Lima
We arrived to our hotel at 2am after 3 flights (Prague – Frankfurt – Bogota – Lima) and probably the longest travel day we’ve had at 20+ hours. We’re now in a time zone that is the equivalent to Central Standard Time in the US. So excited to be in South America for the first time!
Randomly, we’ve ended up on several flights where someone needed medical attention. One person had severe food poisoning symptoms and the latest was a woman who had a non-stop nosebleed. I was happy to put my NP skills to use a little…
We stayed in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima since it’s close to the Pacific and known to be one of the safest areas in Lima. We keep reading about how dangerous Lima is but we haven’t experienced anything sketchy.
On our first full day in Lima we walked to the tall bluffs overlooking the Pacific. There were a lot of surfers out and many paragliders as well. After getting a ton of errands done we headed to dinner at a restaurant called Costazul. I read great things about their ceviches. Unfortunately, they were closed for the night but the gregarious owner pointed us to an Italian place that was really good 1 block away. He asked us to come back the following night and we did. The food was to die for! The most memorable dish was thinly sliced octopus over perfect olive oil with sliced tomatoes and avocados. It’s accompanied by saltines and bread. You make a little open-faced cracker sandwich out of it and it’s SO delicious.
Cusco
Lima was a home base for all of the places we visited in Peru. So we took a 1 hour flight from Lima to Cusco. This city is where most people go first to acclimate to the altitude before heading to Machu Picchu. Cusco is at an elevation of approximately 11,200 ft. We took altitude sickness pills for a few days prior to and while in Cusco as a precaution. Everyone generally eats some form of the coca leaf to stave off symptoms. When you get to the airport it is everywhere. You can chew the leaf, drink it in a tea or eat it in candy form. But you will test positive for a drug test. Jason also bought a bottle of oxygen just in case. Not sure which treatment worked the best but we were totally fine with the exception of having some shortness of breath with walking.
On our first full day in Cusco we went on a phenomenal Sacred Valley tour! Our tour guide, Raul, was excellent. He was so informative and passionate about Incan culture and history. We spent all day seeing the various sites in the Sacred Valley. Raul described in painful detail how the Spanish conquistadors stole the Incan gold and silver and enslaved the natives among other atrocities. A familiar fact that we’ve learned about in many of the places we travelled. It’s very fascinating history, some of which varies depending on who you’re asking.
What is known is that the Incans created some amazing structures that were well ahead of their time. We were amazed as to how they managed to get boulders that weigh tons up to the mountain tops to build their temples and homes. Mind you, these structures are still standing after centuries of earthquakes. Because of the astounding resiliency of the Incan structures and the technological sophistication required to build these places there are theories about alien inhabitants. This idea is very offensive to Peruvians who feel that their people were highly intelligent and able to perfect their techniques over centuries.
Archeological sites that we visited in the Sacred Valley tour included Pisac, Ollantaytambo (our favorite, and Raul thinks it’s better than Machu Picchu) and Chinchero. We stopped for lunch in a little town called Urubamba. The restaurant was in a big house with beautiful grounds. There were 2 parrots and a lovely garden in the front, and a river and 2 alpacas (also on the menu) in the back. It was delish! I didn’t try the alpaca but Jason did and he said it tasted like beef.
Our tour guide for Machu Picchu met us at our Cusco hotel after we got back from the Sacred Valley tour. He provided us with all of the details of our trip for the following couple of days. It turned out that we got a private tour because it’s not full on tourist season yet. Score! We were picked up at our hotel at 4am, drove 2 hours to Ollantaytambo, then took Inca Rail to the base of the mountain. The Inca Rail flows alongside the Urubamba River, which was also the starting point of our hike. We were hiking on the Inca trail on the Andes by 8am.
We followed the trail that wound us up the mountain all morning long. It’s partly a jungle hike and other sections are walking next to sheer cliffs plunging nearly 3,000 feet down to the river below. Most of the trail is made of original Incan steps that have a very characteristic look with varying sizes of stones. Machu Picchu is a 15th century Incan site that is about 8,000 ft above sea level. Surprisingly, the elevation in Cusco is 3,000+ ft higher.
We were extremely lucky with the weather because rain was in the forecast plus you’re in a near tropical environment, so storms can come in at any time. But it was sunny the entire time with no rain at all. It actually got quite hot and poor Jason carried our backpack the entire day and it probably weighed 20 pounds.
We had our bag lunch at the terraces on Winyawanya then made our way up to the Sun Gate (Intipunku – 8,900 ft) overlooking the magnificent Machu Picchu below. Huge reward after our 8-mile uphill hike today!
Made our way back down the mountain to the little town of Aguas Calientes for the night, then got back up at 4:30am the next morning to make it to Machu Picchu for sunrise. It was nice because Machu Picchu opens at 6am and there are fewer tourists around at that time. After sunrise our tour guide, Edwin, gave us some info about the site and then he took the train back to Cusco. We spent the rest of the morning exploring the site and hiking to an old Incan Bridge. Parts of this hike were scary because of the steep drop offs. Overall, the experience was unforgettable and far exceeded our expectations.
