The peoples' democratic blog of Matt Hayward

Tonight I was walking through the Jam Factory in Chapel St with some friends. We were approached by two women who said they were doing a quick one minute survey for the police. I kind of reluctantly obliged. Hold up, the police are doing a survey!? WTF?
They asked ‘did you notice the extra police presence [...]

In my travels in Arequipa Peru, we decided to venture out of tourist town into Normalville. In our travels, we came across a bottle shop, so I took a look.
Wouldn’t you know it, booze is pretty cheap in Peru. A bottle of local rum is about 15 Soles ($5 AUD), Johnny Walker Red 30 Soles [...]

OK, so once you get over the altitude Cusco (or Cuzco) is one great little place. It’s a city of about a million people. The Plaza De Armas has two beautiful churches, heaps of great places to eat and sits bang in the centre of a great many Inca ruins. A place where you could [...]

On the gringo trail in Peru, talking to other tourists, Lima gets the worst rap of all. It’s an over crowded capital city rife with petty crime and shitful drivers. I mean really shitful drivers, but I digress.
Strangely, it never rains in Lima – ever. It just kind of spits when it does. There’s only [...]

Well I’m back from Peru and after an exhaustive customs check, I’ve got the all clear. But it did make me think of something that was topical while I was over there. See Peru has a great reputation for growing and cultivating coca. Their neighbors, specifically Columbia, an even greater reputation for taking the bi-product [...]

Hola from Arequipa in Peru. I´ve been here for a few days now and it´s just epic. It has a few great streets such as San Francisco full of great restaurants – even kebaberies and middle eastern, some of which are OK – and the place just has a really busy, vibrant vibe to it. [...]

Well cross one thing off the life list. I’ve completed the Machu Picchu trek down the Inca Trail with SAS Travel Peru.
To be precise, here’s a trip iterary for the trek that I did.
Photos and stuff will come later, but first here’s a day by day account for anyone who’s thinking of giving it a [...]

OK, I´m going to have to separate this into two posts because Cusco is awesome but there is some stuff you should know.
Firstly altitude is a bitch. Many people fly into Cusco from other high altitude spots like La Paz in  Bolivia and so they´re already well adjusted. But if you´re doing Peru only, then [...]

Well here goes the first post of the trip. Had a couple of days in Chile which was pretty OK except for the fact that they take weekends pretty seriously by doing absolutely nothing. Especially on Sundays. Oh yeah and no one speaks any English here!
Thankfully the restaurants were open and I had one of [...]