In July of 2014, I hopped on a plane at New York’s JFK airport, heading south for my first (and so far, only) trip to South America.
The destination was Peru: land of colorful textiles, llamas, and of course one of the seven wonders of the world, Machu Picchu.
Getting there meant 13 hours of travel time with a quick layover in Mexico City. Once we arrived in Lima, we got a few hours of sleep at an airport hotel before jumping on yet another plane, this time a small so-called puddle jumper that would take us an hour inland to the former capital city of Cusco.
Once in Cusco, we were able to finally start our week-long adventure that would become one of my most memorable trips to-date.
Itinerary Overview
Our trip began and ended in Lima with several shorter flights connecting us to other parts of the country. Here’s an overview of our 7 day itinerary with the major points-of-interest:
Day 1 — Cusco & Ollantaytambo
Day 2 — Bike Ride to Moray Ruins & Maras Salt Mines
Day 3 — Machu Picchu & Huayna Picchu
Day 4 — Cusco & Pisac
Day 5 — Flight to Puerto Maldonado & Tambopata Reserve
Day 6 — Tambopata Reserve: Chuncho Macaw Clay Lick & Nature Tour
Day 7 — Flight to Lima
Day 1
Cusco & Ollantaytambo
After a day and a half of traveling, we found ourselves in Peru’s former capital city of Cusco.
Machu Picchu is at a very high altitude (7,972 ft or 2,430 m), which means a few days of acclimation are needed to avoid a potentially dangerous episode of altitude sickness. Cusco is actually at an even higher altitude, so promptly after landing we continued our journey onward to Ollantaytambo, a small town along the route to Machu Picchu that’s great home base for exploring the Urubamba Valley .
Our hostel in Ollantaytambo arranged a taxi transfer for us from Cusco, so once we met up with our driver we were quickly on our way. After around two hours we arrived to Ollantaytambo, where we checked into our hostel before heading out to explore the town.
Where we stayed: Sumac Chaska Hostel
Ollantaytambo is located in a region called the Urubamba Valley, which is also known as The Sacred Valley. Despite its small size, Ollantaytambo is full of interesting history with many landmarks and ruins that are worth a visit.
The town itself is built on ancient stone foundations and was originally the estate of the Incan Emperor Pachacuti. During the Spanish conquest in Peru in the 16th century, the town served as a fortress and was actually the only place in all of Peru that was able to repel the Spanish army, although ultimately the Inca were forced to retreat.
We spent a couple of hours simply wandering around the ancient city’s cobble stone streets, checking out the markets and making friends with the town’s feral dogs.
In the afternoon, we made the steep uphill hike to one of the ruins nestled into the mountains that surround the town, known as Pinkuylluna. The hollow, three-tiered structure is thought to have been used as a storehouse. As is the case with many structures built by the Incas, the location and orientation of these buildings was strategic — the elevation, wind, and low temperature of this particular site helped to preserve the food stored here.
Day 2
Bike Ride to Moray Ruins & Maras Salt Mines
For the morning of day two, we booked a mountain bike tour of the region with local company KB Tambo Tours. The half-day bike ride took us along gravel and dirt roads through the countryside with several scenic stops along the way.
The first stop of the tour was at Moray, an Incan archaeological site consisting of a series of circular terraces, the purpose of which is unknown. There is a significant temperature difference from the top to bottom, so it’s thought that this area may have been used as a testing ground for crops that allowed comparison between crops planted in a range temperatures, wind patterns, and sun exposures.
After the Moray site, we headed on to our second stop, the Maras Salt Mines. The so-called “salt mines” are actually a series of cascading ponds built into the hillside with mineral-rich water trickling from one pool to the next.
The source of the water is an underground spring of water, which is controlled and funneled to the ponds by a series of channels. The ponds are shallow and constructed in a way that allows the water to eventually evaporate, leaving a crystalized and salty residue behind that is then harvested by the workers by hand.
These evaporation pools were used by the Incas and even those that came before. They’re famous for their pink salt, which can be purchased on-site at the market.
You have to pay a small entry fee to access the mines, but once inside you have full access and can even walk along the narrow baths between the pools, dipping your finger into the ponds to taste the very salty water.
After some time browsing the market outside the salt mine, we got back on our bikes and finished the last leg of the journey, a downhill dirt road that ended in the small village of Maras. The tour van picked us up in the town square to transport us back to Ollantaytambo.
