49. PERU - South

Peru, the country in South America that interested me the most beforehand and one of the main reasons for me to come to the continent. The expectations were high, so many stories I've heard from other travelers, books & Peruvians I met abroad and I didn't get disappointed at all.

Nearly 3 months I ended up traveling around many places in this captivating country and the number of impressions, stories and photos deserve two separate posts.

It's a fact that many countries in South America have a big diversity in climate, people and history. That's especially true for Peru. The sceneries I experienced vary from the icy peaks of the Andes to coastal dry deserts and humid Amazon jungles full of wildlife.

It's not only llamas & condors here (but yes plenty of them), the biodiversity of Peru is one of the biggest in the world.

People are as diverse as its wildlife with multi-ethnical influences, a mix of dozens of indigenous groups and foreign influences with customs & cuisine sharped by the geographical living conditions.

My 80 days in the country felt rushed and I guess that says all about the amount of interesting places in this country!

I got into Peru from Bolivia via Lake Titicaca where my first stop was Puno, a city on an altitude higher than 3,800 meters. The city itself is a melting pot of Aymara and Quechua cultures and a base to explore the famous lake Titicaca.

I had the pleasure of making my first friends in Peru in the village of Jayllihuaya while staying at the house of Rey and his wonderful family. They introduced me to a lot of customs (especially for the upcoming carnival season :D).

From Puno, I continued hitchhiking to the beautiful city of Arequipa, probably one of South America's most aesthetic historical centers. It's surrounded by 3 impressive volcanos, has a stunning white UNESCO centro histórico and kept me busy for 8 days.

A very big pleasure of Peru is its fantastic cuisine! Peruvian food is well known in the world for a good reason, it's by far the best food I had in South America. The fresh national ingredients gathered from all climate zones of the country form delicious dishes such as Ceviche (in a hundred different ways), Anticuchos, Papa Rellena or Aji de Gallina. After the boring and uninspiring food in Argentina, Chile or Paraguay it has been a pleasure to eat my way through a very tasty cuisine. Food on the markets is super cheap, delicious & fresh and I had most of my meals and drinks there. (10 Soles = 2.5 USD for a menu del día with a soup, main dish and drink). Peruvian cuisine would make it in my worldwide top 10 for sure, just after Malaysia, India, some Arab countries and Thailand. Especially the fish, potatoes, corn and soup dishes are world-class.

My highlight of Peru's South was the Sacred Valley for sure. It's a long valley located in the Southern Sierra filled with beautiful Inca ruins, pretty towns and natural sights.

It was called the Sacred Valley because it contained some of the best land in the country and was not a part of the Incan Empire but the property of the Emperor or the Inca himself.

I met Andrea from Lima in Urubamba and together we traveled around several sights and towns in the valley such as Ollantaytambo, Pisac, Moray, Chinchero and of course Cusco.

After a lot of thinking I decided to skip Machu Picchu (and maybe visit that at a different point in my life) since I was sick of mass tourism at world-famous sites. Yes Taj Mahal, Petra, the pyramids of Giza, Iguazú Falls or Angkor Wat were all breathtaking and special places on our planet but more than less the never-ending amounts of people there took the fun out of it for me. With the saved money of not going to Machu Picchu (which is A LOT), I was able to visit easily 20 or more other fascinating places all around Peru without any crowds or lines.

Actually, I also planned to do a 4 or 5-day trek around the Sacred Valley but my knee was still not ready for that kind of burden after my accident in Bolivia.

Pisac, a small traditional town at the Eastern end of the Valley, was the place I liked the most in that area with my favorite food market in Peru, a beautiful & tiny Plaza de Armas and nice cafés to chill.

Urubamba and the tiny villages around were the best places to base ourselves to explore the ancient Inca empire and have some smaller hikes around.

Cusco is Peru's tourists' favorite place. It has a pretty historical center too, used to be the capital of the Inca empire and offers the biggest range of restaurants, tours, etc. I spent only 2 days there and especially enjoyed the neighborhood of San Blas with stunning views of the city.

Two negative things that really stood out in Peru were first the extremely strong machoism towards women. I didn't meet a single woman who experienced unwanted flirtations, touching or even worse on a regular base and in many public places or buses you find posters of a government campaign that display a few rules for men to behave. What's very visible too is a common racism towards indigenous communities in Peru. A few people with indigenous backgrounds told me they are afraid to wear their traditional clothes due to insults or even attacks they received in the past. I saw a couple of those racist interactions myself during my time in Peru too.

But in general people in Peru were friendly & kind, much less outgoing than in other South American countries and reserved. Hitchhiking was the most difficult on the continent so far and didn't work well. The buses are really nice tho and running many times all over the country.

Part 2 of Peru in a few days.

3 Highlights:

- the Sacred Valley with stunning views and ancient Inca sites

- pretty Arequipa and its historical city with beautiful surroundings

- Pisac's laidback atmosphere and great markets

Visited places in Peru (framed in this post)

Crossing Lake Titicaca on my way from Bolivia to Peru

Peruvian/Bolivian border

Starting Peru with an Inca Kola, its national soft drink

Plaza de Armas in Puno

Couchsurfing in Jayllihuaya

Rey's house

Electricity cut in a chicken restaurant

Learning about the customs of Puno with Rey and his family

Their adorable cats

Having a ride on the back of a wooden truck with a sleeping boy on board

Sexual harassment - a big topic everywhere in Peru and unfortunately extremely common

Beautiful Arequipa at night

Plaza de Armas, Arequipa

Papa a la huancaína

Ceviche feast

The choices of fish and sea food are amazing in Peru

Funny Perlita

That earthquake just happened when I was about to leave Arequipa..

.. and everyone at the terminal had to meet at those evacuation point

Beautiful Samana Wasi resort in Urubamba

A hike after a hike

Ice cold water

Ceremony at the river

Hiking with Andrea!

A trout farm in Pumahuanca

This boy was afraid of the Truchas on land :D

From the water to my plate

Traveling around Sacred Valley with Andrea from Lima

Soup with sheep

Peru, where they even add sugar into beer

The remainings of my chicken :D

The streets of Chinchero where tons of guided tourist groups pass for an hour a day on their way to Machu Picchu for souvenir shopping, here it feels like a ghost town