[ "Yo Voy (Seiji Remix)" by Novalima playing ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Edgar: The heartbeat of Peru can be felt in Lima, the thriving and cosmopolitan capital of this diverse South American country.

The cuisine, the art, the lifestyle reflect a new vision of Lima's future.

Here, there's a rhythm, a beat, creative spirit that keeps the city speeding ahead.

While groundbreaking chefs, artists, musicians, athletes and others are looking beyond their borders for inspiration, they also draw heavily from local tradition, history, and heritage.

Young Peruvians are using a vibrant palette of colors to paint a modern image of this massive city.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ I'm hitting the streets to feel the city's pulse and divine a sense of what the future holds for Lima, Peru.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ The diverse ecosystems and rich history of Peru have long been a source of inspiration for its creative people.

The natural beauty of Peru's jungles, mountains, deserts, and coastlines have enchanted locals and visitors for countless generations.

Traditional cultures with roots dating back thousands of years continue to exist alongside vestiges of the Spanish colonial era.

♪♪♪ Here, amidst the modern architecture of Lima, Peru's complex and often tumultuous past lives on in the diverse faces of its people.

[ "Yo Voy (Faze Action Remix)" by Novalima playing ] ♪♪♪ While the past is always on display, Peru's innovators aren't stuck in it.

In fact, they're using their history as a launching pad toward an exhilarating future.

The epicenter for these forward-looking movements is in Lima, the capital of Peru, a city built on cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Lima is also perched on the edge of new possibilities.

It's a place where you can, in fact, teach an old dog new tricks.

My name is Jacob Edgar.

I'm an ethnomusicologist, and I follow the planet's musical heartbeat to reveal the soul and spirit of our world.

I'm traveling across Peru with my friend Alvaro Fernández, a musician and entrepreneur who invited me to explore his fascinating country.

Alvaro is the drummer for one of Lima's most popular rock bands, Campo de Almas.

With his connections to some of Peru's top trendsetters and his knowledge of unique, off-the-beaten-path destinations, Alvaro has promised me a journey I'll never forget.

As with many urban centers, street art has brought an explosion of color across the city's walls.

In Barranco, a bohemian neighborhood that attracts artists, writers, and musicians, public art is particularly abundant.

I believe that the diversity that we have in this country, the art, the music, the culture in general, food, landscape, everything, all these flavors and colors are represented, are reflected in the art of Entes y Pésimo.

[ "Meidin Perú" by Norick playing ] ♪♪♪ Edgar: Entes y Pésimo are a street art power duo whose work is on display in trendy galleries around the world, not to mention across the walls of Lima.

♪♪♪ Alvaro and I head into Barranco where we meet these influential young talents in person.

♪♪♪ Fernández: So we met them in Barranco, and I wanted them to show us a piece of art, a piece of work in this district that is full of art, is full of culture.

Edgar: We walk a few blocks together to see one of their murals up close.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Fernández: If you're a Peruvian, basically, you have to know about Entes y Pésimo.

Their art is everywhere.

They're really well-known.

Edgar: One of the things you'll notice in the artwork of Entes y Pésimo is the importance of music in what they do.

The panel that we saw was a Fiesta Criolla, which is a Creole party.

This is a gathering where people get together.

They bring out their instruments, they play music, they pull open a bottle of beer or some drinks and just have a community gathering, and that was what was being expressed in their artwork.

You know, these weren't just guys who were inspired by contemporary hip hop or graffiti.

They were inspired by pre-Columbian history.

They were inspired by identity movements of the 1970s across Latin America, and they were expressing that in their artwork.

Heavily influenced by graffiti art and hip hop culture, Entes y Pésimo used carefully manipulated spray paint to craft murals with clean lines, saturated colors, and subtle social statements.

Wow.

When I see their art, it's like, "boom".

I mean, it's in your face.

You know, the colors, the images are strong, are powerful.

Their work is basically in the streets, right?

In the walls of the streets that you you pass by every day.

♪♪♪ Edgar: From the magical realism of Entes y Pésimo to the explosion of flavors that can be found at the city's hottest restaurants, Lima is bustling with creativity.

At these cutting-edge establishments, the culinary cornucopia of Peru is transformed into edible works of art, no less impressive than an Entes y Pésimo mural, but a lot more tasty.

I think Peru is way more than a ceviche and a pisco sour.

It gives us the opportunity to showcase more of what we do.

We are in front of a pantry that is basically unknown and very vast.

We know very little about the jungle, we know very little about the Amazon, and we know very little about the Andes and the whole mysticism of being in Peru.

What's the Andes?

What's the jungle?

What's the Amazon?

How can you experience that?

Edgar: Several of Lima's chefs are radically changing the concepts of Peruvian food.

Chef Pedro Miguel Schiaffino of the restaurant Amaz offers a menu influenced by the exotic flavors of the Amazon, while Chef Rafael Piqueras is one of Peru's top chefs, and his dishes rely on simple local ingredients, prepared beautifully at his stylish restaurant, Maras.

But Chef Virgilio Martínez is taking a top-to-bottom approach and reimagining everything about Peruvian cuisine.

