Peru’s economy grew by 6.92 percent in 2011, compared to 8.8 percent in the previous year, the national institute of statistics and information said. Peru’s gross domestic product has grown for 28 consecutive months and it has expanded for the past 13 years, state news agency Andina reported. In December, Peru’s GDP expanded by 5.96 [...]
Peruvian Times
This chart shows the Amazon River Water level on October 4th, just before the Great River Amazon Raft Race. Note the sharply rising black line that shows the current level where it stops on the chart, over a meter above the green average water level line…
This chart shows the water level on Oct 4th, 2011 a few days before the Great River Amazon Raft Race in Iquitos Peru
The blue line is the highest water level ever recorded for each day. The red line is the lowest water level ever recorded each day. The green line is the average. The black line is the water level for 2011 and where the black line ends is October 4th 2011, a few days before the Great River Amazon Raft Race in Iquitos Peru.
Bill Grimes, reporting from Iquitos Peru.
It’s about time Gastón! Peruvian celebuchef Gastón Acurio will open a branch of his La Mar Cebicheria in New York sometime between March and May of 2011, as reported by San Francisco Weekly and later confirmed by Peruvian web portal Terra. The 8,000 square foot location is already chosen, on Madison Avenue and 27th street, near Madison Square Park.
New World Review
Mistura is Lima, Peru’s annual gastronomic festival. Now in its 3rd year, the festival is running for longer and attracting bigger names than in its previous incarnations.
New World Review
White collar crime in Peru is expected to move more than .21 billion this year, equivalent to about 3.41% of the country’s gross domestic product, daily El Comercio reported, citing official figures. “The big problem with local white collar criminals is that, due to their sophistication, they move unnoticed and when there is suspicion they come [...]
Peruvian Times
These are the public holidays for all of Peru. There are also many regional holidays such as the Festival of San Juan in Iquitos.
Saturday, January 1, New Year’s;
Thursday, April 21, Holy Thursday;
Friday, April 22, Good Friday;
Sunday, May 1, Labor Day;
Wednesday, June 29, Saint Peter and Saint Paul’s Day;
Thursday, July 28, Independence Day;
Friday, July 29, Independence Day;
Tuesday, August 30, Saint Rose of Lima Day;
Saturday, October 8, Navy Day;
Tuesday, November 1, All Saint’s Day;
Thursday, December 8, Immaculate Conception;
Sunday, December 25, Christmas;
Bill Grimes is president of Dawn on the Amazon Tours.
If you read my last article on Mistura 2011 you will know that this year the Gastronomic Event of the Year will be open for a total of 10 days, from September 9th to September 18th in Lima, Peru. The news today is that we finally have Mistura 2011 ticket prices available and where you can go to purchase your tickets ahead of the main event.
The good news is that you can purchase tickets ahead of time with significant savings. For example, the Mistura 2001 ticket prices for adult tickets are only 15 Nuevos Soles (around 5.50 US dollars) and the children ticket is only 8 Nuevos Soles (close to 2.92 US dollars).
You can also purchase your Mistura 2011 ticket for the most popular days (Monday and Tuesday) for around 12 Nuevos Soles (or close to 4.40 US dollars).
Now is a good time to purchase these tickets if you know you will likely assist to Mistura 2011. Once Mistura 2011 starts, prices will rise to around 20 Nuevos Soles for adults and 10 Nuevos Soles for children.
New changes to Mistura 2011 include more space (required to accommodate the more than 300,000 people expected to show), along with additional areas to promote Pisco and Peruvian sweets. Keeping current with the change of times, Mistura 2011 will allow public to participate and vote using the internet in any of the 12 events open to public participation.
You can buy your Mistura 2011 ticket at any participating Teleticket office. The page is in Spanish only. You can access the page at Teleticket clicking here.
The 4th edition of the International Gastronomic Fair also known as Mistura 2011 will have 2 new sections displaying Peru’s emblematic drink Pisco and the other will show Peru’s sweets delicacies like tejas, turrones, crema volteada, leche asada, arroz con leche, alfajores, suspiros a la limeña, king kongs and much more.
