Peru

Days 1, 2, and 3: Cliffs, catacombs, and churros

Lima is remarkable in so many ways, starting with its dramatic opening statement: the city sits atop towering black cliffs that drop straight to the Pacific in a way that makes you instinctively step back from the edge. Parks run along the cliff tops, a coastal road snakes along the base far below, and — thanks to that ocean breeze — the air stays surprisingly clean despite Lima having a larger population than New York City or the entire country of Portugal. We’re still not entirely sure how a city of nearly 10 million people manages to have breathable air, but we’re not about to question our good fortune.

Walking through the cliff-top parks was a revelation. Impeccably landscaped gardens, a paragliding school where people casually launch themselves off cliffs (no big deal), tennis courts, a BMX and skate park — all of it buzzing with locals who clearly know they live somewhere special. We particularly enjoyed Parque Del Amor (Love Park), which features a giant statue of a couple locked in an enthusiastic embrace and, on any given day, plenty of real-life couples recreating the scene with varying degrees of PDA. Limeños hold an annual kissing competition here every year; the current record holders managed 40 straight minutes without coming up for air. We’re filing that under “impressive, possibly concerning, and definitely not a goal for our next visit.”

Downtown Lima has colonial flair, but dialed up to eleven — possibly twelve. Lima was once the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, which governed most of Spain’s South and Central American colonies, and the opulent buildings reflect that former imperial swagger. We hit the main plazas, San Martín and Mayor, plus the surrounding historic sights, taking in centuries of architectural ambition one plaza at a time.

Our favorite? The Convento de San Francisco, a church and convent complex that is perhaps better known these days for the thousands of human bones artfully arranged in the catacombs beneath it. The architecture above ground is breathtakingly ornate, the old library is the kind of place that makes you want to whisper even when no one else is around, and yes, the catacombs are a little macabre — but in a “no regrets, glad we did it, slightly unsettled but fascinated” kind of way. Having recently visited Morocco, we had fun spotting Moorish architectural details everywhere, which turned the whole experience into an impromptu scavenger hunt. Turns out Spanish colonial architecture borrowed heavily from the Moors, proving that even empires can’t resist a good design trend.

We’re based in Barranco, a seaside neighborhood filled with meticulously preserved historic mansions that look like they wandered out of a period drama. In Lima’s colonial days these were the summer retreats of wealthy families who lived downtown — proof that escaping to the coast for the season is a very old habit, and that rich people have always known how to pick their real estate. Today some remain private homes; others have been converted into art collectives, museums, and boutique hotels. Our hotel, Casa República Barranco, is one of those lovingly restored mansions, featuring high ceilings, original tile work, and local art tucked into every hallway and corner. It’s the kind of place where you feel slightly fancier just by walking through the door.

Art is everywhere in Barranco — galleries, street murals, trendy bars and cafés where everyone looks cooler than us — and we’ve given up trying to decide whether we came here for the neighborhood or whether the neighborhood simply claimed us. Probably both.

• Hotel: Casa Republica Barranco

Lima has a serious food scene — Michelin stars, molecular gastronomy, inventive fusions that probably shouldn’t work but absolutely do — but for our first few days we deliberately stuck to traditional Peruvian. We wanted to establish a baseline: how does the real deal compare to the Peruvian restaurants back home? Spoiler alert: the real deal wins decisively, and it’s not even close.

A standout was Isolina, a short walk from our hotel, which specializes in hearty traditional dishes that make you understand why comfort food is universal. Everything hit: papa rellena (fried mashed potatoes stuffed with savory beef — essentially the potato’s highest calling), causa limeña (layers of mashed potato, avocado, and chicken salad stacked into an architectural tower that’s almost too pretty to eat), and an appetizer platter featuring ceviche, fried octopus, corn, and sweet potatoes. We ordered more than was advisable and regretted nothing.

For dessert, we made a pilgrimage to Churros Virgen del Carmen in the historic center. We went twice, and we’re not sorry. Unlike the usual churros you’d find at a fair or theme park, these are hand-rolled dough wrapped around a gooey core of dulce de leche that oozes out when you bite into them. They’re messy, they’re indulgent, and we’ll be thinking about them for weeks.

• Lunch: Isolina
• Dessert: Churros Virgen del Carmen

Days 4, 5, and 6: Terraces, textiles, and a dyeing lesson

We’re now in Valle Sagrado (the Sacred Valley), a dramatic valley carved deep in the Andes that has been continuously inhabited since pre-Incan times — the fertile soil has been pulling in farmers for millennia, which speaks to either excellent agricultural conditions or extremely stubborn ancestors. Possibly both. We’re staying in a tiny village at Casita Crystal, a recently built cabin featuring clean modern design and floor-to-ceiling windows that frame the valley and surrounding mountains like living paintings. We’ve spent what might be considered an embarrassing amount of time just staring out of them, occasionally interrupted by the need to eat or sleep.

