Peru (Lima, Cuzco, Machu Pichu)
Country visited: PERU
Places visited: Lima, Cuzco and Machu Pichu
Dates: 3rd to 11th July 2015
General tips:
(1) Tour guides are essential in places other than Lima.
(2) Food in Lima is excellent - eat your heart out.
As soon as you land in Cuzco, you will experience some altitude sickness which would go away after one good night sleep. So, I would recommend taking a late evening flight to Cuzco, so all you have to do when you land is have a good meal and sleep off the altitude sickness. The only two things I would recommend doing in Cuzco are the Sacred Valley tour and the City tour. As far as accommodation goes, I highly recommend staying in a decent hostel close to the city center. Hotels are over priced and the decent ones close to the city center could be very costly. We stayed in 2 different hotels in Cuzco and found only one of them (Tierra Viva at $100 per night)) to be good, the other one (Rumi Punku at US $120 per night) was terrible. Remember money takes you a long way in Cuzso and the markups are mainly aimed at American travelers, so I would recommend taking a hostel instead and using that money on something else. Also, taxis are very cheap in Cuzco - a ride from the airport to the city center (about 20 minute commute) should cost only 10 soles and a ride from Cuzco to Ollantaytambo (about 90 minute commute) should cost around 40 soles.
- S and S
Places visited: Lima, Cuzco and Machu Pichu
Dates: 3rd to 11th July 2015
General tips:
(1) Tour guides are essential in places other than Lima.
(2) Food in Lima is excellent - eat your heart out.
(1) Getting Peru visa (relevant for certain non-US passport holders)
First check if you need to get visa for Peru.You won't need to get a Peru visa if you hold a US passport. But if you have an Indian passport like I do, you''ll have to apply for a Peru visa. I got mine from the Peru consulate in San Francisco. Link here: Peru consulate in SF They usually take about 3 days from personal interview (which is required) to issuing the visa, but were very flexible in my case (my travel date was very close and I request them to expedite) and returned my passport with the visa stamped in 2 days. People are very friendly, you don't have to make an appointment before hand - just walk in any time between 9 am and 2 pm.(2) Getting to Lima, Peru from the US
If possible, get your tickets about 3-4 weeks before your planned travel dates. You should be able to get your round trip tickets from a place like California for less than $1,000. As of today, there are no direct flights from California to Lima, you'd likely have to make a stop at Houston or Miami. Last minute (less than 2 weeks from your travel) would be slightly higher - still not more than $1,300 with one stop. I would recommend spending about 2 days in Lima before heading to your next destination.
- Things to do in Lima:
(1) Food
What I found most impressive in Peru is the food. Lima supposedly has one of the top 10 food scenes in the world. I would recommend having a generous food budget for Lima especially if you like seafood. It has the best ceviche in the world and the best fish dishes I have had in my life. Since you pay in soles (3.2 soles ~ US $1), you get to eat some of the best seafood for less than US $40 for two people. In California, the same money would get you an average meal in a very average restaurant. Make reservations beforehand if you want to go to one of the top cevicherias in Peru, the wait times can me pretty high without reservations. ... and ... have really good ceviches.
(2) Visit Huaca Pucllana
Huaca Pucllana link The ruins are well maintained and there is a guided tour in English every 30 minutes to 1 hour. The entrance fee is 12 soles per person which includes the tour.(3) City Center
Plaza de Armas. This is the city center so kinda like a must see. It has the President's residence among other important buildings.(4) Miraflores
The happening place in Lima. It has a nice big mall called Larcomar - everything is super expensive even when you convert it back to US$. But the views are great at night. Also, there is a cycle rental shop close by called mirabici where you cant rent a cycle for 1 hour for 20 soles - geat way to go around the miraflores area.(5) Water fountains (magic Water Circuit)
I usually hate laser shows and water fountains, but we decided to check this one out because we had some time to kill on our last evening in Lima before our late night flight back to the US. This one was actually pretty good - definitely exceeded our expectations and I believe it also holds some kind of world record for the highest water fountain or something. We timed our visit so we can catch the much hyped musical water fountain show (once every hour starting at 7:15 pm), but we ended up liking the regular fountains (there are several of those) much more than the musical show.(3) Lima to Cuzco
Flights are short: 1 hour and 30-ish minutes but quite expensive ~$300 per round ticket. Foreign passport holders are only allowed to book flexible tickets (which might be why the flight is so expensive). Take the partial flexible flights which are slightly cheaper than the fully flexible ones. We ended up changing our flight times 3 times after booking for about a $7 fee per change per ticket. I believe flights can get cancelled pretty often (like ours did) and it's not unusual for the airlines to put you on the next flight (happened to us), so having the partial flexible ticket is useful incase you want more optionsin such cases.
