Blogs from Peru, South America - page 1118

Well we spent a full day in Santiago, basically doing a blitz sightseeing tour of the city, laundry and even a movie. I spoke of Santiago briefly in my last blog entry, but we had not fully explored the whole area at that point so I will add a bit more information regarding what we saw. We visited the presidential palace, and managed to catch a glimpse of their troops putting on some kind of nationalistic display, marching around in front of the royal building, with stray dogs chasing away the renegade pigeons so they were not to bother any of the trumpeters. From there we delved further into the city center and enjoyed all the pedestrian walkways about town, these are quite something actually. Basically they are roads where they no longer allow vehicles. I ... read more

Just finished the Santa Cruz Trek. It´s bewwwwwwdiful. Another spectacular glacial valley. Pen and Shannon have arrived and came on teh hike. So it was us, our guide Samuel, the arriero Morino, and two Israelis Idan and Omri. Lucky those boys went mad with their digicams so we have a bunch of photos. oh yeah, the night before i had an emergency visit to the emergency section of the huaraz hospital because my tum was still rotten adn i really hadn´t eaten anything and kept it down for over one week. Great way to lose that canada flab by the way... that was an experience. i felt like i had the entire emergency staff all gathered around my bed looking at my white and bloated belly. all talking only in spanish. but my spanish was enough ... read more

A quick change in our plans lead us to the small coastal town of Pisco, where there are beautiful chicas and plenty of birds. Pisco lies between Ica and Lima, and offers great tours to Peru´s Paracas National Park and Ballaestras Islands, which are considered "poor man´s Galapagos." Let´s just say that during the two hour boat ride, there were alot of birds. Tens of thousands of birds on a small island, which is white because, yes, it´s covered with bird droppings. There is also an abundance of sea lions. Over a hundred sea lions lying on the coast line, making wailing sounds that can be quite disturbing when echoed off of the shoreside cliffs. The tour ended at 4:00PM, and now we´re sitting in the town of Pisco enjoying the high speed internet. Will head ... read more

Todays my birthday, tonight I will throw a party in the bar of my Spanish school. Here´s my coffee break with a real cake and some pisco offered by the two tourists in the back. ... read more

After another night of rum and coke drinking games, of which i was severly rubbish at, the burning morning sun felt hotter than usual. We headed to Ica to get bus tickets for the 15hr journey to Cusco that night, id been informed that night buses where confortable and nothing like the usual buses in the towns. After a quick look about, fake Oakleys bought for $2 and a some food we head back for the buggy and sand boarding trip ran from the hostel. As we start ourselves into the rat like off road vehicle, Tom confesses he thought the buggy was just for dropping us at the top of the dunes, he was very wrong. As we leave the town the driver, who is trying to impress a female co-pilot, shifts into turbo and ... read more