Blogs from Peru, South America - page 1117

The hostel is at the top of an impressive hill and its only when we venture into the bar we truely appreciate the amazing view this hostel offers, an uniterrupted panoramic view of the entire town and mountains stretching into the background. We enter our dorm room to the sounds of several Irish people playing and singing Lady in Red, these seem to be veterens of the hostel and we soon learn that they have a very strict cycle of drinking all night and sleeping most the day, then repeat for atleast a week. As we stroll down the steep hill to town it becomes clear that Cusco lives up to its reputation of being a charming and beautiful place, even the street urchins seem quite reserved although there seem to be an increasing amount of ... read more

Pastoruri Glacier today with the Israeli troop. Volcanic landscape reminds me of Tongariro in NZ. REally barren and different to the lushhhhh Santa Cruz valley, but impressive all the same. Having been an unwilling witness to some serious and animated words in Hebrew between Idan and Sol I promptly decided to go it alone and took off by myself scrambling up and down the scree. All the Pêruvian tourists were quite taken just with being on snow, but after four months in fernie that didn´t interest me. Ice caves did. Oh yeah, and Puya Raymondi plants that are the biggest flowers in the world, take 100 years to flower, and are tall (and somewhat phallic). PS. if you buy a bus ticket in Peru it doesn´t necessarily mean you get a seat.... read more

Estoy aqui, I am here. Just a quick note to let you know that I have made it safe and sound to Cuzco via Atlanta and via Lima. All the flights were uneventful and arrived on time. They were long though! On the flight from Seattle to Atlanta, I met several very nice Native American ambassadors from the Northwest (LaConner, Bellingham, Fife) heading to Peru with the Indigenous Environmental Network to teach in the Peruvian Amazon. Pretty cool huh! I followed them around on the trip, splitting up with them in Lima. Speaking of Lima, I am very very happy to be out of there! Out of the fog! I did not give it much chance though. I arrived at 10:30 at night, spent a few hours in a very nice hostel near the Pacific Ocean ... read more

Well, I got my share of diarrhea. Started during our overnight stay in the Lima airport, continues til now. Got the chills and fever yesterday, but after 2 doses of Cipro I feel much better. Arrived in Cusco yesterday morning, the city is gorgeous, but I was sick, so saved all the exploring for today. We did goto a Korean retaurant last night, the food was amazing, and yes, I ordered RAMEN. God damn I miss asian food. The restaurant is small, 2 rooms with 4 tables. The walls are covered with short messages travelers have left there. If anyone ever visits Cusco, check out this restaurant, and you will see mine and Brian´s name on the wall. Today we will explore the city, take some pictures, and from what I understand, Brian´s treating me to ... read more

22 Abril - Pisaq Went to Pisaq today with my new friend, Erica. We met a couple of New Zealand classmates there, Kate and Nikki, and also saw Ashli, from Canada, who was there with Nadine from Switzerland. Quite a few countries represented here, huh? We spent quite a bit of time wandering through the extensive and well-known markets in the town of Pisaq. We all bought something and I found some cute little hand-knitted sweaters for my nieces, one that is not even here yet. We also saw a cuy farm…. These cute little guys are a common dinner meat. We finally made it up to the ruins in the afternoon. They are impressive, especially the many terraces leading up to the residences. Once up there, we found solitude and few other tourists. Erica and ... read more