the Aracari Blog

Our evening at Jim Ciurlizza’s home was among the highlights of our stay in Lima. From the moment of our arrival, Mr. Ciurlizza treated us as honored friends, exuding great personal warmth and offering buoyant conversation. Refreshed by drinks, which were graciously delivered by his discreet staff, Mr. Ciurlizza showed us around his lovely home and explained his remarkable collections of ancient, colonial, and modern art and artefacts. Especially impressive were his precolumbian textiles and colonial ceramics. The visit ended in his superb red dining room where we enjoyed an abundance of elegantly prepared traditional foods accompanied by tea and chocolate. One of these offerings was the butifarra criolla, a house-cured ham sandwich spiced according to a family recipe which he generously shared. Equally remarkable were several custom petits fours including tiny lemons filled with creme, which our host crafted according to a local convent’s formula.Taken as a whole, Mr. Ciurlizza’s hospitality gave us a new and exciting idea of the original, even exotic, life of a true Lima insider and aesthete. As such, our visit greatly enhanced our understanding of the capital and its people, and was an admirable way to cap off our travels in Peru. Eric

The Spanish Conquistadors did more than defeat the Incas in the 16 th Century. They sowed the seeds for the evolution of a unique breed of horse, which is often referred to today as the ‘smoothest ride in the world’.