General: Peru > Reviews > one month backpacking around northern peru

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Advantages:	friendly people, such a variety in landscape, everything is very cheap !
Disadvantages:	lima is always foggy, cant get anywhere without speaking spanish and they never think your arriving untill u get there !

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yes

Full review

well, after spending 1 month backpacking around northern peru with 19 other people, i guess i'd better tell everyone about it!

we got the 15 hour flight from heathrow to lima, and when we arrived we got minibuses to the richest area in lima where we stayed in a nice hostel called san jose in miraflores.

after a couple of days in lima (tourist markets, museums, shops and fog) we took an internal flight to tarapoto in the north, which was really hot and sunny and we stayed in a lovely hotel called hostel lilly which had a swimming pool, roof terrace and air conditioning, which was very useful! tarapoto had a few nice, cheap shops, a good jewellry market, a pretty main square, a pizzaria and a karaoke bar and disco!

from tarapoto we took an 8 hour bus journey to yurimaguas, through foresty hills. its a very bumpy journey! but there are some great views! especially if your driver drives fast round the bends in the road, which is very narrow and has a steep drop to one side!

at yurimaguas we stayed in hotel estrella, which means star, but it didnt even deserve the one star that it called itself because there were cockroaches, ants in the beds, no showers or bathroom doors, leaks in the roof, you get the idea!

from yurimaguas we took a 12 hour cargo boat down a tributary of the amazon, to a village called lagunas, from where we walked for 2 hours to a village where we got some guides and dug out canoes and spent 3 days camping in the jungle. that was the best bit of the trip for me (wildlife, strange noises, canoeing around).

then we did the journey in reverse back to tarapoto, where we did some white water rafting which was really fun.

then we got a bus to chachapoyos in the hills which was cold but pretty. the best restaurent there is called chacha, and we went there for dinner everynight!

we took another bus to a remote village in the cloud forests, which was beautiful, where we built a playground for the local children, very rewarding and fun.

back to chachapoyos, from where we took a bus to chiclayo, then another bus to trujillo then another bus to chimbote, and another bus to huaraz! but it was worth it!

huaraz is a touristy town in a valley in the andes, and we stayed in hotel independencia which had a roof terrace, from where you could see all the mountains. from huaraz we went on a 4 day trek in the andes, and hired donkeys to carry our tents.

huaraz has lots of people offering horseriding, trekking, guides, and other fun things, as well as the main shopping street which has several tourist markets, and good, cheap restaurents. after our trek we took a bus back to lima, from where we flew home.

overall we all had a greally great time. peru has so many different environments, amazon jungle and many rivers in the north east, coastal plains along the west, mounains next to the plains, cloud forests, many ruins all over the country, busy towns and remote villages, traditional costumes, friendly people, good food, amazing architecture and stunning views. i really want to go back there, and visiting there has made me want to visit other south american countries as well!