The very day of our arrival in Puno was the first day of the Fiesta de la Candelaria, which is said to stand with the carnival in Rio and the one in Oruro, Bolivia, as one of the three largest festivals in South America. This said, it’s probably the largest fest of culture, music and dancing in Perú with more than 200 dances in over 150 dance sets. The festival is in honor of the Virgen de la Candelaria, patron saint of Puno. Over 70’000 people are somehow involved in the festive activities (the city has a population of about 100’000). Most of the participating dancers were dressed in very colorful costumes, dancing through Puno. The evening are all about drinking and […]

We arrived in Puno, which would be our last stop in Perú,  in the morning after a night bus ride. Puno is a small city on the shore of Lago Titicaca, only two hours from the Peruvian-Bolivian border. The city itself is no beauty, though the huge lake with its floating islands is pretty amazing. What’s more is the big statue of a condor on top of Mirador de Kuntu Wasi, one of the city’s surrounding mountains. On our second day we took a boat to Las Islas Flotantes de los Uros, which cost us 10 Soles plus 5 Soles entry fee each. They brought us to some islands that were mostly made outta straw – and were floating. A […]

Our flight took hardly an hour (well, plus 45 mins delay). It was quite an experience to fly above these countless mountains and see everything from above. After the 10-Sol taxi ride from the airport to the historic center, we walked around for what felt like hours with all our backpacks to find a cheap and nice hostel. At that point we were used to that though, since we hardly ever booked a place to stay in advance. In the end we found a nice and cozy place called Hostal Central (it got less nice and cozy from day to day though), where we had to pay 15 dollars each per night. We walked around the centro historico for a while and […]

Arrived in Huaraz, it was raining like crazy, and we had to find a hostel. Luckily, we ran into some promotion guy of that hostel called Akilpo, which turned out to be a very good choice, costing us about eight dollars each per night. Huaraz is located in between many mountains in a beautiful environment, though the city itself is no beauty. It is the capital of the region of Ancash which is sometimes called La Suiza Peruana because of its mountainous scenery. Restaurant recommendation: Pizza BB, not the very cheapest but you get a lot for what you pay. We drank Peruvian wine for the first time there and it was better than I’d expected it to be. An […]

We left Huanchaco in the early afternoon for Trujillo and got on the bus to Chimbote. Arrived less than two hours later, we booked a bus to Huaraz, passing the Cañón del Pato, for the coming day (cost us about 25 Soles each).
This canyon is by some considered the real highlight of Perú and it was very impressive indeed. For about six hours our bus drove on quite narrow gravel roads, sometimes just centimeters away from the abyss, hundreds of meters above the river down in the canyon.

We didn’t stay in Ecuador all that long since we still had a long way to go. From Montañita we took a bus that once again brought us to Guayaquil, where we changed buses to Tumbes, Perú, and, from there, down to Máncora. Another popular surf spot, Máncora was far less crowded that Montañita. We weren’t there on a weekend though and later heard that it gets quite packed when Friday arrives.

On January 3, I took a flight from JFK to Panama City and another one from there to Quito. I arrived in Latin America for the first time in my life. After waiting for like an hour or more at immigration, my friend Oli was awaiting me at Vibes Hostel (cheap and quite okay) in Quito’s infamous neighborhood Mariscal late at night. A taxi took me straight to the hostel for 8 dollars.