In an effort to promote public appreciation for local arts, the weeklong festivities include extended hours at galleries, artist talks, a children´s drawing contest, and a concert as the grand finale.

Lima's week of art, Peru

Whether you’re on top of the contemporary art scene or just a casual arts enthusiast, La Semana de Arte is a great way to discover the city during a Lima tour.

Throughout the week, chic galleries in Barranco and Miraflores have hosted the city’s top avante-garde artists. It´s a rotating parade of cutting edge artworks that visitors can check out for free.

At the Museo de Arte (MALI), José Carlos Martinat´s fascinating ¨Monumentos Vandalizables: Abstraccion de Poder III¨, which includes graffitied models of buildings that represent institutions of power in Lima, and the local photographer Mario Testino´s stunning ¨Portraits¨ are also on view in the newly-remodeled Palacio de la Exposición.

From 7am to 11pm today, the San Isidro district gets to play posh, hosting contemporary art at a number of galleries. The Enlace Arte Contemporaneo displays work by Luis E. Camejo; La Galeria presents work by Valeria Ghezzi; Galeria Vertice exhibits a group show incorporating videography, photography, and canvas works; Galeria Indigo also hosts a group show; and Centro Cultural University Catolica Gallery showcases work on the poet César Vallejo.

On Saturday, the district of Callao ends the art fest with a children´s drawing festival at noon and free concert by the local rock band FRAGIL at 7pm at the Real Felipe Museum.

You can view the giant sculptures by Benito Rosa, Antonio Pareja, Silvia Westphalen, Javier Aldana, and more. The children´s festival, hosted by Faber-Castell, features a children´s drawing contest.

With a population of nearly 9 million, the city of Lima can seem daunting sprawl of sights to a traveler. Events like La Semana de Arte help to reign in the nearly endless options. If you can´t be in Lima this week for Art Week, consider taking a tour of Lima or planning your future trip to coincide with other cultural events.

Reaching Lima, the capital of Peru as well as many other popular destinations in South America just keeps on getting easier. A number of international airlines offer direct routes and the choice has got wider as LAN airlines has announced a new set or routes direct from the US, along with a number of promotional fares.

LAN, who is partnered with American Airlines, is now the only airline offering direct flights from San Francisco. The new route starts on the 1 July 2010 and will offer four flights per week. Along with other direct flights available from New York, Miami and Los Angeles – getting to South America just keeps getting easier.

For travelers hoping to see as much as South America in short space of time, LAN has also announced a direct flight from Cusco to Iguazu in Argentina to compliment its other regional routes; allowing you to make the most out of your time in this stunning continent and see more of the world famous sites that are located here.

If travelling from Europe, a number of national airlines have direct flights to the South America including KLM and British Airways. Major cities in the region such as Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Bogota, Santiago and Lima operate as airport hubs, offering easy direct onward connections to other airports in the region.

See a previous blog article on advice as to how to get the cheapest fares.

For further information on the new flights, see the LAN Peru website: www.lan.com.

The Plaza de Armas of Ayacucho is beautifully developed, with a stunning cathedral on the east side and lush green grasses surrounding a central fountain. Take a visit to the central market and you’ll find you’re probably the only person in there that doesn’t speak Quechua. Rows of Señora’s stand in front of huge sacks of ‘wawa’, fresh-baked sweet bread, in the shape of a baby after its Quechua name.

Ayacucho Cathedral at Night

When your face appears at the juice bars, the women lean over their counters smiling and waving you over, competing for your business. Walking down the aisle of smelly cheeses, you’ll pop out onto the back street where against the wall, you’ll find huge sacks of coca leaves, and men and women, young and old coming to buy coca.

Sadly, in the 1980s, the city and region of Ayacucho were affected by unrest caused by the Maoist guerrilla band, known as the Shining Path. Combined with the Peruvian military’s often harsh reaction, the unrest caused Ayacucho to become one of the poorest regions of Peru. Fortunately the strife ended with the arrest of the Shining Path’s leader in 1992 and Ayacucho has been a peaceful place for more than 15 years.

This difficult history has left Ayacucho struggling to develop as a tourist destination despite its stunning location and friendly inhabitants. The city offers visitors a balance between modern comforts and traditional culture. In the center you’ll find quality hotels with hot water, restaurants with English menus serving a wide variety of dishes beyond the locally popular pollo a la brasa and puca picante. There’s an artisan market that makes souvenir buying easy and offers  among the cheapest prices on Peruvian handicrafts you’ll find anywhere in the country.

