• Water

    Expat Bloggers Agree: Don’t Drink Tap Water in Peru

    Tony of HowToPeru has posted a useful survey piece on whether it’s safe to drink the tap water in Peru (Drinking Water in Peru: Safe or Unsound?). The opinions culled are those of expats (including me) currently living in the country,  so while the piece does not cite scientific evidence, it is based on hard-earned personal experience from bloggers in Lima, Cusco, Iquitos, Pucallpa and Chiclayo. The concensus? With one exception, bloggers agree that the tap water in Peru is unsafe for drinking. Some of us boil the tap water and drink that; others of us only use bottled water. I’m in the latter group. I’m glad that Tony put together this piece, because there’s…

  • Crossing Cultures,  Festivals, Sacred Rituals, Religion,  Food & Dining

    A Peruvian (non)Thanksgiving Epiphany

    It’s Friday, November 26, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States but which, in Peru, is just November 26. We don’t celebrate Turkey Day or Black Friday in this Andean nation of 30 million people. No pilgrims landed here. Just conquistadors. The locals were eating cuy, not turkey, when Pizarro invaded the place and smashed the Inca Empire. The conquistadors weren’t big on saying Thanks. They just grabbed. I was feeling unexpectedly sad yesterday morning. It was my third Non-Thanksgiving Day in Peru, and you think I would have gotten over it, but I hadn’t. What made  my disappointment a surprise is that I’ve never been big on the holiday. Back in the…

  • Animals in Peru

    Lima Day Trip: Birding at La Punta

    First, a disclaimer:  I know next to nothing about birds, let alone birds in Lima.  I can identify cuculis — those fat, grey pigeons that constantly hump in the trees — and hummingbirds and seagulls, which you can spot in various parts of the capital, but other than that, I couldn’t  begin to tell you who all those strange-looking birds are that flap around my backyard. All I know is that, like waves of tourists in Peru, some birds appear in the spring, others in the fall, and there are slews of them. Which is why I wasn’t surprised when a local birding expert informed me recently that Peru is a serious…