Blogs from Peru, South America - page 1121

It has been quite a while since I added to this blog- I guess I thought that I hadn’t been doing much. Today is Easter Sunday, and I’m alone in my apartment, thinking of the barbecue that must be going on at home. That’s kind of depressing. I spend a lot of time alone here, and that gets on my nerves. I was thinking of taking a trip to Araquipa one weekend, but I gave up on that idea. It’s about 12 hrs by bus, switching bus lines somewhere in the middle. Then finding a hotel, and the next day finding somebody to take me out to the canyon, because the reason I wanted to go there is to see the Andean Condors. Then another night in a hotel and 12hrs on the buses back. If ... read more

Hope all is well in your part of the world. We are at an Oasis at the moment wher you can going buggy in the dunes or sand board down any of the many slopes. If you don't get the hang of it right away at least it's a soft landiong even if the fine desert sand gets in your pants! The desert is a bit of surprise at it runs along the south coast of Peru. The dunes are awesome with spetacular sunsets. The sun was a deep orange red yesterday. Everyone here is very friendly and helpful. While relaxing at the oasis or as Sean calls it the Peruvian OC - if you are a fan of the US television show you get what he means. If not, it seems to be the place ... read more

Having arrived in Peru´s capital Lima, we spent 2 days touring the city, sampling the local cuisine, trying to master a traditional Peruvian dance (in front of 200 diners) and avoiding the local pick-pockets!! From here we took a 2 hour flight to the real heart of Peru - the sacred city of Cusco. Here we felt like we were experiencing our first slice of authentic South American culture: the locals wore their traditional multi-coloured dress, mothers carried babies on their backs wrapped in hand made rugs, llamas wandered on the hillsides and old, toothless ladies huddled together boiling corn on the plaza steps and children competing to make the next finger puppet, belt, hat or postcard sale. (It was hard to resist their cute selling tactics and to stop Anna from wanting to adopt every ... read more

A weekend in Moray, Urubamba, and Ollantaytambo I’ve been to my first Incan ruins now. A group of us students have made taken a tornado tour through some of the Sacred Valley, leaving early in the morning to see what should probably be a full weekend worth of sites. Our first stop was at Moray, an Incan agricultural site. Here the Incas constructed terraces following the contours of three bowl-shaped depressions seemingly far removed from any of their settlements. Common thought is that the Incas used this place for agricultural experiments, to see what sorts of crops could grow in different conditions. The temperature and microclimate changes with each terrace and there is a marked difference between the temperature and humidity at the top as opposed to the bottom. There is an apparent mathematical precision to ... read more

Stayed at San Isidro Hostel - very good place, swimming pool, friendly staff, TV and HOT showers! Dropped off at the Pan American junction whis must be why they call it Cruces Pisco - literally in the middle of no where! There was a bit of confusion at the stop - cause I was like "THIS IS IT"? Mean while the line of those waiting to get on was getting longer by the second. I was assured by a passenger that this indeed was Pisco so I hesitantly deboarded the bus and asked for our bags, then had to run to the otherside of the bus to get them which is basically in the middle of the road. Sean thought I vanished for a bit - my arguement is that if he'd study his Spanish he ... read more