• Airbnb: Casita Crystal

We visited Chinchero, a town that’s been known for traditional textiles for centuries — long before “artisanal” became a marketing buzzword. At one of the weaving collectives, we watched skilled artisans wash, spin, dye, and weave fiber from alpacas with a level of expertise that made our own attempts at crafts feel deeply inadequate. Our host walked us through the impressive range of colors they achieve using all-natural plant-based dyes: reds from cochineal insects, yellows from a local tree, greens from a combination of the two. Very impressive, very sustainable, very Instagram-worthy.

Then she reached the blue yarns. The deeper shades, she explained, need more than plants — they need a very specific ingredient. “We use children’s urine,” she said matter-of-factly, as if this were the most normal thing in the world. We blinked. “Why not adults?” we asked, wondering if we really wanted to know the answer. Without missing a beat, she replied: “It won’t work. There’s too much pisco sour in their pee.”

We are not making this up. This is real traditional knowledge passed down through generations. Apparently the pH balance matters, and Peruvian adults consume enough pisco sours (a beloved alcoholic cocktail) to throw off the chemistry. We’re filing this under “things we never expected to learn about textile dyeing” and also “yet another reason to appreciate traditional craftspeople who know things we could never figure out on our own.”

• Weaving collective: Centro Textil Amaru Wasi
• Driver: Freddy (Whatsapp +51 944 204 951)

Next stop: Moray, where the Incas built a series of terraced circles that step down into a natural bowl in concentric rings, like an ancient amphitheater designed by an agricultural engineer. The ingenious part: sunlight exposure and temperature vary significantly from top to bottom — up to 5°C (9°F) difference between terraces — creating distinct microclimates within a small area. Historians believe the Incas used the site as an open-air agricultural laboratory for experimenting with different crops in different conditions. Basically, they were conducting controlled scientific experiments centuries before anyone had grant funding, peer review, or strongly worded emails about methodology. The Incas were not messing around.

• Moray ruins

From Moray we headed to the Maras salt mines, where a warm underground spring brings salt-laden water up from deep below and local families have been evaporating it into salt for over 500 years — possibly longer, but record-keeping wasn’t exactly a priority back then. More than 400 families collectively run thousands of individual evaporation pools, each one carefully maintained and passed down through generations like very salty heirlooms.

The first glimpse of the site is genuinely surreal: thousands of geometric terraces carved into the steep Andean hillside, each pool reflecting the sky in slightly different shades depending on salt concentration, all surrounded by dramatic peaks. It looks like something between a modern art installation and an alien landscape, except it’s been operating continuously since before Columbus got lost looking for India. Sometimes the old ways really are the best ways.

• Maras salt mines
• Lunch: Tierra Cocina Artesanal

We also explored the extensive ruins at Pisac, and “extensive” might be an understatement. We spent a solid chunk of the day there and still only managed to see a fraction of the sprawling complex — agricultural terraces that cling impossibly to steep slopes, residential areas, watchtowers positioned for maximum paranoia about neighboring kingdoms, an astronomical observatory, and more structures whose purposes archaeologists are still debating.

We wound through narrow stone paths and climbed ancient staircases that have survived centuries of weather, earthquakes, and tourists. The stonework kept stopping us in our tracks: the precision of the joints, the scale of the construction, the casual defiance of gravity — all of it makes you temporarily forget how old everything is. Then you remember these were built without modern tools, wheels, or written instructions, and you feel appropriately humbled. The Incas were absolutely not messing around.

• Pisac ruins
• Lunch: La Ruta

Day 7: Fog, patience, and a proposal

We made it to Machu Picchu. The visit did not go as planned — it turned into more of an emotional rollercoaster than we bargained for — but it was worth every single minute, every moment of doubt, and every ounce of patience we didn’t know we had.

The plan was straightforward, even romantic: enter at 6 am when the park opens, hike up to the classic viewpoint before sunrise, and watch the first rays of sunlight illuminate the ancient citadel and surrounding mountains in early-morning solitude. We’d seen the photos. We knew what to expect. We were ready.

The reality: fog. Thick, impenetrable, unrelenting fog. We reached the viewpoint right on schedule, just before sunrise, and positioned ourselves at the stone wall where countless iconic photographs have been taken. We knew — intellectually, cartographically — that we were facing one of the most famous views on the planet. We could see exactly none of it. Just a wall of gray mist that seemed to mock our careful planning.

