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Karl Pilkington Takes One Last 'Idiotic' Journey to Peru

This weekend on An Idiot Abroad Karl Pilkington conquered the last of the world's seven wonders: Machu Picchu in Peru.

Of course, Ricky Gervais wasn't going to let his sidekick have an easy time of it, especially on his last trip, so he planned an excursion through the Amazon for Karl which included a visit with a local tribe who seemed to be as confused by Karl as he was by them.

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Where to Eat in Lima Now: Our Top Three Recommendations

Peruvians take their cuisine seriously, and the rest of the world has started to as well. From the seafood feasts on the coast to the tongue-twisting fruits and herbs of the Amazonian jungle and not to mention the bounty of the pristine Andean environment, the country is a foodie paradise. On our recent trip to Lima, we got the chance to try several of the capital city’s newest and most exciting restaurants, and here are a few of our favorites.

Mesa 18
This is the new restaurant at the Miraflores Park Hotel, which opened on July 1 with an entirely new design, chef and menu of nuevo peruano dishes…though Chef Federico Ziegler is actually from Argentina. The restaurant has an informal lounge area on a wooden deck out front, shaded by leafy palm fronds.

On Chef Ziegler’s menu you’ll find fusion dishes like home-smoked duck with a slow-cooked egg over sautéed mushrooms; a delicate wakame-marinated octopus carpaccio with crunchy red quinoa salad; low-temperature cooked ribeye with pecan-crusted sweet breads and creamed gobo root; and oven-baked paiche, a deliciously chunky Amazonian fish, with tomato fondant that goes great with a side of fresh asparagus sprinkled with shaved almond and parmesan. The dark chocolate hazelnut mousse mille feuille with mango and crème fraiche ice cream was our favorite of the desserts. Calle Los Carolinos 118; Miraflores, Lima; +51 (0)1 610 4000

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What Not To Do In Machu Picchu: The Top 5 Tourist Mistakes

For such a well-worn travel destination, it’s surprisingly easy to make some pretty simple mistakes when planning a visit to Machu Picchu thanks to confusing transportation schedules, conflicting advice, and what we like to call “Peru time.” There’s also been a lot of misinformation out there after last summer’s devastating floods, but the UNESCO World Heritage Site is now back open for visits from the public, and rest assured that it looks as breathtaking as ever.

Based on our recent visit to the lost city of the Inca, we’ve compiled this handy Jaunted guide of What Not To Do In Machu Picchu: The Top 5 Tourist Mistakes. Buena suerte!.

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Machu Picchu Will Finally Reopen To Tourists on April 1

It's already been almost two months since out of control flood waters washed away the main routes for accessing the remote Inca ruins site of Machu Picchu, in Peru. But today, the Peruvian Minister of Tourism has announced that the UNESCO World Heritage site will reopen to tourists on April 1, 2010, barring any other weather delays.

Since the heavy rainfall of January caused the nearby Vilcanota River to tumultuously overrun its banks and take out rail lines and roads, stranding thousands and thousands of tourists in the small town of Aguas Calientes for days before being evacuated by helicopter, tourism to the country has been severely impacted. Airlines that fly many visitors to Peru, like Delta, offered one-time ticket changes for people postponing trips, and many with booked package tours were issued refunds or change waivers.

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How Long Will Machu Picchu Be Out of Reach For Tourists?

For tourists to Peru's famed Machu PIcchu site, the nightmare of being trapped by raging flood waters in the nearby Vilcanota River has ended. The last trapped tourists were airlifted out of the remote area at the end of last week, but locals are already attempting to rebuild as the waters subside.

As the river gushed out of control, beginning back around January 25, over 3500 visitors found themselves stuck in the town of Aguas Calientes with the only transportation route back to the nearest city of Cuzco—the train—wiped out in the flooding and mudslides. As evacuation by helicopter progressed slowly and prices of basic things like food and water were jacked up in the small town, tourists became desperate, and a few even hiked back along the dangerous route.

So how long will Machu Picchu be out of the commission?

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Southern Peru Field Trip / Peru Travel / Cocoa Leaves / Lake Titicaca / → All Tags

Seeing Peru's Amantani Island Through The Eyes of a 13-Year-Old

All this week, Nathan Paluck will be filling us in on "The Real Peru" outside the capital city of Lima. Any questions or suggestions, send 'em to us here.

You can't visit Lake Titicaca without spending a night on one of its islands. That's what people told me, and they were right. Late Titicaca straddles Peru and Bolivia and is one of the world's highest at 2.3 miles. It has three populated islands and a series of floating, human-made reed islands. They're all reportedly amazing, but Lonely Planet advised that Amantaní Island was the least touristic, so I chose it for a night stay (LP's South America on a Shoestring was my reference throughout).

Two persistent workers at the lake dock tried selling me on a trip to the islands that included a homestay on Amantaní. Large groups of white tourists filed into tour boats. But I was determined for a DIY trip, and at 8 a.m., I and a couple dozen Quechua-speaking villagers from Amantaní embarked on the four-hour boat ride.

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Getting Puno With It In The Folklore Capital Of Peru

All this week, Nathan Paluck will be filling us in on "The Real Peru" outside the capital city of Lima. Any questions or suggestions, send 'em to us here.

