Peru Travel

[Guest crystal]

Does anyone have any info about travel to lima,peru and cusco? I haven't been there before and am having trouble about celiacs in peru. Any recommendations other than the usual? I will be hiking and climbing the high mountains, Alpamayo etc and need to bring my own dehydrated foods for high altitude camps, but wanted info about shopping in the towns to prepare for the trip.Thanks,

crystal

[frenchiemama]

Actually I just watched a travel show on Peru tonight (I've always wanted to go myself) and I didn't see once slice of bread on the entire show! It's kind of a travel/food show so they always pay a lot of attention to the food and it seemed like everything was made out of fresh ingredients or potatoes. I didn't see one scrap of wheat on the whole show, even the local beer was made from corn. Given that they speak spanish I would think that it would be easy to use the dining cards. I don't know anything about the dehydrated foods though, can you find out what you are allowed to bring from home?

[michaunj]

I went there 3 years ago and I didn't get sick once. They naturally eat almost everything gluten free. I brought some of my own stuff, but I mainly ate out and it was not bad at all!

[VegasCeliacBuckeye]

Make sure you have a "Pisco Sour" -- what a wonderful alcoholic an gluten free drink in Peru!

[Deanna Wang]

Hi,

just back from 3 weeks in Peru, including a 1-week hike in the Cordillera Blanca. We actually brought all our hiking food from France with us, so I can't really comment on how easy it is to buy gluten-free hiking food there. However I can say that the Peruvians eat a lot of non-gluten carbs (eg quinoa, amaranth, potato etc.) so it's not too difficult to find gluten free stuff in general. Unfortunately these take quite a while to cook, and especially at altitude are not terribly conveniet (unless you planning to carry heaps and heaps of fuel). It's quite easy to buy hiking food in the main jump-off towns (eg. Huaraz), but I don't know how good the labelling laws in Peru are, so if you can, I would suggest you bring your hiking food with you to Peru. I'm sure it's possible to find gluten-free food for a hike in Peru, but if you're being careful about your diet then I think you're likely to end up with very tasteless and repetitive meals.

You also need to be careful because (like everywhere) flour has subtley invaded the diet. So you will find that they thicken some of their sauces with flour which you need to be careful of. If you're not adverse to fried/roasted chicken and chips then you should have no problems since it's available everywhere.

I general I found that the people in Peru were lovely and were really willing to help. Once I explained in my (terrible) spanish that I couldn't eat wheat (trigo) they were more than happy to tell me help me with their menus. I never bothered explaining about barley, rye, oats, but I don't think they figure heavily in the Peruvian diet so it's not a problem.

Anyway, have a great time, and be careful about altitude sickness. Take your time to aclimatise and don't expect to cover the same distances you normally would. Any time there's a climb it'll take you more effort than you thought possible and longer than you thought reasonable (unless you hire a porter and donkeys, in which case you'll only be carrying a light day-pack). But the Andes are magnificent and Cusco is a lovely place.

Deanna

[london]

I know it's being a long time, but know I'm traveling to peru, I already have my Open Original Shared Link and I got a good deal I have to say, but I want some recommendations and opinions, which clothes I should take? I'm going to be at cusco and the forest too and the weather will be totally different.