Yet again, we are in waiting in an Internet café for our overnight bus at 10 p.m. But this time we have some King Kong to keep us company. King Kong is a sweet that is made up of layers of shortbread and filling (manjar blanco, piña, maní) that is typical of Northern Perú. Tonight we leave Chiclayo and head to the border with Ecuador, which we will enter tomorrow morning. After leaving Huaraz on an overnight bus, we arrived early in the morning in Trujillo. Trujillo is the third largest city in Perú, but the center area (where we hung [View Full Entry]

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Hello, Well we have been in and around Huaraz for the last 8 days. Huaraz is the center for hiking in Northern Peru. It is next to the Cordillera Blanca which has the highest mountains in Perú and the largest concentration of glaciers in the tropics (most of which are receding). The town is full of tourists coming to do treks and climb mountains. We weren´t sure if we would go trekking when we got here, but peer pressure prevailed. Everyone else is doing it, so we also had to. We are staying at a nice bed and breakfast called Olaza´s. [View Full Entry]

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Ok, we have not encountered any strangle muggers. However, our guidebook talks all about them (for those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a strangle mugger strangles his victim to unconsciousness and then steals money and valuables). It´s kinda been a running morbid joke since we´ve been in Lima. Lima has a reputation of not being the safest place. We had heard lots of stories before we arrived about evil taxi drivers, bag slashers, strangle muggers, etc. But everything has been peachy since we got here. Granted, we are staying in the nice neighborhood of Miraflores and haven´t seen [View Full Entry]

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Hello again. After Cusco we moved on to the most famous, but relatively untouristy town of Nasca (or Nazca - Those alternate spellings, again!) We took a 14-hour overnight bus on a road that did not have one section of straight roadway. It was 14 hours of non-stop twisting and turning. We have our small daybag which on long buses I keep on the ground with the strap around my leg. It just kept sliding back and forth, back and forth for the whole drive. Needless to say, we now know why so many people fly from Cusco to Lima. [View Full Entry]

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Hello again! We just got back from the requisite trip to Machu Picchu. It's like an Inca Disneyland! We expected to see Mickey and Goofy at any time. Ok, it wasn´t that bad. We actually really enjoyed Machu Picchu. It can just be a little intimidating because you know that every tourist around Cusco is going to be going there, and that´s a lot of tourists. Figuring out how to get to MP is the hardest part of all. There are many options, none of them convenient, and all pricey. We looked into doing the Inca Trail, but it turns out [View Full Entry]

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Hello again! We´re in Cusco, Peru. Otherwise known as the Gringo Capital of South America. This place is overrun with tourists. People from all over congregating here in this one South American city. Why? To visit lots of Inca ruins, of course. The Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, ruins within spitting distance of town. In just over a week it'll be even crazier for Inti Raymi (June 24th). As it is, one can´t walk around without being bombarded by people selling everything including: water, water bottle holders, finger-puppets, alpaca sweaters and hats, postcards, water color paintings, [View Full Entry]

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Yes, us again. Are you getting sick of us? We are! We went here blah, blah, blah. We went there blah, blah, blah. It´s all the same. Anyhow... We are actually in a fine mood despite the ranting. It just seems that every few days there is a blog to be written and pictures to upload. And a few days later, there is another blog to be written and even more pictures to upload. We are thinking about just staying in our hotels and not taking anymore pictures or visiting anything. That will take care of everything! Or maybe not... So [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone! After the disconcerting start of our visit to Peru (being watched over VERY carefully by the tourist office rep & security guard in Tacna), we arrived in Arequipa. Arequipa is a large city (pop. over 1 million) teeming with tourists. It is nick-named "La Ciudad Blanca" ("The White City") because of the many colonial buildings constructed out of sillar, a white volcanic rock. It was quite picturesque and relaxing. We had a couple unexciting days in town during which we caught up on laundry, email, and the like. We tried to have some traditional Peruvian food. However, ot [View Full Entry]

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Hello, Well, we have made it to Peru. We are currently in Arequipa, but we´ll get to that later. We have had a number of very busy and unplanned for days recently. On the 28th we overnighted to Arica. Arica is a beach resort town in far northern Chile about 20 km (12 miles) away from the Peruvian border. We were originally planning on traveling to La Paz, Bolivia from Arica. However, over the last week or two, there have been large protests in La Paz with the protesters blocking all the roads leading into and out of the city. So [View Full Entry]

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Hello peoples! After Valparaíso, we headed to Pisqo Elqui, a town in the Elqui Valley about 7 hours north of Valparaíso. It rained for our entire drive there and that night, too. This meant snow on the mountains around Pisquo Elqui and cold, cold temperatures that first night. Luckily, the guy at the hotel leant us an "estufita" (heater). The town of Pisquo Elqui is probably the smallest town we´ve stayed in thus far. It was very relaxing. We were the only people staying at our hotel the first night (23rd). The next day was gorgeous and sunny. We walked around [View Full Entry]

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