We arrived back in Aguas Calientes after hiking nearly 2 miles down the mountain from Machu Picchu. Definitely worked up an appetite. There are lots of restaurants here that sell Mexican food and we were really craving it, so we ordered a couple of chicken quesadillas. Bad idea. I found a completely raw piece of chicken in mine and sent it back. Needless to say, Jason and I both suffered a bit of food poisoning here. Seconds after I found the raw chicken, some tourists walking by asked us if the food was good because Aguas Calientes is known for having bad food. Wished we’d seen them before we ordered. Oh well. Small price to pay for seeing one of the (new) 7 World Wonders.
Paracas
We flew back to Lima from Cusco the next morning and stayed at a Backpackers/Hostel for one night before taking a bus to Paracas. It’s a cute little seaside town with lots of activities like sandboarding, dune buggies, boat trips to a nearby bird sanctuary island and Nazca Lines overflights. Nazca lines is originally why we chose to come to Paracas but we still weren’t positive we were going to go for the flight.
Met a couple of girls – one French and the other from Mauritius that invited themselves to our table after dinner. We ended up hanging out with them the rest of the night and having beers on the beach. They were hilarious! They’re students doing a study abroad program for their Masters in Languages. We met up with another group of guys later that night and we all talked for hours.
The next morning we got up and decided to give the Nazca Lines flight a try. In his research, Jason read that a lot of these flights used to be very dangerous with careless pilots, resulting in several crashes. So we wanted to choose the best airline. They are very small planes and can get pretty bumpy. There was only one airline offering flights over Nazca Lines. They were the lone survivors as many of the bad airlines went out of business.
We got super lucky and there were 2 spots left on the only plane we could take without missing our bus later back to Lima. But the airline rep said the other passengers were a group of Russians so the plane might be overweight. Lol. We’d have to wait to see if we could fit after they were all weighed. Everything worked out perfectly, the plane was under weight and we were off.
We were pleasantly surprised that the plane was a 12-seater. This is larger than some of the planes Jason had read about. Our over-flight was an hour and forty minutes. The Lines were fascinating and it remains a mystery how they were created. There are the obvious alien theories about them and when you see them you can understand why. To fly over the Lines we flew at 1,000 feet and the pilot dipped to both sides so everyone could see all of the figures. Most were animals and insects, and also an “astronaut.”
Chiclayo
After seeing Nazca lines, we hopped on a bus back to Lima (again). We stayed at another backpackers called the Flying Dog for one night. The next day we squeezed in one final ruins in Lima called Huaca Pucllana. Pre-Incan adobe and clay pyramid where, among other things, human sacrifices were made to the gods during rough times. After touring the ruins we raced back to the airport for our flight to Chiclayo.
Chiclayo was never in our original trip planning for Peru, but we had some extra time and needed to find another place that fit in our budget and kept with the theme of the trip. Jason found an incredible deal on flights to Chiclayo and it was rated Trip Advisors #10 place to visit in Peru. It’s in northern Peru and close to the beach. Win-win, right? Wrong…
While we stayed in a cute, clean hotel with very friendly staff, the city itself left a lot to be desired. It was dusty, dirty, loud and pretty much reminded us of being back in the 3rd world…which wouldn’t have been a problem, but the fact that it had no nightlife and nothing much to see or do made us worry that we had 5 nights here.
In the end it worked out because I was able to get a lot of work done. Poor Jason caught a cold, but at least it happened before Belize. We did take a couple of trips out to Pimentel Beach (30 minutes away). We walked the long pier and had a great time watching the surfers jump off past the break to avoid paddling all the way out to the big waves.
We also went to the Mall (ate at a Chilli’s – yep), and did a day trip to the ruins in the area. Really only one ruin here - Tucume (valley of the pyramids). The site was pretty cool. It’s also pre-Incan and amazingly still standing despite being built out of mud bricks. The other 2 things to see were museums. Sican National Museum and the Royal Tombs of Sipan. The latter was the best. We saw actual remains of the royals and all of the gold and precious stones they were buried with. Very interesting.
Since there wasn’t much else to do in Chiclayo we at least wanted to try all of the “best” restaurants in town according to Trip Advisor. No more risk taking with food for us… Of course we had local dishes like arroz con pato (rice and duck), cabrito (baby goat) and tried a hot ceviche (yum)! But after days of Peruvian food, we were craving American staples. The number 1 restaurant listed was a place called Brothers Burgers and BBQ. An American guy from Colorado named Michael owns it. The food was good and it turns out he’s traveled all around the world and stayed at a lot of the same backpackers we did while in South Africa. He and Jason remembered all of the owners and everything. Small world. He’s now married to a Peruvian woman with a toddler and is settled in Chiclayo, where her family lives. He hopes to either expand his restaurant or open more in the city, which according to him, is pretty corrupt. Good luck to him. We couldn’t imagine living here but his story was definitely inspiring.
All in all, Peru was great, with the highlight being Machu Picchu. Someday we would love to come back to see some of the places we missed. But for now, we're excited for some relaxing island time in Belize.