Just like last year, do not forget to stop by the fruits display to enjoy more than 85 varieties of fruits from all Peruvian regions. Remember to stop in the bread section to taste more than 50 varieties of warm breads available.
This Mistura 2011 will definitely be better than last year and you should not miss this event if you are lucky enough to be visiting Peru at this time so hurry up and purchase your Mistura 2011 ticket ahead of time.
WEST PALM BEACH RED, WHITE & ZOO
Celebrate the Fourth of July at the wildest place in Palm Beach County! Enjoy a BBQ lunch (small fee), children’s games, crafts, live music in the Fountain Plaza, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. today at the Palm Beach Zoo, 1301 Summit Blvd., Info: (561) 547-9453 | Directions, invite friends, more
JUPITER VIEW FROM THE TOP
Make a reservation for a Sunset Tour of the Jupiter Lighthouse. Witness the lighthouse turning on and get one of the best views of Palm Beach County. Times vary, depending on sunset, Friday and July 13, 500 Captain Armour’s Way. members, non-members, RSVP required. (561) 747-8380, ext. 101 | Directions, nearby restaurants, more
JUNO BEACH TURTLE NEWS
Loggerhead MarineLife Center’s Free Summer Science Lecture Series features biologist Kelly Martin will speak about ‘A Peek at the Dark Side: Sea Turtle Research and Florida Leatherbacks.’ From 6-7 p.m. Wednesday, at the Center, 14200 U.S. 1. Suitable for all ages. Refreshments. Info: Evan at (561) 627-8280, Ext. 119 | Directions, invite friends, more
PALM BEACH SMOKY JAZZ SINGER
Top notch jazz vocalist Mary Foster Conklin brings her smoky style to the Colony Hotel for two weekends of shows, at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and July 15-16. TheatreMania.com said, “Stylish without pretension, sexy without posturing, and tasteful without strict boundaries, Conklin has that always hoped-for combination of musical chops and sensitivity to lyrics.” 0 for dinner and the show; for show only. Reservations required. Info: (561) 659-8100 | Directions, invite friends, more
DELRAY BEACH ORCHID HOW-TO
Register now for this Orchid Repotting class at the American Orchid Society, 16700 AOS Lane. Learn how often an orchid should be repotted, how to divide an orchid and about different potting materials to use. Class runs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. members; nonmembers. Reservations are recommended. Info: (561) 404-2031 | Directions, invite friends, more
Palm Beach Entertainment: Events, movies, restaurants, nightlife & more | pbpulse.com
For the past four years the months’ of February and March have always been the most constructive time for the Karikuy Organization. A time where I find myself in front of a computer for hours either updating the website, running our annual contest, conducting volunteer interviews or working on the day to day administration of the organization. These two months are generally slower for Karikuy Tours Peru as the travel season in the country begins to gain momentum in April and peak in August. February and March give me ample time to put my thinking cap on and really work on the organization and our future projects as a whole. For that reason I want to share our progress with those of you keeping up to date with Karikuy and the work being done on our programs and website.
www.KARIKUY.org
For the past month I have been updating the website for a sleeker look as well as incorporating social media such as Twitter and Facebook into our tour pages. I hope to have the entire website updated by the end of March. This is a big and tedious project that takes a lot of long nights and Mountain Dew as all the coding work is done with HTML and CSS. Once I have the basic structure down for this new design then it will become easier to update. After all being a travel company means that we have new prices coming out every year so all the pricing on the website must be updated accordingly at least once a year. As a Karikuy Tours customer you might not realize it but one of the reasons that our prices are so low is because we don’t hire anyone to do these updates, instead I do them all myself with a little help from Snickers and Maruchan Instant Noodles.
So what are some new things we are planning for the site? in the next week or so we are going to refine our system for handling donations for the Kawsay and Karikuy-Haugen Fund. Before you had to email us with the amount you wanted to donate and we would send you an invoice. The new system will be automated with a simple form tool so we can get invoices out to you immediately. We also have a wealth of new tours to upload to the website, from Chan Chan to Lake Titicaca, these new tours will have detailed information and pricing and should be uploaded by the start of the busy travel season.