Central Ayacucho

I was in Ayacucho long enough to become a regular at the juice counter, trying to spread my custom around though it’s difficult when these sweet ladies smile in recognition of my face and call up my usual without a moment’s thought, ‘platano con leche.’ They always had plenty of customers anyway, no matter when I showed up.

The downtown is a far cry from what you’ll find in the outer districts of the city, where people live very simply without many of the comforts of modern life. Taking the bus up the hill to the orphanage where I was a volunteer, I’d sit next to a tired old woman, with a sun-dried face under a brown, flat-brimmed hat, huge bundles of vegetables filled a rice-sack at her feet and a young baby wrapped around her back in a brightly colored wool shawl. Soon, I’d stand up to give up my seat to another woman, looking the same.

Climbing down from the bus to the dusty, rubble streets of Carmen Alto, children are playing soccer in sandals made of tire, and an old toothless man is standing on the corner selling cheese. Listening to the playful banter of the children however, you wouldn’t know they had a problem in the world.

Looking across the city tucked down in the valley to the 10,000 ft mountains on the other side, you can see the large white obelisk at Quinua. Just an hour away, this is the site of the Battle of Ayacucho, winning Peru the War of Independence in 1824. Nowadays, you can explore the quaint little town, famous for beautiful handcrafted pottery, horseback riding and its short hike to a beautiful waterfall.

The well-preserved Wari ruins are located just below Quinua on your way back to Ayacucho. The hiking is beautiful, and the rich history of the ancient Wari culture is evident in administrative and ceremonial sites. Exploring off the path a little bit and you’ll find broken shards of pottery and arrowheads scattered on the ground. Quinua and Wari are just two of the easy excursions from Ayacucho.

Ayacucho can be reached daily from Lima in just over an hour flight with LC Busre or Star Peru. In fact, there are rumors of a regular Ayacucho – Cusco flight being added to the agenda in the next couple years, which will quickly boost the tourism industry in Ayacucho, linking it as an easy stop-over on the way to Machu Picchu. The city is certainly ready for it.

So, check your Peru itineraries, because maybe now is the best time to go before the city loses some of that undiscovered quality.

Emily was a volunteer for the Casa Hogar Los Gorriones in Ayacucho, Peru. If you would like to learn more about volunteering at Los Gorriones or how you can help, please visit their website.

Some of the most remote and exciting Peru adventure treks can be found in the Vilcabamba mountain range, a few hours drive from Cusco, where the mountains are characterized by steep ravines, dense, almost tropical vegetation and some of Peru’s most isolated and impressive ruins and archeological sites.

Choquequirao on one of the new Peru trekking adventure routes in Vilcabamba. Photograph, Matthew Barker 2009

This new range of Vilcabamba treks offers adventure lovers a chance to stray away from the crowds and venture deep into untouched territory. All of the treks range from a moderate to challenging activity level: ideal for the physically fit and active, or for experienced trekkers who want to push their boundaries.

One of the many attractions of the Vilcabamba mountain range is the area’s richness in history and archeology. This region was the last refuge of the Inca as they retreated from Cusco during the Spanish conquest. It is here that visitors can find the last Inca cities, at Espiritu Pampa, Vilcabamba and Choquequirao.

Treks can even link these isolated, barely explored ruins with the most famous site of all: Machu Picchu, an epic ten day adventure across the mountains that follows the final footsteps of the Inca.

Importantly, aware of the challenging nature of these routes, which range between extremes in altitude and temperature, Peru For Less offers some of the highest quality trekking services available – with the best possible guides, equipment, food and chefs. Touches like warm showers, pre-warmed sleeping bags and three full meals per day plus snacks are aimed to ensure comfort at every step during a Vilcabamba treks.

With such attention on some of South America’s most spectacular sights, we thought we’d give a Latin America For Less guide to visiting each place that is in contention for the title of South America’s most important Natural Wonder.

Cruising the Tambopata River in Peru's Amazon rainforest

The Amazon rainforest is currently ranked in first place as South America’s most important natural wonder. It is the biggest forest in the world and is home to the single greatest concentration of life on the planet: one tenth of the planet’s species are found right here, in the Amazon.

Visiting the Amazon has become increasingly easy in recent years, especially during a Brazil or a Peru vacation, and thanks to the growth of eco-tourism, it’s now possible to visit the rainforest while causing minimal disruption to the pristine environment.

Where To Go

There are many options for exploring the Peruvian Amazon, but the three most popular entrance points are Iquitos, Puerto Maldonado and Manu.

Iquitos, the world’s largest city not accessible by road, is a genuine frontier outpost deep in the wilderness. You can only get here by air or a long boat journey, but once you’ve arrived you will discover a truly unique tropical city, with entire neighborhoods of house boats floating on the river, restaurants serving exotic and delicious jungle delicacies, a lively night scene, and plenty of jungle lodges dotted up and downstream, offering a chance to get up close and personal with the wildlife.