Though I didn't plan it, I arrived to Puno, called the folklore capital of Peru, on the eve of its anniversary day. In a region that lays claims to 4,000 distinct traditional dances, you better believe there was some fierce dancing. From 2-9 p.m. the next day, Puno elementary and high schools performed choreographed street parades in lavish costumes.

Puno is a port of Lake Titicaca and is way high up: 3,800 meters, or 2.3 miles. It was so high up that I had a headache upon arriving. After I found decent lodging (Hotel Arequipa, on Arequipa with Oquendo, has private rooms, a computer room with Internet and a clean, shared bathroom for 15 soles), my altitude problem seemed cured by a couple of coca leaf teas at a bar on Calle Lima.

In the morning, there was an impressive theatrical procession of the Incas. Legend has it that the Inca empire was founded by a couple that was born from Lake Titicaca. The royal couple comes back from the lake on Puno Day, carried on a platform by young men and throwing potatoes out to a large crowd.

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Put Out to Pasture (In a Good Way) in Chivay

All this week, Nathan Paluck will be filling us in on "The Real Peru" outside the capital city of Lima. Any questions or suggestions, send 'em to us here.

When I arrived at dawn to the bus station in Arequipa to leave for El Cañon del Colca, tickets were sold-out for the 6 a.m. departure and there was already a crowd buying spots for the 9 a.m.

A woman and I went to the bus anyway and eventually convinced the driver to let us stand in the middle. Seriously. But as we learned, there seems to be a lot of local commuting between Arequipa and the villages along the canyon, so we recommend buying a ticket beforehand.

The ride to the canyon is five hours long and passes through a protected reserve, home to vicuñas, the wild, skinny cousins of the llama.

I ending up stopping in Chivay, a small town full of hostels. A couple miles out of town there are mineral-rich thermal baths, which I later walked to. Beyond the baths houses, cow paths lead to small parcels of pasture and farmland. I caught up with a man and daughter walking with two dozen head of cattle.

Marlene, the 25-year-old cowgirl pictured above, and her father Emiliano turned out to be extremely friendly and didn't mind the company and questions from a gringo (although the cows were wary). I helped Marlene get the cows into their stone wall enclosure and left thinking I might actually deserve the dip in the thermal baths.

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Eat, Pray and Eat Some More in Arequipa

All this week, Nathan Paluck will be filling us in on "The Real Peru" outside the capital city of Lima. Any questions or suggestions, send 'em to us here.

After sandboarding in Huacachina, I head out to Arequipa, a cozy city with an attractive colonial center and views of three nearby active volcanoes.

I arrived at 5 a.m. from an overnight bus ride. At that hour the volcanic stone used in old Arequipa buildings, called sillar, appears cold and gray. In the afternoon the sillar glows white, and at dusk it's golden brown.

Many use Arequipa – itself at 2,300 meters above sea level – as a base for hikes into the surrounding rugged territory. The volcanoes Chachani (6075 meters) and El Misti (5833 meters) beckon climbers.

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Dancing in El Carmen and Sandboarding in Huacachina

All this week, Nathan Paluck will be filling us in on "The Real Peru" outside the capital city of Lima. Any questions or suggestions, send 'em to us here.

People here told me that to see the real Peru, I needed to travel outside of Lima, the capital city and home to 30 percent of the country's population.

Getting off the bus in Chincha, a coastal city two hours south of Lima, I knew I must have entered the so-called real Peru. Chincha smelled of pueblo dust and burning trash. Three-wheeled mototaxi traffic buzzed around street stands selling cheap wine from local vineyards.

I chose Chincha to begin travels in southern Peru on an invitation from Lima friends. There was to be a peña that night, a big party to celebrate October 31, Peru's day to celebrate música criolla. The genre is instilled with African rhythms, and Chincha is considered the heart of the country's small but culturally significant Afro-Peruvian community.

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Summer Vacations With an Edge: Sandboarding In Peru

It turns out that the highest sand dune in the world is Peru's Cerro Blanco, which rises more than 2,000m above the ground and more or less resembles a mountain. It also turns out that if you want to sandboard down the side of it, Peru Adventure Tours is more than willing to put together a package for you, drive you out there in a sand buggy, and watch as you indulge in one of the world's most extreme sports.

Sandboarding is an all-season sport, one of the upshots of basing an activity out of a desert. Sandboarders either stand on snowboard-like boards or lie down on mats for "trayboarding," and try to pull off the same tricks that snowboarders do. That means catching air, doing tricks, and carving up the ground. Instead of kicking up snow, though, these athletes shred grainy sand. And instead of getting to ride sky lifts up picturesque mountains, they have to access some of the most unforgiving environments in the world.

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Pirates Pop Up In The Amazon To Rob Luxury River Cruise

Although we'd love to believe that Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow is the only noteworthy pirate of the last few years, the reality is that pirates are back in a big way, and an event this week proves that they aren't just confined to the treacherous waters off of Somalia.

On Sunday, the Aqua, a luxury river cruising boat just beginning a turn down the Amazon, was boarded and raided by six weapon-wielding bandits who robbed the vessel's 24 passengers of money and other valuables. Luckily that's all the pirates took as no cruisers were hurt. After returning to port in Iquitos, Peru, the passengers were sent home care of Aqua Expeditions, who also refunded them for the entire cruise—prices per person for the cruise began at $4,500—and tried to mollify them by offering a free future cruise.

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