¡Hola!

During mid-February to beginning of March, I went to Peru with my girlfriend and some other friends. It was an amazing trip and I would recommend anyone who can to go there. Some weird things to note that I did not anticipate.

  • Cards are generally accepted in touristy places, but only VISA. Cash is king.
  • People don’t speak English anywhere except hotels. Practicing Spanish in Duolingo helped me a lot!
  • If you need airport transfer from/to any of the big tourist places, TaxiDatum was a pretty good service. Not the cheapest, but not very expensive either and you could book ahead.
  • Ceviche is insanely tasty. So is Trucha (a popular salmon-like fish).
  • If you get sick, it is good to have insurance. My girlfriend had to go to the hospital for a serious case of altitude sickness and it cost us 3600 USD. Luckily, these types of cases are covered by our general home insurance (hemförsäkring in Swedish, covering a lot more than just your home). A big plus to Trygg-Hansa and SOS International in Denmark for being super helpful and everything when she was sick.
  • Taking the touristy bus through Cruz Del Sur was a really cheap and comfy way to travel. Considering that Peru has no railway system, the choices are bus or plane. We took the bus from Lima to Arequipa via Ica and Nasca, which was a great experience.
  • They really like to require passport or passport number for things. Flights, buses, hotels, machu picchu tickets and so on. Cruz Del Sur even required our mothers’ maiden name to be on the ticket!

Btw a note on Duolingo: I said I would update if I found a very nice feature that was plus specific. I did not find one. Duolingo is a great app but using Duolingo Plus is a waste of money. Also, I’ve noticed that the app and gamification system works rather different on an iPhone than on Android.

I’m still doing my Duolingo lessons every day, and I will keep going for at least a year before breaking my streak!