We’d never been to South America so when the opportunity came to visit Peru this summer, I was very excited and a bit nervous. We set off in June loaded with a pharmacy-worthy collection of pills and gels and a wardrobe of brand new dry-fit clothing suitable for the wilds.  Peru turned out to be a dream destination:  jaw-dropping sights, amazing food and wine and incredibly warm people.  I can’t possibly fit two weeks’ worth of experiences in one short blog  so I’ve attempted to cover the highlights. If you want more detail on anything or would like to share your own experiences, please post a comment.

Arequipa
Our visit started in Arequipa, the second largest city in the country.  The city is famous for colonial buildings constructed of white volcanic rock called sillar. A convenient 2-hour or 4-hour BusTour excursion is great for covering the essentials. My top recommendations:
Monasterio de Santa Catalina: From what our guide told us, in Peru the convents (for nuns) are called monasteries and monasteries (for monks) are called convents. Either way, a visit to the Monastery is well worth it. About 30 nuns still live here, albeit in newer quarters. I especially loved the courtyards, the vibrant colors and the incredible view of the mountains from the rooftops.  English speaking guides are available for a negotiable fee.  

Juanita Mummy: Volcano rumbles, people panic, convince young girl that she’s a worthy sacrifice, fill her up with corn-beer, bash her on the head and mummify her. Volcano stops rumbling. Although I’m being flippant, the “Ice Maiden” display can be sobering. National Geographic has a much less cavalier write up and TV special. 

Shopping: Arequipa is famous for its Alpaca weavings – shawls, scarves and sweaters. Mundo Alpaca has a nice free tour to illustrate how the wool is gathered and made into garments and covers Vicuna, a much pricier wool as well. I found the shops, particularly Inkalpaca, in the cloisters of the Compania de Jesus, near the main square, to be a bit more reasonably priced.  As in the rest of Peru, there are innumerable markets, best for souvenirs and weavings for home décor.
 
Colca Canyon
At around 13,000 feet deep, the Colca Canyon is one of the deepest canyons in the world. Cruz del Condor, or Condor Cross is THE place to see condors. A bumpy 3 to 4 hour ride from Arequipa gets you to the Colca Valley where a number of small villages offer good accommodations.  I also got my first look at the farming terraces (some of which are still in use today) that Peru is famous for.
 
We got to Colca Cross early in the morning and, as the sun warmed the air, the condors slowly drifted out to ride the currents. By 9.30, the sky was filled with the birds, some with wingspans of 8 feet or more.  The experience of looking over the canyon with the birds wheeling above alone would make a trip to Peru worthwhile. The pictures we took made us glad we took the trouble to carry along our better camera.

On our way out, we stopped at vendors to eat what is probably the best sandwich I’ve ever had:  local pan de tres puntos, avocado (or palta), local white cheese and tomato.  We spent the rest of our Peruvian vacation eating variations of this sandwich called “triple vegetariano” but we were never able to find that bread outside the Arequipa area.

A note of caution: some people experience severe altitude sickness here. I think we were helped by spending several days in Arequipa first but Mate de Coca, a local tea, is good for countering the headaches and nausea as well. Others that we talked to said they got prescription medication before making the trip.

Cusco and Area
Next up was Cusco, the navel of the Incan empire until the Spanish brutally took it over. It’s a lively touristy city with plenty of day trips, vigilant police and from what I hear, an excellent night life. The Dominicans had the local Quechua dismantle their temples and use the stone to erect cathedrals and churches. These have had to be frequently rebuilt with each earthquake so the variations in styles are fascinating. The Quechua foundations though are beautifully intact. Koricancha, or the Temple of the Sun, and cathedrals near the main square are a must.  Be sure to look for a painting of the Last Supper, complete with Cui (roasted guinea pig) on the main platter, and Judas’ face in the likeness of Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish conquistador. I thought if I were an art lover, or if I had more time, a deeper exploration of the Cusco School style of painting would have been interesting.

Saqsayhuaman is a short trip from the city center. Although some of the construction was been dismantled by the Spanish who used it as a quarry, the grandeur of this military and religious complex is obvious. Massive stones form ramparts and are precisely fitted together with no mortar.  We just missed the annual celebration there, with music and dancing, held on June 24th.  The ruins at Quenqo and Tambomachay are just a few miles up the road. The former, if I understand correctly, is essentially a sacrificial site dedicated to the Puma, representing the middle world for the Quechua peoples. Tambomachay features several cascading water fountains believed to be used by the priests for ceremonies. A gaggle of vendors will trail you here so unless you’re interested, keep moving.

Pisac and Ollantaytambo (Sacred Valley)
The ruins at Pisac are the first place in Peru where I was completely breathless. I don’t mean breathless with wonder, although they are wonderful. I mean, out of breath. The trail took us through a wide arc of farming terraces, up the side of the hill, down some precarious steps and around to the military, religious and residential complexes and back around again.  The temple of the sun here has a key strategic location, overlooking the Urumbaba River valley.
  
We had only a brief visit to Ollantaytambo, the heart of what has been dubbed the Sacred Valley, because of an impending civil strike. We spent some of our extra time that afternoon wandering through the Pisac market which was probably the largest and best of the markets we saw during the entire trip. There was jewelry, textiles, art, leather and  a variety of junk, er, souvenirs, to thrill everyone.

