Whether you are planning to move to Peru, or you are already living here, the Expat Peru forum is a great place to meet people and to find information. Welcome to our community!
Hi e-peruvian, if you look more closely, then you see the genius in things like the can opening with a knife and many other things (though not all, of course ;-) ). We are building a house in the Sacred Valley. Up until shortly we had no electricity at the land. The only machines up until then used ...
thank you all! chi-chi, I am aware of the advantages of boiling the water, but this does not remove chemicals (like the chlorine they put into the water - I really want it out there ... ;-) ). This very short list of the US-American CDC shows clearly the advantages of boiling: http://www.cdc.gov/hea...
We are building a house in the Sacred Valley, and this question is about the fresh water system: We want to have a filter, so we can actually drink the water from the special filtered water tap. The water comes from a glacier about 10km up the small side valley. It is getting clorinated, because the...
I like house shoes, pantoffels or however you want to call them - and near the main entry door is a place where you can change from outside shoes to pantoffels - or vice versa ;-) And in the sacred valley it is too cold (for me) to walk barefoot or just in flip flops inside ... The dust in the house...
Hi, we want to buy a new washing machine. And we have no idea of the quality of the companies offering washers here in Peru (I know Miele and Siemens from Germany ;-) ). So the question is: Can you tell from experience how good or bad these washers are? Basically it comes down to a model from LG or ...
Hi Eric, we are living near Calca (and have lived in Ollantaytambo as well as in Yucay near Urubamba). We use a Claro and a Nextel 3G modem for internet connection - both "ilimitado". But in case of Nextel that means after 10 GB per month the speed will drastically decrease. The Claro mode...
Hi Michael, welcome to the Sacred Valley ... You can try the facebook group "Sacred Valley Housing & Market" https://www.facebook.com/groups/514943685262182/ There you will find all kinds of offers, including housing, but preferrably you might want to ask there if someone can offer wha...
I got a kick from another coffee shop that I saw in Tarrapoto. It was called "Starbarts Cafue" , complete with a rip-off of the green Starbucks sign. Very clever! (in the jungle, many people pronounce Cafe as "Cafue"). I like these "remakes" and "remixes" ;-)...
We did travel a couple of times as tourists from Peru e.g. to Mexico, to the US, to New Zealand, to Chile and back to Peru (always with LAN) - there was never a problem EXCEPT only once in New Zealand at the LAN counter they wanted to see the ticket out of Peru (it was a New Zealander working there)...
We are planning to include a piece of the 2nd floor in the house made of glass or glass blocks, so the light can shine into the dark corners of the 1st floor. In Europe or USA you can buy special glass or glass blocks made for walking on. Typically these are glass sheets of about 4cm thickness lamin...
ironchefchris, if you just want to manage your pictures and do things like make them brighter, adjust colors, cut a rectangle etc. then I would definitely recommend using Adobe Lightroom - can be downloaded from Amazon or from Adobe and paid online (about 100 USD for the download version for Mac). I...
thank you both! I am still in discussions with the US provider - and they seem to make changes on a daily basis to find the right method for fending off 4 millions spam and hacker connections per day while not fencing off their own customers ... If they cannot come up with an easy solution we will p...
We use a Claro and a Nextel 3G modem to connect to the internet here in the Sacred Valley. We have a domain which is hosted in the US. The service provider there also operates a Mail server, and usually we send email through this mail server. At the weekend they implemented the use of the blocking l...
Hi, here in the Sacred Valley every now and then (several times a week) you see a police car at the side of the street and they stop cars to check papers etc. Often they check trucks. We were stopped a couple of times over the last years, and normally this is not a big thing and they are usually ver...
My partner got only 60 days last september - by a male agent (maybe he was grouchy because it was late in the night). I "heard" - that means the lawyer of a friend of a friend supposedly said that they want to change or have already changed the law from 2014 on, so you can stay only 183 da...
At our last visits to Lima we were driving around a lot to see and buy stuff from stores like Cassinelli, Sodimac, Decor Center etc. After a couple of hours and to boost our energy we would usually find some Starbucks somewhere to get a Cappuccino or Frappuccino. In this situation it was very helpfu...
In the last three years we never had a problem to fly on LAN or Aeromexico with tickets from Lima and back into Lima (having not a ticket out of Peru again) - EXCEPT in one case: Flying from Auckland, New Zealand via Santiago, Chile to Lima at the LAN counter in Auckland they wanted to see a ticket ...
Thank you, argidd, La Quinta was defintely a good place to go to (and a pretty unique experience - although I know stores for "seconds" from other countries ;-) ), and the (polo) shirts they had in my size were of good quality and pretty cheap ... I got 10 of them to be on the safe side ;-...
Like 2XL or even 3XL (US size)? My first Lima experience two weeks ago lead me to some shopping centers. I just wanted to buy a T-Shirt, but after I realized that SagaFalabella and Ripley (Jockey Center) have a maximum of XL (presumably even a Peruvian XL ;-) ) I gave up. I read the hints in the thr...
