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Southern Peru Field Trip / Peru Travel / Sandboarding / Musica Criolla / → All Tags

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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