You will be able to see more added content to this blog as well when we begin our volunteer program in May. Our volunteers create the bulk of the content for this blog, they write about their experiences and adventures while travelling in Peru. Since I’m in the office almost all day it is hard for me to fill that hole, in the meantime however you should follow our account on twitter for daily articles regarding Peruvian Culture and News.
The Karikuy Volunteer Program – The Karikuy House
During February of this year we added some simple upgrades to the house where our volunteers work on our Perupedia project. The most significant of which was the entire electrical rewiring of the house. Prior to this the house was lacking in functioning power outlets as well as had several lighting sockets with missing connections. The house which has been in my family for more then 30 years had been unused for some 20 years, since I have returned I have been improving it for our volunteer program. Today the house is fully wired, all electrical outlets work, we’ve also installed new lighting for the entrance and the stairs that lead up to the second floor. Heck we even have a doorbell now and exterior lighting.
Another big issue that was fixed was the shower which had been plagued with bad water pressure. We installed a tank on the roof to fix the problem so there is now a steady stream of hot water. Other small repairs include new windows for all the cracked or broken windows in the house, for those who have stayed at the house you know it’s a very bright and open apartment with a lot of windows, these have all been fixed to keep warmth in during those cold winter days.
Some new upgrades that will be added before the volunteer program begins in May included a new powerful wireless router. This will enable all the rooms to receive a wireless connection, this had been a problem in the past with only some of the room getting a connection due to the thick concrete walls. We will also be adding heaters to both dormitories and perhaps the living room, this will helps for the colder days during the winter. In the past it wasn’t a serious problem as winter in Lima is still mild compared to other cities, this addition is more for comfort for those days when volunteers just want to lay in bed working on their laptops. Before the program ends for the year we might also update some of the furniture for added comfort.
The Karikuy Machu Picchu Contest
Perhaps our small organization is not big enough or does not reach as many graphic designers that I had hoped for as we had to put the latest edition to our contest on hold. This years competition was a t-shirt design contest and we had only three submissions, two of them being after the deadline had passed. A little embarrassing to tell you the truth as we’ve had great success in our previous two contests. However I am glad to say that the show must go on and will be relaunching the contest on March 25th. I am currently researching the best way to go forward with the contest and whether to keep the same format as last year or go with something new. I’m a big soccer (football) fan so I was thinking as having something similar to a World Cup group stage and playoff but either involving twitter or Facebook. Regardless of what format I choose the competition will relaunch on March 25th so keep checking back to our contest page for more information.
The Kawsay Humanitarian Program & The Karikuy-Haugen Fund
As I mentioned above we are working with the website to improve our capacity to receive donations. But most importantly in 2011 both of these program will be put into action and documented to help promote them. We’ve been slowly raising funds for both programs and as of now it looks like the Karikuy-Haugen Fund will be the first to take place some time in June. We have raised enough money to send two Inca Trail porters to Machu Picchu with only more to send a third. We are also working with a past volunteer to help raise our goal of 00 for the Kawsay program, this will enable us to travel to the province of Puno and hand out warm clothing to children in poor communities affected by the changing climate.
Living in Peru I’m always meeting new people and experiencing great new things, especially in Lima. I have no doubts that this year will be any different and that new projects will be subsequently be created. I know that I’ve been putting off our video mini-documentary on the organization and our volunteer program for while now, I hope to have our volunteers working on that this summer. With that said there are many events taking place in Lima this year from the MISTURA food festival to the inauguration of our new national stadium, there will be plenty to write about. I apologize for the lack of blog entries these past 2 months but they will increase dramatically beginning in June when our volunteer program gets underway. I thank you all for reading and keeping up to date, in the meantime please follow us on twitter where you can get all the latest news and read creative blogs from travelers visiting Peru.
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And hope Rainforest Alliance Certified Chocolate is made more accessible–found it at Whole Foods. Your website is not only beautifully designed, it is quite educational. Thank you.
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