After staying in cities like Guayaquil and Tumbes I was grateful to have arrived in Máncora, the Peruvian Montañita. There is one main tourist street that leads directly to the beach, but the city is relatively large and grows outward in all directions into the residential zones. Like Montañita there are Máncora souvenirs sold everywhere, and there is a row of beach front clubs for those who have come for the nightlife. When Lauren and I arrived we didn'...

I don't know why we torture ourselves with visits to the big cities. Last week we hopped on a bus from Montañita to Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city, in the hopes of visiting the mangroves there. We arrived at the Guayaquil bus terminal, which is so large it feels like an airport, in the early afternoon and after a 30 minute taxi ride checked into Dream Kapture hostel in the north part of the city. It was $12/night for a dorm room with a pretty good breakf...

I think I have found my paradise. For the past 2 weeks Lauren and I volunteered on a small farm on the desert coast of Peru. The place was called Jihuay, though in no way could it be considered a town or city. It was just a cool Peruvian hippie named Alvaro, his animals and the beach. To reach Jihuay we took a series of buses from La Paz to Arequipa, where we hung out for 2 days before taking another long bus ride to Chala. Arequipa was a really nice city, i...

I have decided it would be fun to write a cumulative blog for each country based on random observations and the overall way of life here as I perceive it. So for your entertainment, here are some random Perú facts: 1. There are lots of dogs. Like, dogs EVERYWHERE. Dogs of all breeds, shapes and sizes. Prowling through restaurants, meandering through markets, digging through trash on the streets, hanging out in dog gangs on corners (no joke, we've seen it!...

New life goal: build my own floating island and live on it. Today we returned from our overnight excursion to the islands in the Peruvian side of Lago Titicaca. Before you read any further, get the word 'caca' out of your head. The correct pronunciation is 'caja' and you pull the sound for both syllables from the back of the throat, much like the way the French pronounce everything (like you are hawking a lugie). We departed via boat at 9 am for our first is...