We spent a couple of days in Lima without an incident and even visited a Russian speaking doctor that was recommended to us in Miami on the day before we left the US regarding a small pre-trip medical problem and a more recent one. Tests have shown that everything is fine, so after a few days of shopping for presents we boarded the plane back to ( Read more... )

Huacachina was awesome! If time permitted, we would have stayed there another week practicing our sand-boarding skills and drinking Tacama Sangria. However, Lima was only four hours away, and a not to be misseed flight from there to Florida for Tamaras, Shurik's mom sixty fifth birthday on 21st of January.
( Scary Stories )

Located half an hour from Ica, Huacachina is a tiny oasis town set deep among the sandy dunes of the Peruvian desert. A few hostels, a few restaurants and artisan shops, all surrounding a beautiful lagoon on the shores of which the local children swim and slide on boards from the nearby dunes. "Tranquilo" they call such places. Tranquil and quiet ( Read more... )

Nazca probably would be completely unknown if not only for the famous gigantic drawings, known to us as the Nazca Lines. Created thousands of years ago by the Nazca people, many wonder what is the purpose of these lines, but one thing is certain -- the only way to really appreciate these drawings is to take a ride in a small, six seater plane and ( Read more... )

Not having found anything else of interest in Arequipa itself, we moved on to plan number two. Colca Canyon, one of the most famous Peruvian wonders,is located not four hours away from Arequipa. Described as being twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and easy enough to hike through without a guide, we could not resist. We caught a 2am bus hoping to ( Read more... )

The trip to Arequipa (Peru) took us about 24 hours, just a tad longer than our non-stop twenty-two hour bus ride from Lima to Cuzco. This time we spent less time in the bus, but with border crossing and three bus changes we got to Arequipa quite late the next evening. Personally, I was really looking forward to Arequipa. Many people we met on the ( Read more... )

We heard from other travelers that it might be possible to actually spend a night on the islands staying with a local family; yet, the book warned us that this experience might be very touristy and quite cheesy. However, nothing prepared us to how kitschy and prearranged this excursion was.
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Cuzco was great, but it was time to move on. For days now we have been contemplating our departure, but Cuzco's creamy soups and being late on updating this journal kept us put. Finally we decided to leave the quiet comfort of Qoni Wasi (“warm home” in Quechua) and take a night bus to Puno, thus saving us travel time and a cost of a night in a ( Read more... )

Time flew by and we realized we spending Christmas in Cuzco. It's not just that we forgot to buy our bus tickets out of town. The truth is we spent the last couple of days typing up our notes from the jungle. Didn't really want to bring out the laptop in the canoe ( Read more... )

Another day of nothing but ruins and bargaining. Pisac is about an hour away from Cuzco where you can see one of greatest ruins aroud: Temple of the Sun.



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