As I stated earlier we finally stayed in Miraflores close to a friends appartment. And that was the right thing to do - we were not supposed and it was not necessary to visit the port during the week in Lima. Thank you all for your helpful proposals! I have posted all details about the container her...
This is part 3 of 3 of the complete story Lessons Learned On Hawaii the movers said: It is good to have a very detailled list of the items. We had one anyway - but this list was never used in the processed by officials. The only list used was the one the Hawaiian movers produced. Make sure this list...
Part 2 of 3 of the complete story: Costs The cost of such a container depends mainly on the weight, where the container is to be picked up, and if the moving company has to pack and unpack things. For your special needs you better try to get an offer from Stevens or another world wide operating move...
Ok, all the stuff is here in the Sacred Valley ;-) This is post 1 of 3 of the complete story: How it all happened My partner has travelled a lot in more than 30 years, and she has bought many beautiful things in (nearly) all parts of the world. The value of all these items is mainly for purposes of ...
Thank you all for your comments and hints! After more communication with the agent it turned out that we are not really needed in person (or are not allowed to be there in person ... ;-) ). But in case of problems they would call us and then we go whereever the agent will tell us. With this backgrou...
When you bring a container with houshold goods in you are supposed to go there in person. This can take (at least) 6 business days - but we also heard from other expats that it took 2 weeks. So we are looking for a place to stay in or near Callao - safe (!), easy to get to and from, with internet co...
Thank you all for your thoughts and advice. The Peruvian agent confirmed that we can bring in the container - but the history of being in and out of the country will have an impact on the tax rate to pay ... I will keep you updated with what happens (but nothing is really expected to happen within t...
Hi Chi Chi, we travelled a lot - and it always just worked out to go out of and into Perú in time. At this moment we are on tourist visa. This should not be a basic problem, as the shipper has confirmed we can bring in household goods on a tourist visa. A friend of us did that at the beginning of th...
We want to ship a container with household goods (hhgs) from the US to Peru. We have been in Peru on tourist visa for more than 2 years. The container is already on its way - and now the agent in Lima presents a paper stating: "Client should not exceed a period or 6 months in Peru in order to b...
windsportinperu: you can create a company as owner on tourist visa in peru. you just need the permit for signing contracts (usually valid for 4 weeks) from imigración. about 3 years ago you could even be your own manager, but then the law has changed and now you need a peruvian or somebody with a ca...
Maestro (a Peruvian "Home Depot") has it in Cuzco (4 drawers; exactly one cabinet - and it is for A4 papers, so in case you need US Letter size you have to be creative ).
I am using ibVPN - gives you VPNs to a lot of servers in many countries (US, Europe). It normally works through a Claro or Nextel 3G modem. But sometimes either of them (or even both) refuse to connect - I could not find out why. But this happens also with a VPN connection provided by the university...
normally with 1 laptop / 1 external hard drive and 1 digital camera there should be no problem at all because these are all things you are allowed to bring into the country anyway. I got a problem in the past when I brought two laptops and got a red light: then they made me pay (I think 20%) tax for...
In Cuzco a year ago I got a bank account at Interbank just with passport. But it is a cuenta ahorros (savings account) not a cuenta corriente. It comes with a VISA debit card.
We arrived a couple of days ago from Mexico City at Lima at 11:30pm (arrived early at 11pm). That's ok, immigration and customs worked like a charm ... but our flight to Cuzco started not before 5:20am next morning. Where do you spend the 5 hours? Leaving the airport (even to the expensive Ramada) w...
I uploaded a video of 240 MB with a Claro 3G modem last november in the Sacred Valley - it took about 8 hours. I tried to use a nextel 3G modem first - but the nextel connections are not so reliable - so after 6 hours there was "a problem" and the movie could not be uploaded further ;-) So...
on rpp today: http://www.rpp.com.pe/2013-01-04-cusco-norteamericanos-denuncian-agresion-de-comuneros-en-ocongate-noticia_554796.html this is the same case as in this thread at this forum: http://www.expatperu.com/expatforums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=21116 - there is more discussion about it going on ...
I assume fastest is a landline internet connection from Telefonica (but I do not have experience with it, because it is not available in our house). With a Claro modem (3G) here in the Sacred Valley at good times I can download about 200 MB per hour. It is faster with a nextel modem - but the downlo...
Transformers do not always work (that is what I heard - I have no own experience with it) - so normally you are better off replacing your 110V-devices by 220V-devices.
I would not rely on a transformer - except it is a very good quality one for a device you cannot replace here by a 220V device ...
have the white kittens more longer hair ( I think here in Peru they call it "Angora" - even when the hair is not as long as the ones of the true Angora cats)?
Hi Bridget, I cannot tell you about wholesale sources for thai products - here is just our experience as "hobby cooks" ;-) We live in the Sacred Valley. Coconut milk we buy in cans at Canasta (a super market in Cuzco), sometimes Mega has them, too. All curry pastes and other delicious ingr...
I had to laugh when I saw this topic - the exact same discussion started some three years ago in an expat forum for people living on tenerife island (one of the canary islands in the Atlantic, part of Spain). There was even a person posting photos of toilet paper dissolving in water until no paper c...