Blogs from Peru, South America - page 10

Sunday, 22 March, 2020 Today I slept in till 8, which is late for me. I made a pot of coffee and a fruit smoothie and sat down in my home office to watch the birds in the trees outside my second floor window. I posted a couple things on Instagram, checked my emails and Facebook and WhatsApp. I Facetimed with Mom. All of the technology that we rely on, that I hope will help keep me sane during the quarantine. I’ve been watching live concerts on Instagram most evenings. Even that virtual connection, since it’s in real time, helps. They’re each home alone, isolated physically but playing music to keep the connection with their fans. Between songs, the main singer for the band Las Cafeteras from LA says that she is trying to reframe the ... read more

Encore un bus, et après quelques 14-15h de voyage de nuit, et quelques 600km de virages, heureusement dans un bus VIP, allongés à 120 degrés, repose pied rembourré, repas du soir, pti dej et toilettes a bord (il est précisé que c'est uniquement pour le pipi lol, je me demande qui vérifie...), nous arrivons à Nasca. Quasiment enlevés par la compagnie aérienne Air Paracas qui nous attend, transfert à l'aérodrome, et sans presque savoir ce qui nous arrive (attendez j'aimerais me brosser les dents!), on est embarqués dans un petit coucou pour 6 personnes qui fait de la haute voltige (enfin presque, c'est ce que m'indique mon estomac tout retourné), pour nous montrer à gauche puis à droite, les fameuses lignes de Nasca, tracées dans le désert entre -500 et +500 ans, par une civilisation pré-inca, ... read more

We left Colombia on Monday afternoon on ViVa Airlines, which we have now renamed “Nickel and Dime” Airlines. Fares were reasonable, but upon checking in we had to pay for our carry-on luggage as they were 2 centimeters (less than an inch) too tall but under weight limit. That cost us $40. Then they charged us $12 for not using electronic boarding passes! Then we flew in the smallest, tightest seats imaginable to Bogota, where we had to spend the night because they changed flight to Lima, Peru departure time to the following morning. Not too big of a deal, until we learned that the flight was scheduled to depart at 6AM, and since it was an international one we had to check in at 4 AM, which then meant we had to be up at ... read more

After the days spent in the dusty desert we were excited to arrive in the mountains. A long bus journey obviously but the scenery was amazing, seeing the nature changing from desert to mountains, passing through a wetland desert, llama and alpaca everywhere, water coming from the mountain give us the welcome to a new kind of strength of nature, small kind of pointy hairy bushes were everywhere, looking like the hair of puppets, are just desert bushes shaped by the wind. I was happy to see green grass and snowy peaks behind the hills. We were already at more than 3000 meters. Daria was already scared of the cold that was awaiting us outside the bus. When we arrived in Yanke at circa 3300 meters it was 6 o’clock and raining. We had a hotel ... read more

We went straight from Medellin to Barranco, the area in Lima that was recommended to us, the colonial barrio with the hipster flavour. Tired from 5 weeks in Colombia Daria needed a rest, we get a room on airbnb in a pretty house hosted by Peruvian descendants from Tuscany; a house with a lot of 60’s design taste, nice sofas, pretty textiles and art books for flicking through, the predominant colour is brick red. The guy that runs the bed and breakfast is called Juan Carlo - he lived 8 years in Florence and speaks good Italian with funny Tuscan dialetc, very helpful guy, he told us places to go, little restaurants in the area and enjoyed a lot to chat in Italian with us. Daria loved the house and found every possible excuse to stay ... read more