After the tour and before the sun set on Day 2, we headed to check out Temple Hill and Pumatallis terraces. These structures were originally built by the Incan Emporer as a ceremonial center, but their use as a stronghold during the Spanish inquisition in the 16th century has led to their alternate name, the Fortress.
This is a popular stop for day trippers and other organized tour groups arriving by bus, so during peak daytime hours it can be pretty overrun with tourists. Luckily we were visiting a little later in the day, so the crowds were at a minimum.
Day 3
Machu Picchu & Huayna Picchu
We got an early start on Day 3, taking the 5:00am train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Caliente. By 6:30am we had arrived and were soon waiting in line for the bus that would take us up the long and winding road to Machu Picchu. Once at the entrance, we stored our bags in luggage lockers and headed toward the gate.
We decided to hire a guide and were glad we did since there were few signs or information for first-time visitors. There were lots of guides waiting at the entrance, so we did a bit of scouting and ultimately found a great guide to take us around the site as a part of a small group tour.
Traveler Tip: When we visited in 2014, you weren’t required to have a tour guide to visit the ruins, but supposedly the park is in the process of changing this to make it a requirement. As of 2019, the rule is not enforced, but I would still highly suggest you go with a guide if it’s your first time (especially if you don’t speak Spanish).
The pièce de résistance of the Incan Empire, Machu Picchu is both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the Seven Wonders of the World. This place is just as unreal in person as it is in photographs. The fact that a civilization that had not yet discovered the wheel were able to construct something of this magnitude with such precision and engineering (and on top of a mountain, no less) is mind blowing.
The roughly 200 buildings that made up the “town” are surrounded by hundreds of man-made terraces where much of the food needed to sustain the 750+ people living here was grown. Our tour guide pointed out many other examples of Incan ingenuity, including massive stones that were cut and placed so tightly that they were able to create structural walls without mortar. Other notable parts of the tour were an astronomical clock called the Intihuatana stone and the Temple of the Sun.
Amazingly, Machu Picchu was unknown to the Spanish conquistadors that occupied Peru in the 16th century and wasn’t officially discovered until 1911. Because the Spanish never found Machu Picchu, it remained relatively well-preserved and gives a fascinating look into the way of life of the Incas.
After walking around the archaeological site for some time, we made our way to the Huayna Picchu trailhead to begin our hike up the steep mountain next to Machu Picchu. The path is the same that was built and traveled by the Incas. It’s thought that the high priest and local virgins lived at the top of Huayna Picchu and would make the trek down to Machu Picchu every day, which is impressive in its own right.
Traveler Tip: The number of visitors allowed on Huayna Picchu every day is limited to 400, so an advance reservation is mandatory. There are two time slots available: 8:00am and 10:00. We chose 10:00am, which gave us time to explore the site in the morning before our hike.
The hike up to the top of Huayna Picchu was definitely difficult, but the hike back down was maybe even harder. The descent was made up mostly of a series of staircases made from ancient, well-worn stone and no guardrails. For parts of it, I even had to sit down and lower myself step by step — definitely not for the faint of heart!
After hiking Huayna Picchu, we were more than ready for lunch. There are only a couple of dining options at Machu Picchu. We opted for the Sanctuary Lodge buffet, which was expensive but actually one of the better meals we had the entire trip and totally worth it given how hungry we were following the hike.
To end the day, we walked east toward the Sun Gate for yet another perspective of Machu Picchu and the surrounding mountains. Along this path we found the best photo-op of the day, too!
By 5:30pm we were on the train and headed back to Cusco, exhausted after a very full day of hiking. After taking a taxi from the train station we checked into our hostel and soon were headed to bed.
Where we stayed: Intro Hostels Cusco
Day 4
Cusco & Pisac
We did some exploring of Cusco in the morning of our fourth day with stops at the main square Plaza de Armas and the Natural History Museum.
After lunch, we caught a taxi to the nearby town of Pisac. Pisac is well-known for its large market that happens every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday and is a popular destination for day-trippers from Cusco.
We were visiting on a non-market day, which meant the town was mostly free of tourists. We also happened to be visiting during the 3-day-long Festival of the Virgin del Carmen, so we got to join in on the festivities. Most of the shops were closed for the day with all of the town’s residents either watching or participating in the festival’s parade.
