Another member of the Lonely Planet tribe has condemned the disparaging statements about Peru made by Jens Porup, that the coordinating author of LP’s Colombia guide. 
Commenting on Travelojos was Sara Benson, the coordinating author of Lonely Planet’s Peru guide. She disagreed with the notion that other LP authors agreed with his statements. She says:
Jens Porup’s assertion above that “even Lonely Planet authors” agree with what was said in the speech is a gross generalization. Jens Porup has not polled the entire author field, and is only commenting on positive emails received from *some* LP authors.
As a freelancer contractor who writes for many publishers, and not just Lonely Planet, I strongly disagree with Jens Porup’s dismissal of Peru. (Yes, I have read the entire text of the speech given in Columbia.) Note that I currently receive no income for promoting Peru, because my writing assignments no longer cover that destination. But I would return to travel there as a backpacker any day of the week. Ancient ruins, highland and jungle villages, mountain and volcano climbing, and some of the kindest people I’ve met on the road — that’s what Peru offers.
Sure, some places in Peru are dangerous, dirty and hostile to foreigners. But that is not the whole story. I hope that travelers will take the time to discover that for themselves, and not listen to any one person’s opinion, especially not one that bombastically sums up any country as “[X] sucks.” If you love to travel, you’ll know that kind of statement is never “the truth” and can only be one person’s highly subjective opinion.
on Dec 11th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Hello!
I think Jens Porup cries like a baby. I´ve been in several countries like USA, Cuba, México, Brazil, Holland, Spain, Egypt, China, etc. The only thing that I remember about all these countries are how wonderful they are. Even when I had some problems in some of them. For example, in Mexico, taxi drivers were all the time taking my money, in Brazil I was robbed (Rio de Janeiro), in Egypt many sellers tried to sell me things in high prices (of course I kew that some of those things just cost 1 dollar), in China people spit around and pushed me on the streets, in Cuba one night in an hotel didn´t cost the same next night, etc. Well, I could say a lot of bad things about those countries. But I don´t care about that because I just can think about all the beautiful and historic places I´ve been and remember the nice people I met there. I will never regret that I have visited the Pyramids, the Chinese wall, Chichen Itza, Cristo Redentor, etc., even though I have problems there. I like traveling but I know that I can´t write a guide like Lonely Planet for instance. To write something like that you have to be a really opened mind person, very brave, realistic, not silly of course, etc. So if you are a kind of Jens Porup who wants to find the same things that you have in your perfect country, please don´t leave your country. Jens Porup should use the Colombian´s phrase and take risks.
PS: This is for some of those who write about China. They HAVE different kinds of pastry. I ATE Chinese cakes. So don´t say they don´t have pastry. Remember, weading cakes, wife cakes, moon cakes, etc. China is plenty of them