Puerto Maldonado meanwhile is a more accessible but somewhat less intriguing town. The appeal of this ramshackle settlement is its proximity to Cusco, another popular Peru vacation destination. Travelers can leave Cusco in the morning and by mid-afternoon be settled in to their tranquil jungle lodge, a long way from civilization.

Finally, the Manu reserve on the eastern flanks of the Andes is some of the most remote and least accessible stretch of jungle in Peru. This is a vast region of protected land, and is a paradise for the jungle’s many native species of creatures, especially birds. A visit to Manu offers a genuine taste of jungle life, one of the few remaining places with large populations of large mammals, including jaguars, anteaters and tapirs.

All three destinations offer similar standards of lodges, although the range in Iquitos and Puerto Maldonado is much broader than in Manu.

However, visitors should bear in mind that Iquitos is a large city, with plenty of economic activity focused around the river. Its size and unique atmosphere make it an interesting Peru travel destination in its own right, but also means that the nearby jungle is not a great place for wildlife spotting. You need to journey for several hours, preferably upriver, to get into untouched territory.

Finally, throughout the Amazon, certain restaurants serve questionable produce, including endangered or threatened species such as paiche (an enormous fish), turtle, and caiman. Although it is technically illegal to serve these species, the law is largely un-enforced, but visitors should consult their conscience before indulging.

Travelers enjoying Peru vacations over the Christmas period get a unique opportunity to see a different side of this fascinating country.

Lima at Christmas, Peru. Photograph from www.streetsofperu.blogspot.com

Traditions vary throughout Peru. In the north, it’s common to see effigies of public figures burned in the streets, often accompanied by vivacious firework displays that continue late into the night.

Meanwhile in Lima, it’s normal for families to gather for dinner on the 24^th, and celebrate the arrival of Christmas Day at midnight. Again, the sound of fireworks will never be far, and after midnight, people will head out to visit their friends or their favorite night spot to celebrate until the early hours of the morning.

Peruvians are hospitable people and lucky visitors may well be invited to help celebrate Christmas at the family home. If you’re fortunate to receive such an invite, remember its good form to bring something along – an ideal gift is the ubiquitous paneton, a large and sweet sponge cake stuffed with dried fruits and usually sold in a festive looking box.

Others will use the holidays to get out of the city and spend some time on the many beaches that dot the northern and southern coastline near Lima.

In the sierra and the mountains, Christmas celebrations come with a typically Andean twist. Colorful fiestas are thrown, complete with vivid costumes and lively music, creative nativity scenes are erected, and in Cusco, the famous Santuranticuy (Buying of the Saints) market draws people from miles around.

Travel to Peru over this period is easy and enjoyable, but for the smoothest Peru travel experience possible, bear the following points in mind.

- Christmas is a busy travel period for the entire country, with people often covering large distances to visit their families. For this reason, make your transport arrangements well in advance and book your tickets before the seats fill up.

- The 24^th is usually the main day for most celebrations and travel on this day is especially difficult, or expensive. The bus company Cruz Del Sur runs a skeleton service and prices are higher.
- With everyone enjoying a vacation, Peru hotels are often booked up well in advance. Make sure you’ve got your accommodation arrangements made with plenty of time.

- On the 25^th, most vital services including banks and money exchangers will be closed. ATMs will be working as normal.

Peruvians have always been proud of their unique cultural fusion – the merging of Hispanic with traditional Andean societies, along with a healthy dose of Afro-Caribbean influence as well as the countless indigenous communities of the selva, the deep Amazon jungle.

The most famous outcome of this cultural melting pot has been Peruvian criollo cuisine, a treat for anyone enjoying a Peru travel experience. But the fusion is expressed in many other forms, in particular the country’s rich music and dance traditions, which come under the spotlight during this time of year, as the Peruvian winter fades into the long, sultry summer.

A major event is la Dia de la Cancion Criolla, or the Day of the Creole Song, a major national event on 31 October that is most prominent in the music loving coastal towns and cities.

Much of this music was influenced by the descendants of African slaves, and is characterized by lively, fast rhythms and fun, flirtatious dancing. Popular instruments are the guitar and the cajón, a rectangular wooden box that is played as a percussion instrument by fast-handed drummers with perfect timing.

The Day of the Creole Song is a major celebration right along Peru’s central coast but is less prominent in highland or jungle communities, where other forms of indigenous music are more popular.