Traveler Tip: One of the easiest way to travel between towns is by colectivos. These shared taxis simply advertise where they’re headed — passengers pile in and once the van is full, the journey begins. This is how we traveled to and from Pisac. Despite my initial concerns, it was actually a fairly straight-forward and efficient system (and very cost effective).
After the parade was over, we caught another taxi back to Cusco for a little R&R before the next leg of our trip, which would take us further east, near the border with Bolivia. We headed to bed early in preparation for our early flight to Puerto Maldonado the following morning.
Day 5
Flight to Puerto Maldonado & Tambopata Reserve
For the second half of the trip, we headed east to the Amazon rain forest, where we had a 3 day, 2 night reservation with Wasai Lodge & Expedition.
The Wasai Ecolodge is located just outside of the Tambopata National Reserve, a nature reserve near the Bolivian border that surrounds the Tambopata River, a tributary to the Amazon.
To reach the ecolodge we first had to fly from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado, where we were greeted by a member of the Wasai team. After a moment relaxing at their hotel in Puerto Maldonado, we were loaded into a 4WD SUV and began our long journey into the rain forest. Eventually we made it to the Tambopata River, where a boat was waiting to take us to the wilderness lodge.
We took some time to relax in our jungle room before dinner, a feast of traditional Peruvian food and an assortment of local exotic fruits. After our meal, our guide for the weekend took us for a nighttime nature walk through the rain forest behind the lodge. Along the path we found a number of frogs and insects — we even came across a family of tarantulas and a huge boa constrictor!
Day 6
Tambopata Reserve: Chuncho Macaw Clay Lick & Nature Tour
We got a really early start on our second day of our say at Wasai. By sunrise, we were already on the boat headed up the river to the Chuncho Macaw Clay Lick.
The Chuncho Macaw Clay Lick is the largest in the world and is buzzing with activity just after sunrise when hundreds of birds congregate here to eat the red clay on the steep riverbank.
Staying as quiet as possible so at to not scare away the birds, we set up our chairs and focused the binoculars on the sheer wall of red clay on opposite riverbank. Groups of different types of birds were starting to circle overhead — families of macaws were perched in trees nearby watching the action from afar.
Eventually the flock of bright blue and green parrots were the first to land on the clay lick. After some time, the red and blue macaws moved in for their turn.
Before heading back to the lodge, we stopped at a small waterfall for a quick dip in the muddy water. The bottom of the river was coated with a very thick, very mushy layer of silt — having your feet sink into the riverbed was a strange sensation, but we had fun swimming to the waterfall and splashing around in the water.
Finally back at the lodge, we had lunch and prepared for our afternoon activity: a daytime version of the nature walk we did the night before. We saw a few giant Kapok Trees and an especially-impressive Ficus that was completely hollow inside.
The afternoon was filled with some down time back at our room and a pickup game of soccer with the staff before dinner. After dinner, we headed headed out on the boat for a quick nighttime search for caiman in the Tambopata River before heading to the bar to share drinks with our new friends and fellow travelers… before the staff turned off the generators (our cue to head to bed).
Day 7
Flight to Lima
After a couple of days in the jungle, we got one last photo with our guide and new friends before starting the long journey back to civilization, where we had a 12:00pm flight from Puerto Maldonado to Lima.
The second our boat pulled to shore to connect us to the off-road SUV leg of the journey, a torrential downpour hit. Before long, the dirt road started to flood with big ponds of mud forming in the middle of our path. We started to worry about missing our flight since the return journey was taking much longer than anticipated, but when we arrived to the airport we learned our flight was also delayed due to the storm.
With all the delays we ended up not arriving to Lima until after 7:00pm, which meant we had only a few hours to explore the city. So after checking in at our hotel, we went for an evening walk along the Miraflores Boarwalk. Afterward, we sampled some of the excellent Peruvian cuisine that Lima is known for a Punto Azul. This restaurant is known for its ceviche, and it did not disappoint!
Where we stayed: Global Family Backpackers Hostel, Miraflores
The following morning, we had a 7:00am flight back to New York with a long layover in Mexico City. Looking back on this trip, I was surprised with the amount of ground we covered in just 7 days. Even then we really knew how to pack it all in!
Peru was such an amazing country and one that I hope to return to one day. We experienced two completely different parts of the country on our trip, but there are even more regions worth exploring that would definitely warrant a return trip.
I hope you enjoyed reading about our trip. If you have any questions or suggestions for “must-see” places for our next trip to Peru, please let me know in the comment section below!
