Without Machu Picchu you’ll enjoy the trip of a lifetime

SPECIAL: PERU WITHOUT MACHU PICCHU – Machu Picchu is closed. It will stay that way through all of February at the very least. Do you have your flights booked and are wondering what to do next? Should you cancel or put off your trip to Cuzco?

February 4, 2010 | Travel and Places

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Peru celebrates Independence Day with fountain of booze [Featured]

ITN News reports on the yearly tradition of the pisco fountain in the Plaza de Armas. It has long since become a popular part of the Fiestas Patrias celebrations. (Previous year’s)

July 27, 2009 | Lima City Guide, Opinion, Peruvian Food

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The ‘Peruvian vampire’ from East Lancashire [Featured]

Sarah Roberts, an East Lancashire woman who died 96 years ago in Peru, is one of the most iconic cult figures in the South American country. According to Peruvian legend, she had to be buried there as nowhere else in the world would take the casket of a woman believed to be one of the three brides of Dracula. But historians in East Lancashire said Sarah was ‘just a cotton weaver’ and that there was no substance whatsoever in the Peruvian myth.

May 25, 2009 | Culture & History

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Lima – Weekend Getaways

So, what is the tourist, with more time in Lima then they’d prefer and no interest in a city experience, to do?

The truth is, Peru is such a magical place that you do not need to go too far outside the city of Lima to find attractions that rival those elsewhere in the country. From desert oases, pretty Andean villages and ancient pyramids to hiking trails, white water rafting and horseback riding – here’s the run down of nearby weekend getaways.

January 26, 2009 | Lima City Guide, Nature

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Caravelí

At 12 hours from the Peruvian capital Lima, Caravelí, in the Arequipan province of the same name, was lucky to survive and keep – thanks to its relative isolation – its splendid bodegas of wines and piscos. Other towns in the south weren’t so lucky and were pillaged and burnt to the ground by Chilean troops in the War of the Pacific. This year the town presented itself in the national pisco contest that took place in Lima and took first place for its exemplary pisco of black creole grape, called El Comendador.

January 3, 2009 | Arequipa Guide

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Bar Maury and the Pisco Sour

Californian immigrant Victor Morris arrived in the city in the early 1900s and set up a bar that operated until 1933.

It is said that it was here in Bar Morris that the Pisco Sour was first conceived, invented either by Victor or one of his bar staff, based on the recipe for whiskey sour.

The new cocktail was a huge hit, and the city’s biggest hotels, such as the Hotel Bolivar and Hotel Maury began serving their own versions to their international clients.

Bar Maury took up the mantel, and according to barman Eloy Cuadros, who is now part of the furniture, it is here the recipe was perfected and it is their version that has spread across the country. It seems very plausible – Eloy served me the best Pisco Sour I have ever had.

September 19, 2008 | Culture & History, Lima City Guide, Peruvian Food

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Peruvian Pisco Conquers the World

It was not much more than a century ago that, thanks to a bar in San Francisco’s Bank Exchange, the then little-known national spirit of Peru started making an impact on the international stage. Since then, due to under-appreciation by Peruvians, Chile sneakily claimed ownership of the Pisco brand, making and exporting a greatly inferior mass-produced imitation product that had run the spirit’s reputation abroad into the ground. For many outside Chile, Pisco was now considered junk.

September 17, 2008 | Lima City Guide, Peruvian Food

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Lunahuaná

The town of Lunahuaná, in the Cañete river valley in the southern end of the Lima region near Ica, is the furthest of what are considered Lima’s weekend getaway spots. At about 2 and a half hours away, passing through the towns of Cañete and Nuevo Imperial, is the pretty little colonial town and adventure sports centre of the region.

August 12, 2008 | Lima City Guide

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Santiago Queirolo

One of Peru’s many Italian immigrants, Santiago Queirolo Raggio arrived in Magdalena Vieja, now Pueblo Libre, in 1880s. In this time Magdalena Vieja was surrounded by an expanse of countryside and the city of Lima was some distance away by horse.

August 2, 2008 | Lima City Guide, Peruvian Food

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Pueblo Libre

Once a small town outside Lima on the way to the port of Callao, Pueblo Libre still maintains its colonial looks and that small town feel.

Now deep in the centre of the metropolis that is Lima and Callao – one of South America’s biggest cities – Pueblo Libre manages to remain relatively quiet. Only a couple large thoroughfares pass through the district – and the streets just off of these are mostly residential.

August 1, 2008 | Lima City Guide

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Algarrobina

Algarrobo is the Spanish name for the Carob tree, a tree of Mediterranean origin that produces, in Spanish, the Algarroba fruit from which algarrobina can be produced. This tree grows up to 10 meters tall and can eventually grow huge branches. It survives well in dry climates allowing it to do well on the Peruvian coast.

December 26, 2007 | Peruvian Food

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San Martín and Peruvian Independence

It was from this balcony in Huaura that in 1820 General Jose de San Martín first declared Peruvian independence from Spain.

November 24, 2007 | Culture & History

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