Peru

The country of the Inca. The country of the Nasca lines. A country with an amazing variety. I had the honour to visit Peru in 2010 in the frame of the Iberoamerican Leadership Congress organized by AIESEC. A 13h flight from Amsterdam took me to this country I didn’t know much about. A part of the world I had never been before.

Peru is located in the North-West of South America, bordering with Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia and Chile. A rich culture where the food is determined of eggs and potatoes (in my point of view). The clothes show rich colors and Lima is a very interesting city on the coast of the pacific.

Something you learn from the point you arrive in Peru is being patient. Things take a little bit more time. Sometimes they work out, sometimes not. But hurrying is of no use. Stress lives somewhere else. Instead, the Spanish “Mañana” found its place here.

In case you are for the first time in Peru and don’t know a lot of people, get on one of the hop-on-hop-off busses and just explore the city. The better you know Spanish, the easier you will get to know people.

Peru has an amazing diversity. You can drive along the coast and have the beach and then the sea on your right side. On your left side, a desert may display and beyond it mountains with snow on them…

One of my stops were “Las Duñas de Ica” which are dunes where you can take part in various adventures. A little town is close to it and there are quite some hostels where you can stay and mostly also have parties.

I decided for a drive through the desert with sandboarding. Sand what? Yeah. Sandboarding. You know snowboarding? So you got an idea about sandboarding 😉

With that sandboard, I slided down an around 250m hill downwards lying on the board on my stomach. Afterwards, I probably had sand everywhere. It is an incredible feeling and experience because you reach quite some speed and can’t really stop.

When you do sports, you get hungry…right? Let’s see what Peru has to offer in terms of food…let me give you some ideas:

Please do not ask me, how those dishes are called. They taste really good and very often eggs are included in one or another way. Another precious part of Peru is the production of wine. I had the chance to visit such a “farm” and also be part of actually making wine…we stamped some grapes 🙂

After “stepping-grapes” we went on a very special short trip…it lead me to an untouched environment close the the Peruvian coast in the Pacific. We took a boat and saw some very exclusive natural parts of the country…if only I could remember the name!

The beautiful aspect about that scenery is that all the animals there are living naturally there. The last picture above was shot without any zoom. Incredible, isn’t it? After such an experience, you will hardly ever go to any zoo again 😉

The glorious end of this journy was surfing in the Pacific. Here again as in most of the countries: go away from the capital and to some little villages and you will find perfect waves and conditions for this sport. You gotta try it out!