Craig,

I have been reading your travelogue with extreme jealousy/inspiration. Next month I leave for a month long backpacking trip through Peru. Given that you have spent a considerable amount of time in the country, I have a few questions for you. Are there any places in Peru that you haven't been that you wished you had visited? Is Mancora worth the trip, and is the surf any good in May/June? Any particular safety tips for the solo traveler in Peru? Is a month too short or too long for Peru? Would I be better off spending some time in Ecuador or Bolivia?

Best,

Parker

Craig's Response:

After talking with Tatiana, I've got some great places that you should try and visit. The month of May will be wonderful weather in the highlands, and I certainly suggest spending the bulk of your time within them (and outside of dumpy coastal cities such as Lima).

If you've only got 30 days, I suggest staying within Peru, otherwise a trip up to Ecuador would be my strong suggestion (though such a thing will push you around too much on a one-month itinerary).

I assume that you'll arrive in Lima, as well as that you'll be doing the Cuzco/ Machu Picchu thing. Depending on your budget, I might suggest two things regarding that:

1. Perhaps flying to Cuzco and back from Lima
2. Taking the harder, most interesting and exhilarating route to the top from Cuzco:
http://travelvice.com/archive/ 2006/10/machu-picchu-on-shoestring.php
http://travelvice.com/archive/ 2006/10/sneaking-into-machu-picchu.php

Tatiana and I would give these locations strong consideration:

• Huancayo (with a visit to neighboring Torre Torre) — situated west of Lima — don't forget to eat the famous papa a la huancaina
• Huaraz in the Central Highlands
• Cajamarca in the Northern Highlands
• Chachapoyas in the Northern Highlands, with a daytrip visit the the ruines of Kuélap

Those locations, plus plenty of drinks and smiles in Cuzco should be more than enough for any single month in Peru.

Mancora isn't worth the trip. Leave it for last, and if you've time and desire, jump up there from your last stop in the northern highlands — it'll be a 17-hour bus ride from Mancora back to Lima. The town swells for holiday makers, then bottoms out for the rest of the year. Over-priced restaurants and some hotels built along an ugly, busy highway (the great Pan-American). Waves are beginner level (mostly mush really), though something might start to pick up in May (Peru's winter months — May-Oct — are when the winds and waves grow stronger).

As for security, keep your wits about you. Lima is a tough city, with loads of taxi crime. Suggested reading:

• Never Trust an Idling Taxi Driver
• Taxi Protocol In Latin America

Use your own locks at hostels, keep your eye on your bag, and watch out for people on buses who crawl under your seat to slash the bag that you might keep by your feet on the long-distance bus rides.

Good luck!

//craig in israel
April 19, 2009

I read your post on lockable zippers and realized you gave up using a pacsafe. while i love mine, it is heavy and i use it rarely.

I am thinking I might need to replace my pack. i have a 65 liter from REI right now. what kind do you use? what kind have you found to be the best for extended travel? i.e. months, years.

Craig's Response:

I just replaced my fiancée's pack with a new one from Lowe Alpine, purchased in the U.S.

The TT Tour 70 is a nice, robust pack of European build quality — I'd certainly suggest it — though the price of backpacks in the States isn't particularly friendly.

I'm currently using a (year 2007) Kelty Redwing 3100. I'm quite happy with a 50-liter pack, but it's a serious downsize from your current 65-liter capacity. The Lowe Alpine is certainly the superior of the two.

http://www.lowealpine.com/eng/products.php?catid=14&type=man

Cheers,

//craig in israel
April 21, 2009

Homosexuality is considered a mental illness by the Turkish military, disqualifying the male from duty. But the catch is that this 'physiological disorder' must be proved with explicit, pornographic photos of the individual engaging in homosexual relations.

I know you went through a camera mishap a while ago and tend to stay up to date on the best travel cameras… Anything currently on your ideal camera list that'd be in the 300 range?

I have a DSLR but it's bulky and not good in cities as it marks me as a tourist and is insanely steal-able. So I like having a good point and shoot for always keeping in my pockets for general picture taking. I had an Olympus 1030, which is supposed to be water/shock/temperature-proof to various degrees, but finally succumbed to water in Rio (ridiculous as I didn't even go all the way in).

The *-proof features are nice, but I'm starting to wonder how much they matter. I don't plan on doing any more swimming with it for a while (though it is a nice feature, and makes things easier when swimming alone on beaches but wanting my camera with me). You ever look at any of the waterproof models? The new canon d10 looks excellent, but doesn't arrive until may.

Any thoughts on what the current perfect point-and-shoot for travel is?

Craig's Response:

The best camera you can own is the one that you'll carry with you. There's no sense in folks buying expensive cameras when they're just going to leave them at home.

That being said, travel camera for me is different than for most people. You're in a position that I myself wish I could be in. That is, to have a dSLR and a point-and-shoot. Your reasons are totally valid (the beach is an excellent example), and I've thought about the difference between a landscape/telephoto camera with high dynamic range and a bar cam (for high risk areas and spontaneous snapshots) often.