Aquas Calientes:  
A 1½ hour pre-dawn bus ride from Cusco to Ollantaytambo got us to the train station for our trip to Aquas Calientes, at the base of Macchu Picchu. Our Lonely Planet guide to Peru (I’m paraphrasing here) says Aquas Calientes is the ugliest city in Peru. I’m forced to agree. Construction abounds, trains run through and although there is a pretty river going through the town, it all has a general air of a place where people only spend one night.  For that one night, do choose your hotel wisely.  Ours had some “issues.” The one redeeming feature are the thermal baths for which the place is named but my memory of that is dimmed by the loss of my daughter’s camera there and the tears that followed afterwards.
A note: If you want evidence of South Americans’ relaxed attitude towards time, you won’t find it at the Peru Rail station. We got there, got on board and we were off, precisely at the advertised time.

Macchu Picchu
The ruins of Macchu Picchu are a 15-minute bus ride up the mountain from Aquas Calientes but we chose to hike up (about 2 hours). By the time we were half way up this 1,200 foot mountain and thinking it was a bit too steep, it was too late to take the bus.  We (okay, I) wheezed my way to the top and gratefully paid ski-resort prices for a snack at the restaurant near the main entrance.

According to our guide, the city was abruptly abandoned when word of the Spanish capture of Cusco came through. It lay abandoned until 1912 when Hiram Bingham made the finding of the “Lost City of the Incas” public.  There was some bitter sentiment, by the way, that he pillaged the place and carried off everything of value.  The city faces due east, with the north and south anchored by mountains and a river to the west, behind the complex. I wonder how much scouting had to be done to find just that location all those centuries ago. 

The ruins are all they promise to be. We entered the complex through a small doorway that restricts your view and then were hit over the head with the magnificence of it.  The complex is well preserved, with farming terraces, an urban sector for manufacturing, and several ceremonial buildings.

The Temple of the Sun has a curved wall with windows placed to receive the sun at precise times. The building integrates man-made construction with a natural rock formation, all quite precariously balanced over a niche. This is one of the few places in the complex that is cordoned off for tourists.

The Intihuata was described to us as place used by astronomers. It’s high up, overlooking a large square that separates the religious area from the urban part of the complex. The carved rock is said to exude a strong positive energy but I didn’t feel it (more later).

The Temple of the Condor has a carved altar set into the ground but when you step back and look up, you can see rocks balanced in the shape of condor wings. I would have loved to stay there and enjoy the place a bit more, but a very loud guide who spoke entirely in superlatives showed up accompanied by a large group of gawking tourists. We left so quickly that I managed to bang my head quite hard on one of the many low stone lintels.

Macchu Picchu is supposed to be one of the great spiritual energy places in the world. My plan, after touring the complex with the guide for a few hours, was to sit somewhere breathe it in. After spending 20 minutes getting increasingly irritated with my childrens’ complete inability to be quiet for FIVE MINUTES, I gave up. If anyone else felt any energy floating around the place, let me know.

My annoyance led me to hustle up the hill to one of the highest point of the complex, the Caretaker’s Hut. As you round the corner, the entire area is laid out in front: the green valleys, the mountains, the ruins and the river behind them. As the guide had pointed out, the complex suddenly looks like the face of an Indian, with the hills defining a forehead, nose, mouth and chin. This is one of the best spots to take a picture unless you want to climb up to Macchu Picchu peak, which is the next mountain over.

From Macchu Picchu, we made our way back to Cusco, again by Peru Rail. The train ride featured a merry fashion show and some gently aggressive sales efforts by the staff.  In Cusco, some of the group went to the Friday food market, featured on Anthony Bourdain’s show No Reservations and came back with some excellent food stories. I chose to stay in the hotel and read a much-needed book.  We spent a leisure afternoon at the many handicrafts markets where I paid more than more than twice what the kids were able to negotiate a few stalls down for an “alpaca” scarf. Stuff at the markets in every town is open to haggling so get into the spirit of it and you’ll save a bundle.

Puerto Maldonado
The next day, we headed off to Puerto Maldonado, on the southern end of the Amazon rainforest. It’s a small wet town that looks a lot like towns in India, down to the three-wheeled taxis that resemble auto-rickshaws. For some inexplicable reason, we had to go shop for ponchos and torches. I wondered why the hotel could not have provided them? No matter, a serene 3 hour ride up the Tambopata river got us to the Tambopata Lodge. I’m a bit ambivalent about this part of the trip. I think we should have stayed longer than 2 nights and visited the nearby salt licks to see the area’s macaws, or skipped it entirely. Having lived in Florida, I thought our experience there was pretty much like wading through one of our nearby state parks in the middle of summer but with much more fear. 

On the upside, we saw the world’s largest rodent (the Capibara), the world meanest ant (the Bullet ant – the sting can hurt for 15 hours or more), the world’s largest tree species, and the world’s largest snail. A night time trip up the river to spot caymans was very peaceful, especially as (for the first time on our vacation), our son was absolutely silent as instructed. Our guide Elvis gets much of the credit: He had a great sense of humor and the patience of a saint when dealing with incessant questions about piranhas and anacondas. A short excursion to an oxbow lake gave us a view of some lovely birds and a group of cracker loving piranhas but alas, no anacondas.

On to Lima and out of Peru
We stayed in Lima for one night on our way out of the country. Miraflores was recommended to us as a safe place (and it was) but it was pretty much like walking around Times Square in New York. A mini-tour of the old city the next day yielded some nice stops but this place, like Puerto Maldonado, needed to be skipped or warranted a longer stay.

Things I missed:
 I would love to go back to Peru for Lake Titicaca near Puno, the Nazca Lines south of Lima and most importantly, to hike the Inca Trail.  I’d also remember the airport taxes. Every flight has an airport tax that is collected separately, in cash only. $6 for domestic flights and $31 for international.
Next up? 
According to the in-flight magazine on our return trip, the summit of the Baru Volcano in Panama is a great place to see both the Pacific and the Atlantic. Altitude is over 11,000 feet but beyond very good stamina, no special climbing experience is required.  Hmm….