peru
Peru has been near the top of my bucket list forever, I’ve always wanted to go and see Machu Picchu and spend some extended time in South America, so with 3 months off work this was the perfect time to do it. My adventurous Dad agreed to meet me there for 2.5 weeks, we decided to only go to Lima and Cusco area, so we wouldn’t be moving every day and could take it slow and easy.
Lima
We started in Lima and had a few days there, to recover from jet lag and check out the city. Our highlights were:
The amazing street food tour that we did - incredibly cheap and delicious food can be found all over the place in Lima. Faves were: Ceviche, Papa Renella (a potatoe mince thing - almost like a deep fried piece of shepherds pie), Chicha morada (a drink made from purple corn and spices that sorta reminded me of cold mulled wine), Picarones (sweet potatoe donuts drizzled with some sweeet syrup) and all the new and interesting fruit. If I am honest the cow-heart bbqed on a stick was also delicious, but I can never quite get my brain to enjoy eating organs.
The long walk along the coast from Miraflores to Barranco - super scenic views from up on the coastal cliffs, interesting art and statues along the way and a treasure trove of street art awaiting us.
The stunning view from the historic center of Lima looking up to the poorest neighbourhoods on a hill, the houses are painted with incredibly bright colors in a specific design, I couldn’t stop taking pictures of it (none of which do it justice in the slightest.)
We also enjoyed checking out the park near our hostel which is home to a couple of hundred cats, cared for and fed by a team of volunteers and extremely tame, just lazing around living their lives while humans stream on by. There was also a big craft market, teeming with knitted goods in the brightest colours and patterns, we decided to save our shopping for the end of the trip though! We ate very well in Lima without even going to the big name places (the best restaurant in the world is currently in Lima), and barely scratched the surface of all the great food available.
Cusco and the Sacred Valley
After a few days we jumped on a flight to Cusco, landing high up in the more mountainous area of Peru, at 3400m above sea level. We explored Cusco on foot for a couple of days taking it easy while we adjusted to the altitude. It was a much busier and bigger city than I was expecting, and just as touristy as I had imagined. Yet I still found it frequently charming whether finding ourselves in a quiet alleyway, getting a view across to the hills or wandering past a shop brimming with colourful craft and knitwear. We headed out of the city to stay in the Sacred Valley for a couple of nights, our cute accomodation was in Urubamba, a small town centered around the church and town square. We coincidentally arrived in town when some sort of parade or procession was happening, with a lot of music dancing and ceremony, we think perhaps some sort of memorial for relatives who have passed away. The highlight of our time in Sacred Valley was a tour we did to two nearby sights, the first one was Moray, a very well-preserved area with huge circular formations, archaelogists have concluded they were used to create multiple micro-climates for growing various crops. The second spot was Salinas which is a salt mine, it didn’t sound that interesting to me but it was absolutely stunning, first we got a view from above and then went and walked around and checked out how it works, it’s amazing that they can mine so much salt from one little salt-water spring dribbling out of the rock. I also did a solo-hike up a hill near our accom, I was a little nervous, but in the end it was totally safe and I got some great views over Sacred Valley, as well as testing my legs in a bit of altitude (Urubumba is only at 2,900m).
Local community visit
After these days acclimatising it was time for our tour to begin, we’d booked a 7 day tour which included a 3 day hike and the main event of Machu Picchu. Intros and admin done we started with a walking tour of Cusco. Although we’d seen the city already it was nice to get some historical information and also a good way to get to know the group we’d spend the next week with, plus it finished with a mini tour of a chocolate factory and an absolutely decadent hot chocolate. The next morning we piled into the mini van and set off, driving back into the Sacred Valley we got some great snowy-mountain-range views and made our way to a small farming community who were hosting us for a few hours. They danced and sang as we arrived then we all introduced ourselves and heard a bit about their community. We were then put to work piling up grass that had been cut into bundles - to give us a bit of a taste of their fairly tough existence in the valley. This was followed by a great lunch, corn soup, quinoa, potatoes and other veges, all really delicious. Finally, we got an explanation of how they create wool from the Alpacas/Llamas and how they colour it, weave it etc. The whole visit was really interesting but all had an uncomfortable edge having this kind of display put on for us, we were told it genuinely helps these communities to bring our tourism dollars there, I truly hope that was the case.
Quarry trail hike
We arrived into Ollantaytambo where we’d spend a night before our group would separate for the next few days, some to do the Inka Trail, some non-hikers, and us doing the Quarry Trail. Our hike started around 8am the next morning and was a steady uphill climb through a valley to reach our campsite at 3700m by 1pm. Along the way we had a nice break at a waterfall, checked out some Inka ruins and enjoyed the ever more impressive views as we climbed. As we walked further and further from civilisation we saw the hardiest of folks living right up near the top of the valley, without electricity in very simple stone huts with dirt floors, they usually had a few animals and a vege patch and were living pretty hand to mouth, selling the occasional animal or excess produce. Their kids had a local primary school available but any further education requires moving away from home, apparently more recent generations are more and more heading to the city and abandoning the traditional ways of living there. It was nice to be able to just wander by on our hike and see this way of life in an unobstrusive manner.