Within half an hour, we caught our first glimpse: a corner of the ruins emerged briefly from the clouds. Exciting! Hopeful! Then it vanished again, swallowed whole. Another glimpse, slightly longer this time, then the clouds closed in again like a curtain. We stayed put. The pattern repeated: glimpse, fog, glimpse, fog. Rinse and repeat for over three hours while we oscillated between hope and resignation.

By then a substantial crowd had gathered behind us, and the emotional range on display was quite something. Tour groups arrived with their guides, who gamely explained what everyone would be seeing if only there weren’t a giant cloud in the way. After a few obligatory photos of nothing but fog, the guides herded their groups along to the next stop. We overheard one woman lament to her companion, “All of that money for this? I’m so sad.” A man nearby kept shaking his head, muttering to himself: “I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe this.” We felt all of it — the disappointment, the disbelief, the quiet frustration at traveling so far to stare at weather.

The park rangers here usually keep people moving, gently ushering crowds along to prevent congestion. But even they seemed affected by the collective disappointment. We overheard one ranger quietly tell another, “I just don’t have the heart to tell them to move on.” So we all stayed, a growing collection of hopeful strangers united by stubbornness and expensive plane tickets.

Then, just as we were starting to seriously discuss giving up and coming back later, the fog began to lift. Not all at once — nothing about this day was going to be easy — but gradually, dramatically, like a reveal choreographed by nature itself. The citadel emerged first, stone by ancient stone, then the terraces, then finally Huayna Picchu mountain rising behind it all. The whole scene materialized before us as if someone had slowly turned up the contrast on reality itself.

We laughed. We high-fived complete strangers. Some people cheered. A few cried. The three-hour wait had transformed the view from something we expected to see into something we had earned. It felt personal in a way that instant gratification never could.

And then, right next to us — because this day apparently wasn’t done with emotional moments — a young man dropped to one knee and pulled out a ring. His girlfriend’s hands flew to her face. She said yes. They both cried. The entire crowd erupted in cheers and applause. Strangers congratulated them. Someone yelled “Best timing ever!” We’re not sure if he planned it for after the fog lifted or if he just had impeccable instincts, but either way, it was perfect. So many emotions packed into such a small space at the edge of a cliff.

After soaking in the views from several spots along the terraced slopes, we finally walked through the stone gateway into the citadel itself. Built for the Inca emperor Pachacuti around 1450, it was inhabited for just over a century before the Spanish conquest drove the Incas away. They abandoned it so completely that the Spanish never found it — it remained hidden in the mountains until 1911. Standing among the precisely fitted stones, walking through the same doorways that Incan nobles once used, the scale and sophistication of it all is genuinely overwhelming.

We hiked through the ruins with ridiculous grins plastered on our faces, still high on relief and wonder. That first reveal after the fog lifted? The collective moment of shared joy with complete strangers? The surprise proposal? We’re not forgetting any of it anytime soon. Some experiences you just have to earn.

• Machu Picchu ruins
• Hotel: Belmond Sanctuary Lodge

Days 8, 9, and 10: Colonial charm at 11,000 feet

After several days in small Sacred Valley villages where the most exciting evening activity was watching the sun set over the mountains, Cusco felt like moving to the big city — more cars, more people, more restaurants with actual menus instead of whatever was made that day. Yet it remained entirely walkable, which is good because at this altitude, driving anywhere feels like cheating and walking anywhere feels like cardio.

We explored the historic center on foot, which was necessary anyway because many streets are too narrow for cars and seem designed specifically to make tourists feel like they’re in a time machine. Once the capital of the mighty Inca empire, Cusco is now perhaps equally famous for its Spanish colonial architecture and for sitting at an oxygen-depriving 3,400 m (11,152 feet) above sea level. The altitude is impossible to ignore — every staircase becomes a personal challenge, every hill a philosophical question about whether the view is worth the breathlessness. (Spoiler: it always is.)

We wandered through narrow cobblestone alleys and tree-lined plazas, past intricately hand-carved wooden balconies that have somehow survived centuries, ornate churches that look like they’re competing for “most gilded interior,” and endless miles of traditional clay tile roofs that turn golden at sunset.

Cusco has no shortage of museums, but our favorite was the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, where we got a proper education in Incan and pre-Incan culture that we definitely should have gotten before visiting all those ruins. Better late than never, we suppose. We love indigenous art, and the ceramics and wood carvings here — stylized animals, intricate geometric patterns, designs that somehow feel both ancient and modern — were exactly our speed. We spent longer here than we planned, which is always the sign of a good museum.

