General: Peru > Reviews > A place you wont want to leave!!

Author's product rating:   

Value for Money	Excellent
Shopping	Good
Nightlife	Good
Ease of getting around	Good
Family Friendly	Average

Advantages:	Visit one of the wonders of the world and meet amazing people
Disadvantages:	Long and expensive flights .  You must speak spanish

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Peru is a place that you will visit and it will change your life. After spending 6 weeks there in summer 2004 it felt like a 2nd home and was very difficult to leave. To start off with the flights are very expensive to get there costing around £600. We found it cheaper to fly from manchester to Amsterdam then on to Lima. However Peru is a developing country and everything once you get there is very cheap.

I was traveling with 2 other girls that had been there before. This was important to me as you really must have a basic understanding of Spanish! Peruvians generally apart from in the very touristy areas like Cusco do not speak any English. You need to make the effort as your in there country.

I spent the majority of my time there in Lima. Most people use this city just as an airport but they are really missing out. Lima has lots of hidden culture and amazing people. You really should take your time to explore it further. Miraflores is just outside Lima centre and seems to attract the tourists from Lima. We found this area to be over touristy with things like Irish bars. I got pick pocketed while in this area. You need to take extra care if you visit here.

While in Lima i spend time with a charity that worked with the poorest children to provide them with nursery care. The charity called hand in hand opened my eyes to the shanty towns that surround Lima. This is a side of Peru and south America that some people avoid but i think going and meeting these people is life changing.

Another place i visited while I was in Peru was Arequipa. This was further across the mountains and flying is so easy and cheap. Arequipa has lots of culture with a strong Catholic community with lots of magnificant churches. It is a great place to experience the Peruvian culture out of a city setting. From Arequipa you can also see Mr Misty, this is volcanoe about 3 days drive away which is exceptional to watch the sun rise over.

Another place you must see is Cusco. It is very touristy however it is home to the beginings of the Inca trail. We booked a train for machu picchu from here however we did end uo getting split up. You can treck there but this starts from a 4 day treck. An important thing to note is that due to errosion from visitor the number of ticket been sold to visit here is being reduced. Thhis means the prices are going up. Machu Picchu is a must if you visit Peru deffinatly worth saving up to go see. There are lots of other things to do in Cusco. We went white water rafting for a full day and it only cost us about £8 each including food.

Other places to see in Peru are the rainforests and the Northern coast where im told there is great surfing. Some things to note however wonderfull this country is, is thst you need to be careful travelling around even in taxis in Lima, traveling in 2 or more is always advisable. There was strangle killings of tourists and some young girls while we were there. Also we went in the summer which is their winter. It was was warm enough during the day but it could become very cold in the mountains when the sun set.

Go see Peru and you wont want to leave!!