Because you've already got a dSLR, that means you can relax the requirements of your backup point-and-shoot (such as letting go of features like auto-bracketing, etc). Big bonus.

I too took note of Canon's D10 announcement a week or two ago. I was thinking it'd be study enough to sit unused at the bottom of my pack as a backup.

I personally think the Canon PowerShot or SD models are the quite excellent bar cameras, but I've broken so many of them that I can't recommend them for full-time travel cameras. You really need something with a casing that protects both the lens and LCD. Speaking of, have a look at my big comment here: http://travelogue.travelvice.com/bulgaria/high-dynamic-range-travel-photography/ — there's some info that describes how to add advanced features to a normal Canon point-and-shoot, turning the thing into something very useful.

Frankly, if I were in your position, I would actually have a friend or family member buy a used Canon PowerShot or SD off eBay and FedEx it down to you. Having gone through three cameras in Latin America, I know that you'll be really screwed on purchases locally, and know that you shouldn't have to invest much more than $200 in something that's just a backup.

And don't use DHL, they're a shady bunch and will almost certainly charge you import taxes that'll cost as much as the camera. FedEx is the way to go.

Travel safe,

//craig in turkey
March 2, 2009

I was staying with a CouchSurfing host in Izmir (Bornova) in February 2009, when his (age twenty-something) flatmate disclosed that he'd gotten his girlfriend pregnant. They'd discussed and decided to terminate the pregnancy.

The cost at a "good" clinic in town: approximately 500 Turkish lira (around US$300 at current exchange rates).

Having traveled in the country for over two months, I can attest that the following Web sites offer up quite accurate time and availability information for both modes of transportation. Though the sites are primarily in Romanian, they both sport English language translations, directly linked to below:

Train Schedule for Romania: http://www.infofer.ro/default_engleza.asp?lng=2

Bus Schedule for Romania: http://www.autogari.ro/index.php?lang=UK

If you're taking an international train into or out of Romania, the German rail Web site bahn.de conglomerates regional train information (moderately accurately).

The Dominican mugging. You were very anti-negativity when it happened and avoided the subject matter [in your travelogue] entirely with that in mind. However, I find the more negative and frightening stories are the ones that others can best learn from—what to do, what not to do, what you should've done differently, etc. The occurrence with the three hunters whistling as they honed in on you was eye-opening (and suspenseful reading!). So—has enough time passed that you can describe the incident?

Craig's Response:

It has indeed, and I'm a lot more forthcoming with my raw experiences and impressions these days. Here's the gist of the incident:

The night was January 10, 2006. I'd been traveling for less than a month and was still very much a greenhorn. Alone, I'd taken a cab to a part of Santo Domingo that, according to a few locals, had two or three discos next to each other. These were not what I had in mind… they were more like dive bars with a little dance floor inside each of them.

For some reason I'd gotten it in my head that I wanted to see such things (on a Tuesday night, of all nights), and there were probably less than two dozen people in there (and guess who stood out like none other).

There was a little group of maybe six girls, one or two looking okay, that appeared to be celebrating a birthday (DJ played the happy birthday song). I finished my beer and made contact with the cutest of the bunch on my way out the door. We ended up sitting down, and made the best conversation I could with body language and Spanglish (she spoke zero English, of course).

After a bit the conversation turned to the birthday, and she motioned over one of her friends. Well, I thought it was her friend… but it turned out it was her female pimp (a madam)! The group of girls were indeed celebrating a birthday, but they were all still on the clock!

I finished my drink and conversation, and was out the door.

I cabbed it back to my motel in a rather seedy district of town, but it was late… after one o'clock in the morning.

Knowing that one of the most dangerous parts of an evening taxi ride is the time between when you leave the cab and you enter your hotel (everyone sees you, knows that you've got some cash), I made a beeline from the taxi into the stairwell (two flights) that lead up to the door of the establishment.

Then is when a guy in his 20s, in shape, maybe 6'1", came sprinting up the stairs.

I'm pretty much at the door when we start tussling at the top of the stairwell. We're exchanging kicks and punches while I'm yelling and focusing on not being pushed down the flight of stairs. Some of the first English I've heard in the country was at this junction—"gimme pesos!"

Hearing the commotion, the manager of the dumpy motel came to the door with an old man in tow, but didn't open it. The door was solid steel with a barred opening about the size of a computer screen at eye level.

Some yelling on the part of the manager, and the guy backed down a few stairs. After a minute of the manager and the mugger talking quite casually, the manger finally got around to opening the door (which was padlocked from the inside, with no way of me opening it). I went in, and the manager got him out of the building.

The guy was caught (and probably lived in the immediate area), so from what I gathered he crafted a story, claiming that I had 'relations' someone and didn't pay up. I explained to the contrary as best I could to the manager when he returned.

I went to sleep quite angry that evening and woke up after a handful of hours more than ready to leave the city. A lesson learned, I jumped on a minibus and headed east out of the capital in the polluted, early morning light.