hidden, mountain lake called Laguna 69. There is nothing living in the lake, and the ivory rocks lining the bottom, filled with pure, cold mountain water, creates a shocking reflection of the blue sky above.

Our horseback-riding guide was insane and could not speak any English, and barely any Spanish for that matter. Sandy's horse was suicidal, walking precariously on the edge of the cliffs as we rounded the mountain bluffs. If you look closely, you see pure terror in Sandy's smile.

While there wasn't time for a visit to Machu Picchu, we did make it to a historic site just outside of Lima overlooking the jagged Pacific coastline. We initially thought this group of women was setting up a picnic at the top of a ruined temple, but we soon discovered they were there to make offerings, digging small holes in the dirt and filling them with beans and grains, and annointing the site by sprinkling what looked like water.

And still, this is nothing compared to what I've been told Peru has to offer. Hours before my flight home, I was at once euphoric and disappointed. I knew that five days was not enough, and I had no idea when, or if, I'd ever make it back.

I was also supremely sad that, despite the incredible experiences, I didn't have any poignant culinary memories to take home - save the feast of peanut butter, whole wheat Bimbo bread, cheese-filled Ritz cracker sandwiches, and vanilla wafers that Sandy and I enjoyed on the evening after our hike up to Laguna 69. Clearly even a small drop in altitude was enough to perk up our appetites.

Then it happened: the first pang of intense longing for a food item that I had felt all week. It was a giant pastry that looked like a Napoleon. Except here the layers of crispy mille feuille were separated not my cream, but by manjar blanco - Peru's version of dulce de leche - topped off with a snowy dusting of powdered sugar. It was as if though the heavens had opened up and a supreme being was shining a powerful ray of light through the pastry case.

I ate every last bit and had to contain my excitement so that I wouldn't lick the last bits of manjar blanco off the plate. Nope, I swear I didn't lick. But I did leave the white plate pristine, devoid of the sticky sweet toffee-colored drops that gave the trip of a lifetime a happy ending.