We know we are in the coast in Lima, but this is not, of course, a Liman restaurant.

We propose menus based on different altitudes of Peru and seeing that the Peruvian geography in a vertical way with menus, with food.

Edgar: Central is currently number five on the prestigious Condé Nast list of the world's 50 best restaurants, making it the highest ranked restaurant in all of Latin America.

I think that he is the chef that is more artist chef we have.

When I see his cuisine, it's like seeing a painting, no?

An art painting.

And also, he's doing a tremendous effort in using ingredients from all over Peru.

Edgar: Chef Martínez is challenging his guests to explore Peru's biodiversity with an 18-course meal that can take up to four hours to present.

Here, in my experience, you try about 258 Peruvian products, and probably about 150, you haven't tried before if you are coming from abroad.

Edgar: We meet this celebrity chef at Central to find out what's cooking.

So this is a garden attached to your restaurant.

What do you use this for?

Martínez: Yeah, actually, you know, this garden is just on top of the kitchen.

The kitchen is downstairs.

And we try to use, like, as many Andean and Amazonian herbs that will grow in Peru.

What Virgilio is doing is really, really interesting because he has decided to create a very Peruvian approach to gastronomy.

♪♪♪ His restaurant, Central, is kind of like a museum of modern art of food.

Fernández: It's interesting to know that he's not only focused on flavors, but he's he's showing us a whole ecosystem in every dish he does.

He really is an artist, a food artist, because he takes these ingredients and presents them in this incredibly unique way to create dishes that are as aesthetically pleasing as they are culinarily pleasing.

Our thing is innovation.

And we know that we will be criticized about this, of course, about what we do, and if we are not preserving tradition and stuff like that, and we do preserve tradition, we do preserve Peruvian natural ecosystems with our food.

We do preserve what's happening with Peruvian producers, so I think what -- what is more Peruvian than that?

We ask Virgilio to take us to a place that he likes to eat, and I thought it was interesting that he decided to take us to a restaurant in Barranco called Isolina.

This is very traditional Peruvian cuisine, which is...

So this is like comfort food.

It's comfort food.

It's very so different to what I do... Yeah.

...which really excites me.

And here, it's all about sharing portions.

Portions are huge.

So it's like family style?

Family style and no fuss, nothing, like...

This is classic Peruvian dishes, but prepared in the most exquisite and delicious way imaginable.

Oh, my God.

Look at these plates.

Ooh.

Wow.

What?

That's huge.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, so you here, you see, like, a very tiny portion of lomo saltado.

[ Chuckles ] This is just for me, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What is this?

Pork stew.

Pork stew, did I hear with mani, or... Yeah, with some peanuts.

So it has pea-- pork with peanuts.

Yeah, and some -- And this is beef -- When they say "saltado," what does that mean?

Sauté.

Sautéed beef.

And there's actual, like, French fries.

Here, you have, like, some Chinese and African influences.

Yeah, so the little Chinese flavor.

Yeah, yeah, well, you know, we've been through 500 years of fusion.

And I thought it was -- I thought it was interesting that that's where Virgilio chose to take us.

Somebody who's such an innovator, somebody who creates these kind of masterpieces of cutting-edge cuisine, decided to go back to his roots and show us the quintessential example of Peruvian home cooking.

Peruvian cuisine is all about diversity.

Yeah.

So and you go to different restaurants, and nobody's doing the same.

Every time you go to a restaurant, like, you see different, different stuff.

Different recipes, different ingredients.

You know, but it's funny, like, here we are, we have liver, beef, pork, but I noticed on your menu, it's actually -- there's not a lot of meat.

No, no, no.

It's very vegetable, fish-oriented.

Yeah, we're -- we're quite doing the opposite.

When this guy comes to my restaurant, he had a good laugh, like, there's no meat, and, you know, he's eating plants and herbs and he's like, "Hey, where's the meat, man?"

Like... [ Chuckles ] Yeah.

I mean, I have eaten some great food on this trip in Peru, but this is probably the best meal I've had on the entire trip.

The past is a constant presence in Lima, but that doesn't mean it's passé.

[ "Mix Bareto" by DJ Joao playing ] In fact, what's old is cool again, especially according to bands such as Bareto, who dig into the vaults to find inspiration for their hit songs.

Bareto has mined and reinvented retro sounds to become one of the most popular bands in Peru today.

Bareto started as a reggae band doing tropical music, and then they realized, "Wait, we have our own tropical music right here in Peru."

It's this jungle cumbia, this cumbia from the Amazon.

[ Singing in Spanish ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ So basically, I mean, they're important because they put the Amazon in the map again.

Edgar: But they're young, hip guys who made this old music seem cool, and I think to their surprise, they were hugely successful.

♪♪♪ Edgar: The people of Lima are discovering the Amazon in a lot of ways, I mean, here we are in a nightclub and a bar called Ayahuasca, and we've seen artwork influenced by the Amazon, so the Amazon's really -- Because it's very cool.

And this bar is kind of trendy and it's nice.

And it's different and Peruvian, too.

Like the cuisine, the art, the Shipibo art and everything is -- It's unique, right.

So it's exotic -- it's exotic even for Peruvians.