For the best celebrations, head to Lima, Trujillo, Ica or Chiclayo. Celebrations tend to be focused around the towns’ central Plaza de Armas, and the numerous bars and peñas nearby, although in Lima, some of the best events are to be found in the southern districts of Surco and Barranco.

The event makes for great memories during Peru vacations, but come prepared for loud, boisterous and raucous celebrations, especially as the sun goes down and the proceedings become more alcohol fuelled. For the most authentic experiences, go with some Peruvian friends.

A couple of weeks after the Day of the Creole Song festival and another big criollo event comes to Peru, the Festival de Danzas Negras, in the town of Chincha, just south of Lima.

Playing the Canjon in Chincha, Peru. Photograph: Creative Commons

Chincha, in particular the neighborhood of El Carmen, is home to one of Peru’s most distinct and vibrant Afro Peruano communities. Mostly descended from slaves brought from Africa to work on coastal cotton plantations, the community of El Carmen has retained its rich identity, which is celebrated every November with a major dance festival, attracting visitors from across the country, especially Lima folk looking for a weekend break on the coast.

The festival usually occurs over the first weekend of November. It’s easy to get to Chincha and El Carmen by bus from Lima, a journey that takes around two hours. Hotels in the area are likely to get booked up fairly quickly so either make reservations ahead or arrive early to get a decent room.

The capital city Lima is arguably the best place to head to sample Peruvian fare, where there are countless eateries that tempt travelers and locals alike with an array of succulent Peruvian dishes.

Ceviche, made from raw fish marinated in lime juice, a typically Limeño dish to enjoy on a Peru vacation

A recent article in the New York Times threw the spotlight over small family run restaurants in Lima – or huariques – as being an inexpensive option for tasting typical Peruvian dishes.

Often operating behind closed doors, the owners of huariques specialize in preparing one or two single recipes that have been handed down through their families for generations. These recipes originate from anywhere between Japan and Africa, yet they always make full use of ingredients found on the Peruvian coast, mountains and jungle.

The atmosphere of huariques, reports the NYT, can be rustic and informal, but the food is no less delicious; such favorites as Ceviche (raw fish marinated in lime and chilli), Anticuchos (succulent skewered beef heart) and Lomo Saltado (stir fried beef sirloin with onion, chilli peppers, tomatoes and French fries) are sometimes of better quality than even the finest restaurants in Peru.

Unfortunately for those who travel to Lima, huariques can be difficult to track down, or are not always available at the desired time. Luckily there are a whole host of quality Lima restaurants that give travelers the opportunity to indulge in some delicious Peruvian cuisine.

Latin America For Less Director and Peru cuisine fanatic, Bernard Schleien

Asked to detail some of the finest restaurants in Lima, Latin America For Less Director Bernard Schleien was eager to point out a few of his favorites:

Astrid y Gaston: Finest restaurant in Peru and probably among the finest in the world. Peruvian and international food. This is a highly acclaimed restaurant with a solid international reputation. Average main course $20.
Phone: (01) 4441496
Address: Cantaurias 175, Miraflores

Malabar. Excellent creative cuisine. Local and international food. Astrid y Gaston used to be my favorite restaurant until I visited this one. The chef and owner is truly talented and my guess is that this restaurant will be officially recognized as the best in Peru in the near future. Average main course $20.
Phone: (01)4405200, (01). 440 5300
Address: Camino Real. 101 , San Isidro

Casa Hacienda Moreyra. Hacienda style restaurant and probably one of the very few Lima restaurants where architecture meets excellent food. Local and international food. Average Main course $20.
Phone: (01) 4443979, (01)4444022
Address: Paz Soldán 290, San Isidro

El Tanta. Same owners as Astrid y Gaston. Excellent food and value (local and international). Average main course $13.
Phone: (01) 3723528
Address: Prolongación Primavera 692, Surco

La Mar. Same owners as Astrid y Gaston (Gaston Acurio is a local hero for entrepreneurship and the leading figure in Peru’s culinary big bang). Superb Seafood. Expect a 30-60 minute wait. Average main course $13.
Address: La Mar Av. 774, Miraflores

A life long aficionado of cooking in his home country, Mr. Schleien holds the cuisine of Lima in particularly high esteem. “It is Peru’s melting pot … People from all over Peru and all over the world have migrated to Lima and they have fused their cooking.”

Furthermore, he explained that the application of gourmet habits from the West to Peruvian cooking – such as technique, presentation and food hygiene – have helped the capital city to perfect its culinary offering.

And whether eating in a family ran huarique or in any of the city’s best restaurants, those who travel to Peru can rest assured that they are always likely to be enamored with Lima’s excellent cuisine.