As we reached our last day in the Andes, we took stock of the food situation, which is important when you’re professional eaters masquerading as tourists. We’ve systematically worked our way through potatoes (in more varieties than we knew existed), corn (served in kernels the size of small grapes), quinoa (which originated here and tastes better here, somehow), beans, yucca, and river trout. Standouts that deserve special mention: traditional quinoa soup that made us understand why quinoa conquered the world, grilled trout served on a bed of rice and beans that we ordered multiple times, quinoa-veggie salad that was somehow hearty enough to be a meal, and grilled octopus with roasted potatoes that made us question why we don’t eat more octopus.

Not a bad run. We’re going to miss Andean food.

• Museum of Pre-Columbian Art
• Hotel: Antigua Casona San Blas

Days 11, 12, 13, and 14: Mud boots, jaguar tracks, and citizen science

We spent our last several days deep in the Peruvian Amazon at the Tambopata Research Center Lodge — a working research center that doubles as a hotel, with tourism revenue funding the actual science. It’s a brilliant model: guests get to feel like they’re contributing to conservation while enjoying relative comfort in the middle of the jungle, and researchers get funding without having to write quite as many grant proposals. Everyone wins.

Getting there was an adventure in itself, the kind that makes you appreciate the phrase “off the beaten path.” First: an hour’s flight from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado, trading thin mountain air for thick humid jungle air. Then ninety minutes by road through increasingly questionable terrain. Finally, two and a half hours upriver by boat, watching civilization gradually disappear behind us. A few years ago, before the new road was built, the river portion alone took two full days. We’re deeply grateful for progress, even if it meant missing out on what must have been an epic journey that would have given us excellent storytelling material.

Our time at the lodge flew by in a blur of mud, wildlife, and enthusiastic note-taking. We alternated between trekking through the jungle in tall rubber mud boots (fashion statement: questionable, practicality: essential) and cruising up and down the river by boat, scanning the banks for wildlife. Our indigenous guide, Timoteo, possessed the kind of knowledge that can only come from growing up in this environment — he could identify plants, insects, birds, and monkeys not just by sight but by sound alone, often from distances that seemed frankly impossible. The number of species he could name from a single birdcall was genuinely remarkable, humbling, and slightly show-offy in the best possible way.

After a few days of following him around like eager students, we’d picked up enough to correctly identify maybe three birds on our own. We felt vaguely accomplished about this before remembering that Timoteo can probably identify hundreds. The learning curve is steep when your teacher is essentially a walking jungle encyclopedia.

One morning, Timoteo spotted fresh jaguar tracks in the mud near the lodge. We examined them with appropriate reverence and a healthy dose of concern about the word “fresh.” Jaguars, he explained, occasionally pass through this area hunting for prey. We asked the obvious question: should we be worried? He smiled and said they’re generally not interested in humans. “Generally” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, but we chose to trust his expertise and only spent a moderate amount of time looking over our shoulders on subsequent jungle walks.

In the evenings, after we’d cleaned approximately three pounds of mud off our boots, we attended talks by the resident research scientists. They walked us through their ongoing projects: innovative technology for gathering data in one of the world’s most challenging research environments, crowd-sourced citizen science programs that allow people worldwide to contribute to rainforest conservation, and AI systems sophisticated enough to process the overwhelming amount of data the jungle generates. The talks transformed everything we’d seen during the day from “cool wildlife” into “critical data points in understanding and protecting one of Earth’s most important ecosystems.” It added layers of context and urgency that made us appreciate the place even more — and feel grateful that someone is doing the hard work of protecting it while we just visit.

• Lodge: Tambopata Research Center Lodge

Day 15: Full circle

We spent our last night back in Lima — one final evening before flying home, bookending the trip where it began. The familiarity felt unexpectedly comforting after two weeks of constant movement and new experiences. We knew which streets to take, which bakery had the best pastries (still conducting research on this, obviously), and how to navigate the city without looking like obvious tourists. For approximately five minutes, we felt like locals. Then we got on a plane.

We loved the pace of this trip — the balance between urban exploration, mountain adventures, and jungle immersion felt exactly right, even if our bodies are still processing the rapid altitude changes. We saw ancient ruins that made us question everything we thought we knew about pre-industrial engineering, ate food that ruined us for mediocre Peruvian restaurants back home, learned that children’s urine is apparently a valuable textile resource, and spent three hours staring at fog that eventually rewarded our patience with one of the most beautiful reveals we’ve ever experienced.

But here’s the thing about Peru: we barely scratched the surface. We didn’t make it to Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. We skipped the Nazca Lines, those massive geoglyphs that can only be properly seen from the air and whose purpose still baffles archaeologists. We never explored the northern coast, with its own set of pre-Incan ruins and entirely different cuisine. We didn’t venture to the southern desert or explore more of the countless Amazon tributaries. Peru is deceptively large and ridiculously diverse, and two weeks is simultaneously plenty of time and nowhere near enough.

Maybe another time. Probably another time. We’re already making lists.