Despite being winter (August in the southern hemisphere) it was very warm in the sun and only got chilly once the sun was down each night. We were a group of 5 hikers: me and dad, an ex-military woman from the US and 2 Danish-Aussies recently retired who hadn’t done much hiking before (brave souls). Leading us was our guide Vladimir (100% Peruvian but born in a time where Peru thought Russia was quite cool). We were accompanied by 3 horseman, 5 horses and 2 cooks. Our tents, duffell bags and all food and water for the coming days were carried along the hike by the horses. While we took it verrrry slow getting up to camp with our guide, the rest of the crew powered ahead of us and set up 4 sleeping tents, an eating tent, a cooking tent and a toilet tent, plus cooked a 3 course meal which was waiting when we arrived. This was a pattern to be repeated over the coming days, we’d leave camp first, be overtaken by the horses and rest of the crew and they’d have made camp and be chilling when we arrived, they were incredibly fit and clearly well adapted to the altitude, one was even walking in leather sandals and jeans he was taking it so casually!
Day 2 of the hike was the biggest with two big peaks to get up, the highest being 4450m, we were hiking the whole day and it was spectacular. Starting with a view back on the valley from day 1, as we climbed higher we started adding layers as it got cooler, til eventually our first peak was summitted in total cloud. Luckily the weather shifted and our second peak was rewarded with stunning views across the snowy ranges. We also walked through awesome open plains full of sheep, scrambled down a tough rocky descent and finally climbed to a sun gate worshipping Mount Veronika (named after a legendary female climber who first summited her). The last day of the hike was all downhill, via an old quarry and with lovely views over the Sacred Valley. Arriving back in Ollantaytambo we were all proud as punch to have completed the hike, and enjoyed a couple of hours sitting in deck chairs in the sun, eating lunch and ice cream as a celebration.
Machu Picchu
A key difference between the Quarry Trail and the more well known Inka Trail is that with the Quarry you don’t arrive at Machu Picchu by foot. Instead we now needed to make our way to Agua Calientes (aka Machu Pichhu town) by train to spend a night, then get an early morning bus to Machu Picchu the next day. The train had an odd start as we were led to our carriage by a troupe of singing and dancing locals in traditional dress! Once we got going it was lovely, winding through the Sacred Valley with a cup of tea in hand, we were treated to another slightly odd performance, totally in Spanish so we couldn’t follow it but the actors were up close and personal as the aisles of the train were their stage. Arriving at Machu Picchu we checked into our hotel and I had the best shower of my life, after 3 days of hiking without showering (although we got a bucket of warm water each morning and night to wash with a flannel), it was heavenly, as was sleeping on a proper mattress. It’s one of the things I love about doing hard things, getting a re-appreciation for the everyday luxury we live in.
Up bright and early to take a 6:30am bus to Machu Pichhu we joined the queues and wound our way up the switchback road, I’d never before thought about the actual area that it’s in and wow it was stunning. There were misty swirls around each mountain top as the sun was coming up, and thick green jungle-like coatings on all the peaks, we had our faces glued to the window in awe. Reaching the top we spilled out into a car park and went through some tour-guide-led admin before we could actually enter. The route we took started with a climb up which then meant we could work our way kind of down and through the site as we explored. I don’t really have the words to explain how it felt to finally see Machu Pichhu after all this time but it was definitely a bit emotional. We were super lucky with the weather and the misty cloud mostly cleared while we were up top and had totally cleared by the time we got half way through looking around. The site is massive and you could spend all day walking around it and taking photos of a hundred different views and angles. The view of the location around it is also awesome and if I go back I will definitely try and hike one of the surrounding mountains for another angle. We finished up by taking a train and a bus to get back to Cusco for our final couple of days. They were spent shopping, drinking smoothies/coffee, playing cards, eating more great food and wandering the streets some more. My favourite part was exploring San Blas, a slightly elevated area with skinny streets, cute cafes, views down over the city and lots of street art and plants about.
Lima again
We flew back to Lima to jump on our international flights, we had just a short stop just long enough to explore a bit around our hotel and have a couple of meals. We discovered the most delicious pork sandwhiches (the Chicharron from Sanguchería El Chinito) and churros (this place, but no need to go to the one with the long queue, the one beside it is the same kitchen!). They were so good that we had the exact same meal twice for our only 2 meals this time in Lima.
After an epic 2.5 weeks it was time to say our goodbyes as dad headed back to NZ and I headed for Spain. I’m already plotting returning to Peru, friendly people, great food, awesome outdoor adventures, gritty interesting cities and stunning scenery.