Even for us, yes.

♪♪♪ The thing about what we do, playing this Amazonian music is, like, Amazonian music is not very famous here in Peru.

Peru is very centralized in Lima.

We kind of connect that whole great culture of the Amazon, and we do our best to bring it to the people here in Lima and in every place over Peru.

Peru is always panpipes, it's always the mountains, but not the jungle necessarily.

The Amazon is hot.

Right, and Ayahuasca, this bar, and Bareto are two big examples of how the Amazonian has influenced the modern life in the capital, in Lima, in Peru in general.

Well, I'm eating -- I'm drinking a coca sour.

I'm drinking shaman.

It's all Amazonian right here.

And this is an Ayahuasca sour.

So come on, we're in the jungle in the middle of Lima.

Edgar: Lima's landscape is certainly unique.

The cliffs that drop to the shoreline below provide a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean.

Locals enjoy that view along the Malecón, a stretch of sidewalk that weaves along the cliffs.

This coastline has been one of Peru's most vital resources for millennia, and people have been heading into the ocean for food, adventure, and fun since long before written history.

Alvaro and I head south along the coast to Santa María del Mar, a resort town popular with upscale Lima residents.

He took us to the community south of Lima, where he's been going since he was a little kid.

[ "Mi Canto" by Novalima playing ] ♪♪♪ And he took us out with a great captain onto the ocean.

We take to the water with Alec Hughes Pardo.

On land, he sells banking software, but on the water, he's the captain.

Fernández: Alec is this friend of mine that he's known in Lima and in the sailing environment.

He sailed around the world like, literally.

♪♪♪ This is summer in Peru, and it's unusual to have rains in summer.

It's like more like a mist or like a drizzle.

But it's very dry.

I mean, the landscape behind us almost looks like the moon.

It's got this lunar quality to it.

Edgar: As we sail further up the coast, thick fog begins to settle in.

Lima has a special, unique climate because of the Los Andes and the Humboldt Current create all this fog because of the air that's not that cold.

And this difference in temperature makes our coast is very unique regarding -- because of that.

Definitely that's one of the reasons why we have so many fish and we are so rich in seafood.

Peru has, like, one of the most consistent waves in the world.

We have steady winds, so it's perfect for sailing.

It's perfect for surfing.

Edgar: In fact, some claim the Peruvians invented surfing.

Well, that might be a stretch, but there's no question that ancient Peruvian fishermen were riding the waves on reed boats long before bleached-blond surfer dudes were hanging ten.

Modern Peruvians feel this link to tradition gives them a special cred in today's international surfing scene.

Fernández: We have a big surfing culture in Peru.

Probably, we are one of the countries with more consistent waves along our coast.

Edgar: Well, surfing culture in Peru is huge, I mean, it's more than I realized, for sure.

Peru is one of the world epicenters for surfing and has been for a long time.

One of the surf world's rising stars learned to catch waves right here on the Lima shore.

We met Vania Torres, who is a world champion surfer.

She's 21 years old.

Vania is making a splash on surfing's international pro circuit.

She ranks in the top ten of South American female surfers.

I think the surf culture in Lima has been developing a lot throughout the years.

People are trying more the sport and it's more about getting in contact with nature and having a little more time for yourself.

Edgar: The beaches here are covered with smooth rocks.

The waves break upon the shore only meters from one of Lima's busiest roads.

Lima is unique because there are these amazing cliffs, these very high cliffs.

Fernández: So basically, the city crashes with the ocean, with the sea.

So the waves are right there.

Edgar: Alvaro and I catch up with Vania at one of Lima's most popular beaches.

I've been surfing for, like, 11 years.

Okay, so you were a kid.

Yeah, nine years old.

And are you from Lima originally?

Yeah, I started right here.

Right on this beach?

Yeah.

♪♪♪ The stereotype of being a girl and doing sports that are more man-like, like, not there anymore.

Edgar: The cool thing is that here in Lima, it's so easy to learn how to surf.

You just go to the ocean right downtown, basically, you know, right on the edge of the city.

Torres: It makes it special that the the city is right next to it.

Like, you can just come down and surf.

And also, there are a lot of schools, like, to learn how to surf, and they give you the boards, they give you all the equipment so you can go and try it.

Edgar: I decided to give surfing a try.

A few tips on how to stand up and it was time to get in the water.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ I was so excited that on my second try, I was able to stand up, but really, it was because they just guided me in there so easily, so they were really supportive, and that was great.

It was fun.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Pardo: The thing is, you can sail on the coast a lot.

It's not an environment that's too difficult to live with, like, compared to other parts of the world, right?

Or the Atlantic on the other side of South America.

Edgar: Captain Hughes tacks the ship, swinging it around to head towards shore.

And just after he does that, the sun breaks through the dense clouds, lighting the sky on fire.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ As we sail along the coast near Lima, the sunset marks the end of a day, but it also means that tomorrow is just that much closer.

Lima is rushing toward its future, but it's not leaving its past behind.

If anything, the past provides the foundation upon which a new society is being built.

The dawning of a new day in Peru is coming soon.

Based on what I've experienced in Lima, it seems like that new day is already here.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