Blogs from Peru, South America - page 1123

in 1911, an American explorer and Yale university professor named Hiram Bingham, stumbled upon a mass of carefully laid granite stones, covered with overgrown jungle, and nestled in the high mountain ranges of south western Peru. this sprawling array of intricately laid stone structures, was soon to be revealed as Machu Pichhu, or the "lost city" of the fabled and revered Inca empire. "lost" is a relative term, applying mostly to the non-native world, however hiram's "discovery" became the catalyst to a renewed infatuation and awareness of the advanced and remarkable history of one of the world's first civilizations, the Inca empire. Machu Pichhu can now be reached in a variety of ways created by modern tourism, including trains and buses, however we choose to follow a more spiritual journey and hike the 4 day path ... read more

Well.... it´s pretty damn amazing out here! Seemed to take forever to get here, had a small delay in Madrid but still got to Santiago in good time. Was really funny bumping into the lads in Santiago, they flew from New Zealand so our body clocks were all over the place. We decided to try and drink off the jet lag, started drinking at 2ish and after many bars ended up playing poker with some locals ´til 4am, was very messy, I still have scars from a few drunken falls now!! Stayed a few days in Santiago, went to the Chilean National Stadium to watch Universidad de Chile who are like the Manchester Utd of Chilean football, Marcelo Salas plays for them if anyone remembers him! The stadium wasn´t packed but the atmosphere was still absolutley ... read more

Lima wasnt that exciting, just another big dirty city. Felt pretty safe there and had no troubles. We walked for about 1 and a half hours to Miraflores to see the beach and the pretty part of town. The beach was at the bottom of some serious cliffs, and was rather spectacular, although it was made entirely of stones. We didnt swim as apparently it is fairly polluted, but this didnt stop the locals, and one English man nearly joined them after venturing too close to the waves. We meet a couple of Germans at our hostel as well as a Canadian girl, with whom we had a rather enjoyable night of playing Scum (card game) and drinking (well liz and I were drinking). The hostel was fine we had our own room and bathroom, there ... read more

We moved onto Nazca after a couple of days in the sun. Thought it would be a good idea to take a look at the famous Nazca Lines. We arrived and found a hostel our usual way of closing our eyes and point to somewhere on the page in the lonely planet guide :) if we didnt like it,we would just walk until we found something we liked. The town itself is rather cool, we managed to find luinch one day for about $0.20 and we couldnt even finish it!!! there was waay too much food. And Keeping in line with the strict Health and Safety rules here in Peru we passed numerous shops with skin chickens sitting on tables out in the sun and nicely covered with flies, maybe thats a reason we didnt eat ... read more

So started on monday with the classes my teacher Renzo is sound. Learning to count was no problem as I was doing the bingo on sunday. Every day it is two hours of theory and then into the city with the teachers to learn you stuff in real life. Friday we do a reality tour and will go to the slumps and orphanages. Today (wednesday) a city walk, yesterday to the market, nice with all the chopped off animal heads and bulls dicks being prepared. Loads of little cute hamsters for the Peruvian dinner and dried lama embryos. On monday we went to eat cebiche with our teachers, lovely seafood marinated in lime. Seafood is really good here, squid, octopus, sole, shrimps, sea snails etc etc. I also met my two roommates, Judith and Sabien, who ... read more