Notes for Travelers to PERU-Part 1
Do you plan on going to Peru to walk the Inca trail? (highly recommended by us and s/v Carina (Leslie found llama.path.com on the Internet, for us to use.) You can check out our agent: www.llamapath.com Our guides were Jose and Alex. They were terrific. See if you can get them as a team as Jose is a natural historian, walked the Inca trail about 50 times and Alex is a naturalist and knows tons about the birds, wild orchids, and wild begonias. If we had it to do over again, we'd arrange to go in the Spring (rather than in October) to see more birds and flowers that are unique to the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu AND we'd do a longer trek, see more Inca sites for 5 nights and 6 days rather than the more strenuous venture of 3 nights and 4 days. Of course, this cost more, but worth every penny. And BTW, we would rent adjustable hiking sticks if you don't own them. I used them for going down as much as up... 2 sticks were great/person. Don't need to bring much. Travel light. Even though we hired porters to carry our sleeping bag and some gear, we still carried our other stuff and I carried too much which was not needed. You can check your gear at the hostel in Cusco where you will return to after the trek.
We spent 6 weeks in Peru and it was NOT long enough.
John would have done our trip itinerary a little differently. He would have started with the coastal and in-land sites and ended with Machu Picchu because as we learned later, the pre-Columbian or Pre-Inca cultures, ultimately contributed heavily to the Inca's Civilization. An appreciation of the pre-Inca cultures is valuable to understand then one realizes how much knowledge and ingenuity these Indians had over the Incas. The Incas only ruled for a few hundred years and yet, are the most known.
The Incas were quite aggressive people.1. We loved traveling on the bus in Peru, during the day we'd watch the changing sand dunes. Between cities are long distances. Our longest bus ride was 28 hours, non-stop. Unless you are a bigger than average person or can't sleep on buses, the bus seats are pretty comfortable and often on the long rides they served us a meal. Snack often available at the potty breaks. The rides could be boring to some, but fascinating to us, like watching the ocean change on a passage.
Ormeno bus lines "use to be good", but the buses are getting old and break down often. However, Gaby reminds me that Ormeno had the best food. Other bus lines are available; Cruz de Sur, CIFA, Movil are national lines that were great and reliable. We flew from Lima to Cusco; the roads are windy and the buses speed on these very narrow/cliff sided 2 lane roads. We were advised to take a plane and we were glad we did this. Fly in the morning, as the head winds are best at that time (no delays due to weather).
2. Trujillo: The Moche and Chimu Culture and sites at Chan Chan, the Sun and Moon Temples, Dragon and rainbow sites. We rented a taxi for the day and toured all the sites. Amazing mud wall construction; check out the response to El Nino so many thousands of years ago by the people of Chan Chan. We loved walking in, over and around these ruins. Nearby coastal town of Huancho is known for its ceviche (very fresh seafood and yummy, delicious).
3. Huaraz (like being in the Swiss Alps, the Cordillera Blanca are GORGEOUS!) Ice hike if you are up for it! Go to Chavin de Hunatar site by bus and stay at least one night (we stayed 3 nights) at the in the Inn in Huarez called Albergue Churup; owners are really sweet & intelligent couple. Chavin is a great site to see an underground Indian site still under excavation. Be sure to go to the museum in Huarez to understand the site and work being done by Stanford University and Peruvian Archaeological teams.
4. Lima. The National museum in Lima is wonderful. Take a tour with a guide for free (just tip well). The museum is 5 stories high, so the tour boils the material down so you don't get overwhelmed. We love museums, but we pace ourselves as we can't digest it all. The museum book store is separate from the trinket shop. We bought some great books at the shop.
5. Nazca: We hired a plane and saw the lines from the air. Wow. I recommend you study the lines and geomorphic alignments before hand as the plane goes over and it took me a bit to adjust my sensibilities to see the shapes. of course, "no problems" for the girls. Also, toured the aqueducts and site at Cahuachi which were different again from other sites in the country. Pretty much abandoned due to lack of funds to protect this relic. We arrived by bus in Nazca from Arequipa, at 2-AM, without hotel reservations. A man greeted us at the bus line depot, offering us several hostel options, then walked us down some dark and deserted streets (like duh,it was 2-AM) then he took us to a simple hostel, two block from the town center. In the morning, Carlos was at the hostel to greet us. He sold us his "guide" packet for the air viewing of the lines and taxi to the sites. It was worth it. Obviously, we were intuitively trusting of this guy or maybe just dumb luck. For us it worked out just fine. We never felt threatened in Peru.