Peru: Land of Enchantment

Since Machu Picchu is one of the seven wonders of the world, I always wanted to go visit. During Christmas break in 2015, we decided to visit Peru. My cousin Bina decided to join us for the trip as well. We were all excited to go to Peru, but the kids had one condition—no hiking Machu Picchu! We would take the bus instead. As always, planning the trip is one of the most interesting times for me. So, I researched our trip to Peru a good six months in advance. I quickly realized that the language barrier was going to be a challenge on this trip.

Airfare Tip

To go to Machu Picchu one has to fly to the small City of Cusco. Flying from Denver to Cusco was ridiculously expensive even though all of the flights were going through Lima (Capital City of Peru). So, I purchased a roundtrip Denver to Lima ticket and a separate roundtrip from Lima to Cusco. Believe it or not, this was a difference of more than $1,000 per person. This is because Lima to Cusco is served by smaller local airlines and no major airline flies to Cusco. So, if you are flying within a country, try to get a separate ticket to save a lot of money for the same flights.

Anyway, we were all set with our flight reservations. The next part was a little challenging. You see, there is no way to easily travel to Machu Picchu by road. The best way to visit Machu Picchu is by train. So, I thought I would go online and purchase train tickets. Not so easy. There was no English version of the website to purchase train tickets at the time. Fortunately, after some research, I found some helpful Internet Gods. Some people had put together a step-by-step guide on purchasing these tickets in English! They even spelled out what to chose on each drop-down menu. It was incredible! Thank you, Internet.

How To Choose a Hotel

I have this simple system. I chose hotels with a minimum user rating of 9 or higher on a scale of 10. That filters out 95% of the hotels. We are then left with a few hotels in any given place. I chose each hotel’s lowest-rated review and read them thoroughly to figure out if I am willing to live with that experience. For example, let’s say there are two hotels with a 9.2-star rating. One of them has a 1-star rating where the guest is complaining about not able to check-in early. Another one has a 1-star rating where the guest is complaining about the room or the food or the service. I would choose the first hotel as not able to check in early is less of a negative than having bad service. Based on this, and the fact that it was the Christmas season, we ended up making reservations at the Tierra Viva hotel in Cusco. It is a nice boutique charming kind of place.

Before we knew it, we were on our way to Machu Picchu. Our flight to Lima, Peru, was through Panama City, Panama. We ended up staying overnight at an airport hotel in Panama City. It is a nice city and the airport is very efficient. We arrived in Lima mid-morning and I was noticing the great Chinese influence right at the airport. There are Hauwei billboards everywhere! After immigration and customs, we moved to our gate for the flight to Cusco. The city is in a valley. It is a small airport and an even smaller runway. Being in a valley, Cusco has a lot of foggy days. Landing in Cusco airport on a foggy day requires real skill. Hats off to our pilot! Once we came out of the airport, our hotel transportation was waiting for us. Our hotel was a block from the heart of the Cusco City Center. It reminded me of an old small-town plaza— a charming place. As always, after settling down, I decided to get some local currency. There were a lot of currency exchange places so that made it easy. We walked around in the plaza and stopped at a restaurant for light lunch. That evening we walked into town to get ourselves acquainted with the weather and altitude. Cusco is at an elevation of 12,000 feet. The air is really thin—if you are not used to it, you would feel a shortness of breath for the first few days.

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My cousin was arriving the next day and we did not have any way to communicate with her since she left India. So, we had no clue if her flight was on time or not. After a few hour delay, she finally arrived in Cusco and met us at the hotel. We were all set for sightseeing. We had hired a van to start our day very early. We started around 7 in the morning and visited Sacred Valley. It is a beautiful place. We went to a native Inca village to learn more about their culture. This was some experience. We learned how they made clothes back in those days! Apparently, they used the blood of some bugs to make the color red. Ewww….

So, this happened! While we were getting out of the Inca village, our driver noticed that we had a flat tire. He found this small 10 feet by 10 feet tire shop. This was an old-fashioned tire repair place. They would use a water bucket to find the puncture in your tire. It was surreal.

After some more visits to historic forts and other places, we ended up in Ollantaytambo in the late afternoon. Ollantaytambo is a small train station village where you take the train to Machu Picchu. Being a tourist destination, they have a nice plaza with a good selection of restaurants and gift shops. After lunch, we headed to the train station—it is a stretch to call this a train station. It is more like a train stop with no amenities. The train itself was comfortable and the route to Machu Picchu was scenic. Machu Picchu is a small town. Everything is within walking distance in this town. We walked to our hotel. It was a fairly newer hotel and rooms were nice and large. Being in a small town, you are not going to find 5-star amenities, but it was clean and that is what mattered. We decided to pick up our bus tickets for Machu Picchu that evening. After that, we went for a nice dinner in town. We ended up finding a really nice Mexican Restaurant.

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The next day, we got on our bus to Machu Picchu. On our way, we saw the roaring Urubamba river. The thrill-seeker in me wanted to go white water rafting. I bet that would have been fun. Anyway, we reach Machu Picchu about 30 minutes later. It was not a day to visit Machu Picchu. It was raining cats and dogs! We bought some ponchos as soon as we get off the bus. It is an architectural wonder for sure. We walked around on the grounds for an hour or so and then made our way to climb to the top. As we were hiking and climbing stairs, we realized that it was getting slippery and it was not worth the risk of slipping. So, we decided to descend back about halfway through. After a long day on Machu Picchu, we took the bus back to the base.

On the way back, our train was straight to Cusco. We decided to do some shopping in Cusco that evening before flying back to Lima the next morning. Lima is a beautiful city. It has a historic charm as well as a modern twist. We went to several places in the city including the famous fountains, ancient ruins, the plaza, and others.

Counterfeit Currency Capital

I found out this after our return but Lima is considered the counterfeit currency capital of the world. You will find almost any major currency in Lima. Right outside our hotel (we were staying at Hilton near downtown); we were talking and found some guy wearing a long jacket. He must have 20 or more pockets on his jacket. He asked if we wanted currency exchanged and I did so I gave him some USD for local currency. He opened one of his pockets and gave me change. He had so many different currencies with him, it was like a walking exchange office!

Somewhere along the way, we wound up at Lima Central Market (Mercado Central). What an awesome place! They have so many fresh items it was unbelievable. We ended up buying some of the best walnuts we have ever had. My cousin left the next day and we still had a couple of more days in Lima.

The next morning, we decided to visit a chocolate factory. The kids had real fun at this place—we got to make chocolate from scratch! After the chocolate factory, we were walking around and found these singing Santas (it was Christmas Day). We all took turns taking pictures with singing Santa.

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Oh, one thing I have to mention, we were having dinner after the singing Santas and started talking with the waiter. He mentioned that there was a nice Indian restaurant in town, so we decided to check it out the next day. I started talking to the owner and it turns out this guy had never been to India! I thought it was interesting since he was the owner of an Indian restaurant. The next day, we went to the famous Miraflores neighborhood. It is a beautiful neighborhood. We enjoyed strolling and eating gelato among other snacks. While we were strolling, we noticed some people gliding. We decided to check it out. Miraflores was the perfect place for gliding since it is at elevation. Both kids decided to try it out. They were gliding with a guide and they had a GoPro attached to them! I am sure it was a wonderful experience—I was not brave enough to try it out.

It was the end of our trip. The next morning, we left Lima for home. It was certainly an amazing trip. Although Machu Picchu was rained out, it turned out to be a wonderful trip. That just goes to say:  don’t go in with any expectations on your trip and you might as well enjoy it! What was your fun family trip? Please do share and participate with your comments.