I may have a new favorite Lima activity. Today, we went down to the fishing pier in Chorrillos (a neighborhood in southern Lima). The pier itself is fun, dotted with restaurants and a few market stalls.

Delicious fishes

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. There are little fishing boats all over the bay, and for 30 soles (about 10 bucks) an hour, they’ll take you out fishing! For fish! So, on the dock we bought some fishing line and bait. The line was wrapped around these wooden blocks, with a few hooks and a sinker (we took them home, for next time)

We sprung for the heaviest duty line, because we swanky

Plus we bought a little bag of bait, baby clams which have an official name in Spanish I didn’t catch but which our rowboat captain (“El Pinguino”—I’ll explain that nickname below. Buidling dramatic tension. I’m so good at this) told us are locally called “palabritas”, or “little words”, because they hang out in the surf and stick out their tiny little clam tongues, like they’re saying little words.

So, after buying bait and line, we flagged down El Pinguino in his rowboat, and negotiated a price for the hour (my guess is we overpayed for everything, which is par for the course, but the whole day still cost maybe 30 dollars start to finish). We hopped in the boat, and motored out across the bay.

Wind swept. Majestic.

Right by the pier, there are a few different super swanky regatta clubs, which we rode past. El Pinguino took us to a little cove next to one of the clubs, protected from the waves, where he said the fish would be biting. We popped open our palabritas, baited the lines, and within a minute…

She caught a fish thiiiiiiis big

I think this was a tramboyo, we caught some tramboyo and another fish I didn’t catch the name of, but they were both small species (so we weren’t keeping babies) who hang out in the shallow water near the rocks. They were biting like crazy, and we caught around ten of them in a half an hour or so. Next time, we’re going to buy more palabritas, we went through them so quick!

I also noticed an erizo (sea urchin) hanging out on a rock, and got crazy super mega excited (they’re my favorite). He pulled us closer to some of the rocks, and I leaned out of the boat with a knife and popped off a couple erizos.

I was a tiny little bit excited

Then we motored back across the bay. On the way, El Pinguino asked us if we were familiar with penguins (get ready, here comes the nickname story). We said we were, expecting a story about a nearby penguin sanctuary or something. Instead he pulled a penguin sized and shaped hunk o’ meat out from under his seat. Apparently it was caught in a net (so he didn’t, like, commit some horrible poaching crime, we hope). He says it’s tasty braised, and isn’t at all fishy. So that happened.

Our we-hope-he-isn’t-a-criminal buddy

Back on the dock, we put our fish in and bag and headed out in search of lunch. Turns out the erizos we picked up weren’t big enough for eating (the edible kind come from a place about four hours south of Lima, so, I know what our next vacation is). I was crushed, but I returned them (still alive and wriggling) back to the sea, from whence they came.

Go free spiny friends

What we did get to eat, however, was some seriously delicious tramboyo. The dock-side restaurant was absolutely lovely, especially lovely since I got to share it with this stunner

Seriously the prettiest

For five soles, they cleaned and gutted our catch, coated them in a light tempura-ish batter, and served them to us with limon y sal. On the side was a particularly tasty salsa criolla (the quick pickled red onion salsa that goes with basically everything. It’s like Peru’s ketchup in terms of ubiquity, and it is the complete opposite of ketchup, i.e. stupid amazing perfectly delicious). The fishies were just scrumptious. Super crispy on the outside, gently but perfectly seasoned, and the meat was way more tender than we’re used to in fish. Not sure if it was the species, or the fact that it was about as fresh as fish can be, but it just absolutely melted. We also got a side of fried yucca, and I got a shot of leche de tigre (the marinating liquid for ceviche packed with more red onion and chunks of fish) which was one of the yummiest I’ve had in Lima.

Just a big ol plate of delicious

We walked back home, about two miles along the boardwalk, and got ice cream sundaes for dessert because obviously.

Always room for ice cream

One of my favorite mornings in a long time, we’re definitely doing this again.