We have wanted to go to Peru and see Machu Picchu for a very long time. We had scheduled (and paid for) a trip to Machu Picchu around 2010 but a snowstorm in Chicago halted all flights and our trip was cancelled. So this visit has been a long time in the making.

We flew into Lima from Basel via Amsterdam on Monday and it was a long trip. I did book a car to pick us up (viator) from the airport though I should have first asked our hotel. We stayed in the Sheraton Lima historic center. The hotel was pretty nice and their airport shuttle was inexpensive.

Our first full day in Lima we did a food tour around the barranco neighborhood. We tried aji de gallina empanadas (chicken with a yellow pepper sauce), anticucho (marinated beef heart skewers), lomo saltado (stir fried beef), sea bass ceviche, and Jenn had a pisco sour. The food was really great and the area of town we visited was lovely. Barranco is known for it’s ‘graffiti’ and the bridge of sighs. Across from the bridge is the Hermitage of Barranco which was badly damage in an earthquake and hasn’t been fully restored.

Wednesday we left on a private tour to Paracas, Ica and Nazca. It was mainly a driving day with a stop at the National Reserve of Paracas to see the coast. At the reserve we spotted vultures, cormorants and grey footed boobies. We also stopped by the Paracas Museum and where learned about mummification by the ancient peoples, skull elongation and evidence of successful brain surgery.

The next morning, we took a boat tour of Ballestas Islands where we also penguins and sea lions. The ‘candelabra’ was the first of the geoglyphs we would see. We had lunch at the largest winery in Peru. Later, we continued on to Huacachina oasis where I rode a dune buggy and got to see more of the desert.

On Friday we flew over the Nazca lines before the long drive back to Lima.

Saturday we flew to Cusco where we stayed at Yawar Inka. We did a tour of several ruins around Cusco the next day.

On Monday we headed to the Sacred Valley and saw the salt mines of maras and more archeological sites; Moray and Ollantaytambo. We also stopped at an artisanal market where we fed Llamas and Alpacas, saw Cuy (guinea pigs) and bought a lot of woven Alpaca stuff. That afternoon we took the train to Aguas Calientes near Machu Picchu. At one point I did eat Alpaca and cuy. Alpaca was fine, tasted like chicken. The guinea pig wasn’t great.

Machu Picchu! We finally made it! It rained in the morning but as we went up the mountain the rain thinned into fog. After a few hours on the mountain the fog melted a bit and we got to see Machu Picchu pretty clearly. Construction at Machu Picchu was very different from what we saw at lower elevation where they suffer earthquakes- the stone work there is much more tight fitting, like puzzle pieces. After another night in Cusco, we flew back to Lima.

On our last two nights in Lima we saw the pachacamac ruins and the magic circuit (fountains with a light show). At the ruins, we saw pottery with sea animals (sharks and sea lions) and peruvian hairless dogs. In this region, there were more frequent earthquakes so the builders placed bricks on end so they had movement. This complex was built with mud bricks as it virtually never rains in Lima. We also managed to visit the Museo de Oro and Museo Larco which were both fantastic. At the Larco, we saw very life like pottery, mummies, very intricate gold jewelry, and surviving Quipu- record keeping devices fashioned from knotted cords.