Ah, pisco! So I have both drank a lot of pisco, as well as been to its namesake city, Pisco, Peru. The former, I would highly recommend; that latter, not so much. Pisco is an amazing drink, especially in the traditional pisco sour form, a drink that comes with raw egg white, so be careful, ladies and gents. The ten days I spent in Peru a few years ago were some of the sickest of my life (carrying on for a couple weeks when I returned to the States). Lost some serious weight from the dehydration, but it was all in good fun, and I would of course do it again in a heart beat (and for all I know the pisco sours had nothing to do with it; public health/personal hygiene is obviously not so strict in some parts of the world).

Anyway, the town for which it's named is a whole other thing altogether. Sadly, Pisco was flattened by a huge earthquake back in 2007. Almost the whole city was flattened. I was there in 09, and the most anyone had done was to pile up rubble into piles that weren't in the street anymore. When we arrived on the bus, we hopped in a cab, and asked the driver to take us to such and such hotel that was on the beach and was highly recommended by friends in Lima. "Gone," he replied. OK, how about this next one in the guide book. "Nope. Destroyed." We were about to ask about another one, when he just spoke up and said that he'll take us to the only hotel still standing.

The devastation there was unreal. It seemed like over half the building were flattened or at least unusable. But the people were friendly, partying, and wanted nothing more than to have their picture taken with us gringos. Despite the fact that you literally couldn't get decent food in the town at any price (an "olive sandwich", four or five shitty olives on Wonder Bread quality bread cost like six or eight dollars, more than a whole decent meal in Lima), we had an alright time.

It was very eye opening. I have never seen, or even imagined, the kind of ruin that these people were living in every day.