- Things to do in Cuzco:
(1) Sacred Valley Tour
Try to book this atleast by the evening of the day before you want to take the tour - the hotel/hostel reception should be able to help you with this. The tour about US $30 per person and includes a really good buffet lunch, this in addition to the $ for entrance tickets to the sacred valley sites (about 70 soles for just the sacred valley and valid for one day or 130 soles for the sacred valley and the city and valid atleast 2-3 days). These tours usually are for a full day - they start at around 8:30 am and end at 6:30 pm. Make sure the tour includes Ollantaytambo, Urubamba and Pisco. If the tour company takes you to Moray too, that would be great! But most don't include Moray, and they make that a separate tour. Also, the tour companies might allot too much time at shopping centers (which are overpriced and aimed only at foreigners) and less time at the actual archaeological sites - try to team up with your fellow tourists and ask the tour guide not to take you to shopping centers so you get to spend more time at archaeological sites. These sites are beautiful and deserve all the time you can give them.(2) City Tour
You can do this on your own too. But if you want a guide to take you around the city and also a few ruins around Cuzco, take a tour for about US $18 per person. These tours are usually in the afternoon at around 1 pm and last about 3 hours.(4) Cuzco to Aguas Calientes (base of Machu Pichu)
Now there are 2 ways you can do this:
1. Which is recommend is to take the Sacred Valley tour and ask the tour guide to drop you off at Ollantaytambo (which is usually the last tour site). Take the evening Vistadome train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes. Thus train ride is around 1.5 hours and cheaper than a ticket from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes (which takes around 3 hours). Since Ollaantaytambo is between Cuzco and Aguas Calientes, you'll save quite a bit of time if you do this option. But try to take a train that reaches Aguas Calientes before sunset (around 6:00 pm in May-August) which means you'll have to take ~4:00 pm train from Ollantaytambo - the train ride is absolutely gorgeous and you don't want to miss all that beauty. I would recommend taking the Vistadome over Expedition, the Vistadome might be a few dollars (~$5 to $10) more expensive bt is a lot prettier than Expedition. You'll also get a slightly better snack in Vistadome compared to what they;'ll give you in Expedition.
2.The second option is to take a train directly from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes. These trains are all early in the morning - the last train to leave to Aguas Calientes is before 9:00 am. The trains are around 3 hours long. I would recommend taking the Vistadome over Expedition if you have the budget. The Vistadome trains are slightly more expensive compared to Expedition, but a lot better. Both the Vistadome and Expedition are reserved for foreign nationals. The locals are not allowed on this train and foreigners are not allowed on local trains. BTW, The tickets on the local train is 10 soles to go from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes which is about 30 times cheaper than what you'll end up paying!
- Things to do in Aguas Calientes:
Nothing much actually. Aguas Calientes is a nice small town at the base of Machu Pichu. Take a stroll, enjoy the views (there's a small river that flows through the city - the Urubamba river) and go to bed early so you get sufficient rest before your day at Machu Pichu.
Once you are done with Machu Pichu, you can take the train back to Lima.
(5) Machu Pichu
You see it in pictures, you read about it, but when you actually get to see it, it will blow your mind. Machu Pichu is probably best seen a little early in the morning (around 7 ish) or late in the evening (about a couple hours before they close). Get up early (if you can), go to the bus stop and buy round trip tickets to and back to Aguas Calientes. The bus takes about 10-15 minutes to go to the top and once you are there you can hire a local guide to show you around. Hiring a private guide just for me and my husband was a bit expensive, so we waited for a little bit and let the guide find 3 more people before starting our tour. He charged us 30 soles per person for a 2 hour tour. I would highly recommend that you hire a guide too, else you'll find yourself staring at a breadth taking view without knowing what it is that you are looking at.Once you are done with Machu Pichu, you can take the train back to Lima.
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