Aoife arrives in Deepest Darkest Peru and finally her blog title makes sense

Well the original, original plan was to visit Peru and check out where Paddington bear came from. It´s taken me 10 months, 9 different countries, a wee detour home to Ireland, but I´ve finally made it - woo hoooo. And who said I wasn´t good at making up itineraries.

I arrived in Lima last week and found myself back in the chaos of South America and the rotteness of hostels filled with young boozing backpackers ´doing´ Peru. Sigh. Ya visit a country, ya don´t 'do' a country. Yes, I am high and mighty but 'doing' a country just sounds so arrogant to me.

The Peruvians are fierce friendly. I met a friendly Peruvian lad, in Parque de Amour (see above picture of a statue of entwined but very uncomfortable looking lovers) who strolled with me around the city and introduced me to ´cerviche´. It´s the Peruvian version of sushi - raw fish cooked only in lemon juice and the hideousness of onions. I had mine without onions and it was only lovely.

I only spent a couple of days there, unsuccessfully attempting a few tourist activities which all fell through (renovations, mist, etc), before headin´ for the mountains and bit o´ hiking.

Skippedy skip skip skip

I spent 3 lovely weeks driving around the crazy redrocked national parks of Utah and Arizona with my Swiss chocolate. I´ll have to write more but not before I get a rant out of the way.
This is us in the Grand Canyon.