Chile Forum

You can live very well in Huanchaco, Peru, on less than $1000 a month. Can get by decently on $500 there. It's a fishing village/beach town very popular with backpackers, surfers, and Peruvians. Alot of cheap accommodations, alot of restaurants, everything is walkable and there are many busses and combis that'll take you very cheaply to nearby big city Trujillo with new malls, American owned Cinemark cineplex, beautiful colonial center. Weather is very mild year-round due to the Humboldt current. You can stay on tourist card up to 183 days, renewable at the border. And Huanchaco is clean. If you prefer a big city check out Arequipa. Peru might be a basket case but Huanchaco is known for it's safety and tranquility. And you can fly cheaply on Spirit Airlines from Lima to Ft.Lauderdale. Overall if you can afford it Chile as a whole is a better choice. But there are exceptions in Peru and there are expats from all over the world there. Google ExpatPeru for more info.

thanks vanman

Just a quick note about Peru and Arica

I live in Arica and really love Peru, people is nice there and life is very cheap. As Chuck said there are several social problems who make hard to addapt: huge social differences, racism, a sort of culture of cheating and informality, etc. Anyway I will not say that is a bad place to live but very different, with ups and downs which you have to addapt, once you accept it, is a very good place to live. Chuck´s mistake is easy to understand because Bolivia is pretty much the same. The only important issue to live in Peru -in my view- is the high crime rate. I was working in Tacna one year supervising -among others- projects of city security and the situation is really bad, you need eyes on your back there, they say that Lima is much worse. Probably other cities may be much safer.

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Hightower wrote:

tombrad2 wrote: The only important issue to live in Peru -in my view- is the high crime rate. I was working in Tacna one year supervising -among others- projects of city security and the situation is really bad, you need eyes on your back there, they say that Lima is much worse. Probably other cities may be much safer.

Do you have any idea why it is so?
I remember back in 1994, when I travelled extensively throughout Peru it was considered a "safe" country. Economically it has done relatively well since then, so how come crime has gone up, when it has decreased in neighbouring countries such as Brazil and Colombia (from admittedly much higher levels)?

I can't comment on the "why" but a Peruvian colleague agreed that downtown Lima is not safe, because of pickpocketing but also mugging. Seems like people prefer to go to the shopping malls to hang out and be safe... sounds familiar to me...

Unlike Chile, Peru and Bolivia are many diferent countries into one. People and culture of Altiplano has nothing to do with people fron la costa, nothing to do with peoplefrom the jungle or from the north, are like diferent countries and that make so difficult to generalize about Peru. Tacna and Lima had a huge inmigration from people from altiplano (mostly aimaras) which has bring big problems to those cities. Many of those are enriched by the drug traffic or came from a system around drug smuggling so they are really dangerous. Other are hard working but not too concerned about law respect. Originary "costeños" from Tacna, Lima and other cities complain about this "invasion". It has many cultural subtle things, culture shocking is real there and not easy to explain in few lines.

The other side of the coin is that this diversioty is what it make Peru a such fascinating country, but not so easy to addapt. Once you are accustomed it can be a wonderful place, but you need to be prevented at leas during a couple of years.

tombrad2 wrote:....several social problems who make hard to adapt: huge social differences, racism, a sort of culture of cheating.....

Hmmm, I see no difference between Chile and Peru here. Put 'racism' in a bit broader context (classes) and you're talking about Chile.

As for the pickpockets and the likes in 'downtown Lima' again there's not much (or none) difference to Santiago.
Even the small shops..here also it's: stick to the shopping malls and to the larger stores that have price tags.

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It started in the late80s, has been incresed since then

Mokum wrote:

tombrad2 wrote:....several social problems who make hard to adapt: huge social differences, racism, a sort of culture of cheating.....

Hmmm, I see no difference between Chile and Peru here. Put 'racism' in a bit broader context (classes) and you're talking about Chile.

As for the pickpockets and the likes in 'downtown Lima' again there's not much (or none) difference to Santiago.
Even the small shops..here also it's: stick to the shopping malls and to the larger stores that have price tags.

haha the difference between chile and peru is so easy to note that even some gringos can understand that easyly (i mean 1 day). chile have all those problems but in a lesser scale (about 1 to 100). there are racism and also classism, that make the things one hundred times more difficult, but maybe is better for expats they are allways welcomed in peru and seen as first class cityzens. im not grigo but many people there threat me so good just because im blond and called me señor even people older than me and i was less than 30 when i was there for my first time.
there are delincuents in chile of course, but there the policemen are the delincuents. the other thing is you can live in the 10% or 15% of lima in a more or less decent way, santiago have at least 40% of the city where you can live. outside lima it is very difficult to find good neighbourhoods.