Spanish Classes (and food)

This is really just an effort to not blog exclusively about food.  There is sooo much variety, and it features in nearly every conversation.  But it will sneak it's way into this post too, so don't you worry.

It's been great having Spanish classes - the first week was a scrambling catch-up with the subjunctive sentences the others had been doing (I joined part way through a group course).  It was good because I had actually studied it before so probably didn't need to learn it all over again, but it was a useful challenge to dredge it all up and start using it again. So a mix of revision, new words, new rules I never knew, and some words to forget because I learned them in Ecuador and they don't make sense here (or, with some, people might get offended).

Here I am with 2 of my teachers and the obligatory certificate when I finished on Friday.  Oh, and the bell they ring to signal the end of class:

The bonus of studying at 'El Sol' has been that they also run extra activities for the students - like visiting museums and forts ...

(where the main event seemed to be a Spanish pirate)

  

...and having cooking  classes!  I learned to make 'humitas' which were a favourite on my first trip here. They're made from maize, with the assistance of garlic and a liquidiser (both indispensable in Peruvian cooking)

 

And, as promised, here are some more food photos from the cooking classes, including: chicharron de trucha (deep-fried breaded trout), mazamorra (a purple gloopy dessert which I ate multiple times on my visit last year), and locro (a stew made with squash).  All delicious.  All involving many different flavours and herbs and spices! So far I have discovered at least 4 different types of pepper.  I just managed to avoid eating a slice of the strongest one yesterday when I realised that, no, it wasn't a slice of tomato...