Today we’re focusing on the small things every traveler can do to avoid potentially trip-ruining problems brought on by food & drink, insects, sun exposure and altitude sickness. With a few easy steps, you can live the adventure of your trip to Peru to the fullest!
Throughout Peru, Christmas Eve (Noche Buena) is most important, with a festive atmosphere in the streets, while Christmas day the cities appear deserted as most choose to spend the day with family and businesses stay closed. This dichotomy holds true in Lima, where on Christmas Eve, roving street vendors and pop-up street fairs suddenly appear from nowhere in great numbers, eager to showcase the year’s must-have toys and decorations.
Santurantikuy: Then & Now
On December 24th each year, Peru’s largest folk art fair, Santurantikuy, hits the main square of Cusco in a tradition dating back to the colonial period. The name is Quechua for Saints’ Sale, which is what it originally was: an art fair providing wise men, holy family, virgins and saints for home nativities. The fair’s most prevalent product was the Niño Manuelito in many manifestations. (The Niño Manuelito is the child Christ, and the most traditional incarnation is that of a young child seated in a wooden chair with a raised foot showing a wound into which buyers insert a thorn which remains in the wound until a wish is granted.)
Ica celebrates its tourism week each November with free tours, contests, food fairs, and more. Although the city hasn’t published this year’s program yet, it seems like the perfect time to explain the city’s culture and attractions for all those who’d like to explore the desert coast of Peru. Dance to the rhythms of Afro-Peruvian criollo music, sample the piscos and wines of the bodegas, watch diving Humboldt penguins, sandboard down some of the world’s largest dunes, visit a real desert oasis, and see the Cahuachi pyramids in an unforgettable journey.
Those of you traveling through Bolivia or Peru during the holiday season will notice that Christmas here is quite different than in many other places. Firstly, it falls in summertime and, in the Andes, the rainy season. Rather than ubiquitous Santa Clauses on every corner and in every shopping mall, there’s the live-action neighborhood nativity with real animals and people.