Who’da thunk that hiking up the steep, deep, Colca Canyon, Peru would have been easier than hiking down the same 3,300-feet? Going downhill was so rough that I couldn’t stop and smell the…well, I don’t know what they’re all called,…
During dinner in a rustic hiker guesthouse at the bottom of Colca Canyon, Peru, Todd decides to treat our fellow travelers to a conversation to remember, for all the wrong reasons. His choice? A story about a penis.
I’m not the kind of chick who cries. Though I’m overflowing with empathy, I’m cut from stoic stock. I cry more often while cutting onions than from sorrow or joy. Yet, at the bottom of the world’s deepest canyon, I…
There is a noticeable lack of urgency in Cabanaconde, Peru. It’s likely that this placid state is related to the lack of people and of things to do. Buses arrive, buses depart, one set of backpackers replaces another. Yet, it’s…
Who would travel deep into Colca Canyon via a pot-holed, fear-inducing, six-hour bus ride and still say to hell with seeing the area’s acclaimed and rare Andean condors? Anyone who hates early morning wake-up calls. Namely, me.
This bus smells like I imagine alpaca farts must smell — a mix of ripe compost, dry grass, wet wool, and barnyard sweat. For the next six hours, I have no choice but to breathe it in. As we begin…
Cusco, Peru is a town teetering on a precipice of unpalatablility. Touts interrupting private moments, taxis careening through small streets, tourists drinking to excess, smutty air pollution, and slutty corporatization threaten to bury this otherwise charming town. And the charm…
“Chicha de jora? Isn’t that the stuff they make with spit? Eww.” Such was the typical reaction when someone heard chicha de jora in the list of foods and drinks I wanted to try in Peru. That or a confused,…
I blew my writing wad this week on a fun guest post on Jetpac and on a Peru travel story about the deaths of two guinea pigs, one a pet, one a meal. I liked the guinea pig story so…
Just as ouzo has never tasted as good as it did is Greece, pisco sours have never tasted as good as they do in Peru. Chilly pisco sours kept the sweat at bay in Lima and exacerbated our altitude sickness…