Gourmands and cocktail aficionados have long known about the famous Peruvian cocktail the pisco sour, a delicious drink made of grape brandy called pisco mixed with egg whites, bitters, sugar, and lime juice. Much like tasting wine in the Napa Valley on a California tour, visiting the Ica Valley is a must-do on a Peru vacation. A great way to fit in a tour is to stop here on your way to the famed Nazca Lines, only a 2 hour drive away.

When people mention Peru, if they know anything about the country at all, they associate it with the World Heritage site of Machu Picchu. Although Machu Picchu is stunning, beautiful, fascinating, breathtaking and the hundreds of other compliments that it is given, there are other ruins just as amazing, and arguably better to visit, especially if you are up for a little bit of adventure and trekking.

South America is an extremely varied region with a wealth of natural wonders and interesting people. Peru in particular has a geography which makes for some spectacular road trips especially as you cross the mighty Andes mountains. The route from Ica, located on the coastal desert plain, to the Inca city of Cusco in the highlands is one of the most fascinating roads trips in the world.

Centered around the Rio Madre de Dios watershed, the southern Amazon covers a huge amount of rainforest among Peruvian, Bolivian, and Brazilian frontiers. Much of the land is preserved within national parks and nature reserves, which make for excellent wildlife viewing. The untamed nature is what makes the region is appealing.

Most holidays, fiestas and festivals, whether religious or secular, hold a special place in Peruvian culture, none though as much as the "Festival of the Crosses". So if you are planning a trip to Peru in early May the "Festival of the Crosses" ("The Fiesta de las Cruces") or Cruz de Mayo ("May Cross") is the oldest religious festival in the world and well worth trying to see if your itinerary allows. It is celebrated in the first Sunday of May in many parts of South America and Spain.

Here are three poems out of Peru Dennis has finished and I expect will be going into his next book when he gets back to Minnesota, "Images out of Peru", he is now in Bogota, Colombia, and just finished a few he will publish also, but he wanted to to make sure you folks got his most recent works. He was recently on TV, Channel 5, doing an interview on his Peruvian poems, and tradtions, along with Radio 91.7, and visiting the Mayor of San Jeronimo in the Andes, whom has taken special interest in his Poetic Traditons of Peru. Rosa

When you travel, sooner or later, people ask you or you ask yourself: what are you doing here? and, what were my expectations of this place? I have lived in Peru for 14 years, between the Coast, the Mountains, and the Amazon Rainforest, three large regions defined by a different psychology and geography. This is what makes me stay here and that summary of the country's diversity is something I had not imagined before coming.

It is summer in Lima which means Limenos are heading to the beaches to surf, tan, and hang out. During your Peru travel you can join them after reading this guide to the best beaches near Lima. Lima is a scenic seaside metropolis, and while there are beautiful cliffs and alright beaches along the coast in Miraflores, Barranco, and San Isidro it is best to head south if time allows during your vacation.

At the end of July I saw a brief feature on local TV about a Canadian couple who had mortgaged their home to create an international non-profit development organization in Peru, starting with shipping a container full of donated medical supplies to a small town on the Peruvian coast. I didn't catch the person's name, but I did catch the website: www.paraelmundo.org. Once on the site I sent an email, and Josh, the co-founder of this organization, got back to me in an email from Peru to arrange an interview with his wife, Danielle, who had came up with the idea for this project.