Pimentel, Peru

The fishing village and beach town of Pimentel is on the north coast of Peru, almost 500 miles north of the country's capital of Lima. Just inland is the city of Chiclayo, where I recently spent a few days touring archeological sites. Peruvians eat a lot of fish, and their coastline provides an endless supply. I was hungry this day, so I hopped on a little bus (combi) and headed out to the beach.

These one-person boats are called "caballitos de totora," or "little tule horses." It sounds much better in Spanish. Peruvians have been using these since long before the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. In fact, the conquistador Pizarro encountered a large tule raft-boat with about 20 men on the open sea in the early 1500s before landing on the coast of Ecuador. It carried goods for trade between Peru and Ecuador, including elaborate gold and silver objects and textiles. The boat carried a woven cotton sail. This gave Pizarro and his men good reason to push ahead and learn more of this apparently advanced culture. The caballitos have a pointy bow and blunt stern to be able to maneuver on the rough waves. On Lake Titicaca in the mountains they are made with the same materials but have two pointy ends (There must be a more sophisticated term than pointy.)

After a delicious lunch of ceviche on the waterfront I walked out to the beach. The fishermen were returning with their catch around 2:30pm.

Then they haul out their boats and the women come to help sort and prepare the fish for sale to the local restaurants.

Today this boat brought in dozens of small crab.

Fresh fish for sale

This is just a small glimpse of the waterfront, which has many small restaurants ready to serve fresh fish. My guess is that most is served raw, that is, as ceviche cured in lime juice with red onion and spicey chiles. On the side is some delicious Peruvian corn and camote (sweet potato).

This is a little park near the action