Category:Solo South America
When I say ‘the Last Word’, I don’t mean that I’m going to be able to give you all the low down you’ll need to get yourself around Buenos Aires, far from it. This is more the last word on my own particular journey, the final entry of my South American journal. Even though I started and ended my journey here, I don’t feel I have a handle on this sprawling metropolis that you sometimes hear described as ‘the Paris of South […]
Arriving at Jorge Chavez Airport in Lima after my timeout in Máncora brought back memories of all those times I and my siblings had flown in and out of here as children; the sadness of the parental goodbyes quickly evaporated if you were lucky to find other friends travelling at the same time as you; then returning for the holidays, mum’s chocolate cake unlikely to survive the first sitting, the joy of greeting our two dogs, grumpy Ming and flirty Fanny, the various cats, seeing […]
Sony A7RII : f/3.5@160th : ISO 8000 : EV 0.0 : FE 90mm f/2.8 A shot of a pisco sour cocktail just arrived at my table in the bar of the Hotel Maury in central Lima; it’s one of my favourite cocktails, the texture of the egg white topped with angostura bitters perfectly complementing the pisco mixed in sweetened lime juice. This bar is one of the places that is often credited as the birthplace of the pisco sour and the traditional […]
Sony A7RII : f/10@400th : ISO 640 : EV -0.3 : FE 55mm f/1.8 I thought this street art of birds in a jungle setting would go well with the previous ‘Photo of the Day’ involving the rhino. What I particularly like about the two of them is that they are made to fit so well into the environment where they are created. The rhino has the real trees in the foreground similar to the trees in its background; and here the artwork of […]
Sony A7RII : f/5.6@250th : ISO 1600 : EV 0.0 : FE 55mm f/1.8 This piece of street art of a rhino was also just across the road from the hostel I was staying at in Lima’s Barranco district. I’d taken so many photos of street art on my journey that I tried hard not to add this specimen to my collection. But as I walked passed it every day I kept on thinking that with all those crazy colours it was not doing a good […]
Sony A7RII : f/5.6@250th : ISO 4000 : EV 0.0 : FE 55mm f/1.8 I found this wall just across the road from where I was staying in Barranco, at a point where two streets running almost parallel to each other finally came together. The green from the row of cactus and the tiny strip of grass stood out strongly against the warm wall; the red flowers from the few bougainvillea branches that had escaped from the private garden on the other side of the wall […]
Sony A7RII : f/4@100th : ISO 1600 : EV +1.3 : FE 55mm f/1.8 After having spent a happy childhood growing up in Lima, I returned here for the first time in over 30 years to see whether much had changed and if any memories still remained. I also decided that it was time for me to check out somewhere other than Miraflores to stay. I’d heard great things about the nearby Barranco district and chose the Lima Wari Suites as the place to lay my head. I don’t know […]
Sony A7RII : f/11@1000th : ISO 250 : EV -0.3 : FE 90mm f/2.8 This image of the Costa Verde below the Malecón in the wealthy district of Miraflores evokes a lot of childhood memories. Before heading off to school in England, I’d lived a carefree life in this part of Lima. Memories of sliding fast down the cliff face so as to stay ahead of the dislodged rocks coming up behind us; trying to hit crabs that clambered over the breakwaters with stones we gathered […]
After having been on the road for over a month and with my birthday looming, I decided to check out and head off to a beach for some well-deserved R & R. I’d heard good things about Máncora up in the far north of Peru and booked myself a flight from Arequipa to Piura. It’s all well and good roughing it on overnight buses for a while but every now and then you’ve got to treat yourself to a creature comfort […]
After a great five days in Cusco, I headed a little further south to Arequipa, the capital of Peru for a brief period in the mid 19th century, and still regarded by many of its inhabitants as the country’s cultural centre. Being the birthplace of Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010, helps to re-inforce their gleeful claim to moral and cultural superiority over the coastal den of iniquity that is Lima. I found myself staying at a […]
