Just Back from Peru -- Questions Welcome
 

Hi,

My husband and I just returned from our ~ 2 week trip to Peru. We traveled independently and arranged all hotels in advance by email/phone from the U.S. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Our general itinerary below:
* 2 nights in Ollanta
-- Ollanta ruins, town, fiesta
-- Horseback riding to Moray, Maras, Salineras
-- Pisac ruins and Sunday market
-- Hotel: Munay Tika
-- Favorite Eatery: Hearts Cafe

* 2 nights in Aguas Calientes
-- Vistadome train from Ollanta to Aguas Calientes
-- Backpacker train back to Ollanta
-- Inka Massage -- twice
-- Hotel: Wiracocha Inn
-- Favorite restaurant: Indio Feliz: Peruvian French. Ate both dinners here

* 1 full day in Machu Picchu
-- Hiked Huayna Picchu
-- Spent total 9 hours in MP
-- Overnight in AC before and after

* 3 nights in Cusco
-- Sacsayhuayman ruins
-- Ninos Hotel -- lovely!
-- Somes churches and Inka museum
-- Fiesta, fiesta, fiesta. Too much in fact that it interrupted our sightseeing. Many museums and churches were closed.

* Bus from Cusco to Puno
-- Inka Express bus
-- Sightseeing along the way

* 1 night in Puno
-- Hotel: Posada don Giorgio

* 1 1/2 days in Lake Titicaca
-- Tour boat from Puno to Uros and Taquille
-- Private boat from Taquille to Amantani Island
-- Overnight in Kantuna Lodge (not really a lodge, more like someone's house with a few more rooms, but there's electricity)
-- Private boat to Peninsula
-- Combis (!!) back to Puno. Packed with locals. No other means of transportation. It turned out fun afterall.
-- Advice: Need 3 full nights to do Lake Titicaca. And go with an established tour like All Ways Travel. Our customized tour was a lot more expensive and stressful (some glitches in the arrangement).

* 2 nights in Lima
-- Sheraton -- Club Level. Much needed after our adventure in Lake Titicaca area.
-- Churches and the Museum of Larcoma Herrera (expensive, but interesting but potteries).

Overall, we love the Sacred Valley the best -- amazing scenery -- mountains, valleys, farmlands, people, food.

Thanks for your report. We'll be doing something very similar the last two weeks in July.

Can you tell more detail about bus trip from Cusco to Puno? How long, what were stops etc.

Would you recommend the trip to Puno/Lake Titi? Trying to decide whether to go that way or other way to Arequipa and Colca Canyon - after Sacred Valley and MP -

Views of the Lake Titi trip seem to be mixed . .

Hi JC,
We are leaving this week for a very similar itinerary minus Lake Titicaca. We are travelling with our kids 8 & 10. Can you tell me more about the Fiesta's in Ollanta and Cusco....was there a local holiday or do they have them regularly? We are also staying at the Ninos. What was the noise level like during sleep time? I have read that it can be noisy. Do they have hair dryers by any chance? How/Where did you arrange the horseback ridiing? Any other advice will be much appreciated. Thanks!

glover, the bus from Cusco to Puno took about 8 hours, but it didn't feel too long. We stopped like 5 times including an hour for lunch. We went with Inka Express, and the bus was professionally run with a tour guide speaking good English. Cost is $40 USD and you could book it by email from the US. Drinks are provided on the bus, served by a "stewardess" in uniform and heels--the poor girl trying to walk around carrying drinks on a moving bus in heels.

My favorite stop was "the Sistine Chapel" of Peru and the highest point on the route in the altiplano.

As I mentioned before, you need 3 full days to do Lake Titicaca. In terms of scenery, I don't think it's too spectacular. Pretty much like the lakes in California and the west. The most interesting part for me were the floating islands. Although touristy, they were interesting in concept I thought. I wish my tour boat had spent more time there. Taquile and Amantani became very peaceful once the tourists left, but I guess the point of spending time there is for the history and seeing the people and the way they live (if you do a homestay). We didn't exactly do a homestay as we stayed in a "lodge" that was run more like a hotel with electricity.

We didn't go to Arequipa and Colca Canyon, but heard rave reviews from other travelers.

takingthekids, let me try to answer your many questions.

* Fiestas. I don't know if they have fiestas very often. We didn't even know about the festivals until we got there. The Corpus Cristi (sp?) fiesta was going on everywhere for a whole week or more with processions, dancing, loud band music playing everywhere. No guidebooks mentioned about this, but it seemed pretty big, esp. in Cusco.

We liked it best in Ollanta (since that's where we first saw it). There was a small procession carrying the figure of Christ dressed like an Inca emperor. Men wearing colorful costumes witha stuffed lama in their back and knitted masks in black and others in white dancing and butting chests with each other (like male walruses fighting on the beach). The festivity lasted into the night with fireworks and a huge bonfire burning right in the middle of the plaza to keep people warm. It was so magical to see it for the first time in the small plaza of Ollanta.

And when we went to Aguas Calientes, and the celebration was also going on there although less elaborate. Men and older women were locking arms marching a parade with a loud band blasting music everywhere. Some younger men in the parade were hoisting cases of 24 bottle Cusquena beers on their shoulders. You know how the festivity'd end up. The band was playing the same tune over and over and so loud that we couldn't sleep! Our room at the hotel was overlooking the rushing river that's supposed to lull us to sleep. But no the party across the river where the locals lived kept on going on and on all night long. We ended up knocking ourselves out with ambien so we could sleep and get up early for Machu Picchu the next day.

In Cusco, the fiesta was the biggest and it was going on every single day there. Churches from surrounding areas all came here w/ their own procession and band and dance troupe. The main plaza of Cusco was all clogged up. And we missed out on seeing many sights because they were closed due to the holidays.

Anyway, too much rambling here... Let me get to the next question.

========================

Should have proofread my writing before posting. Many typos and grammar mistakes. Please bear with me.

* Ninos Hotel. Our room faced the street and it did get a bit noisy, because we opened one of the windows. The windows came with 3 layers of doors, and I think we opened one of them to let in some light. You could request for an inside room. Despite that, we slept well enough there.

We thought the Ninos Hotel was very charming and a great deal for the price and the mission they're supporting. (BTW there are 2 Ninos. We stayed at #1.) Our room was very spacious room(we got a room with 2 double beds and 1 single bed even though we'd booked a double). Clean and airy with high ceilings, painted wood floor, and simply decorated with 2 colorful paintings by the children. The bathroom was nicely decorated with a cool modern looking sink like in a boutique hotel. The Spanish courtyard where we had breakfast was utterly charming with a fountain in the middle.

The people at the hotel were very friendly. We also had them do our laundry there. It's like 4 soles per kilo.

Overall, it's a great place to stay.

Also, no hair dryer at the hotel. No shampoo and conditioner either at the Ninos or any of the small hotels we stayed at. Only tiny soaps. So bring your own shampoo and conditioner. That's a must-bring to Peru if you're planning to stay at any of the smaller hotels.

Horseback riding. We booked it through KB Tours office right in the Ollanta plaza. It was $45 USD for the 6 hour horseback riding tour to Moray, Maras, and Salineras. We had a horse trainer and a tour guide with us, but the tour guide didn't know too much English. They were fun to have around, and we tipped them like $10 USD each. Seemed like too much, as we were new to Peru and didn't know what the going rate was.

The ride was long and the trail was scary in some places -- winding along a cliff. How old are your kids? It might be difficult for them and even for adults.

We got the criollo horse--the more sturdy type than the other more famous "elegant" horse. The horses tended to break into a gallop at every opportunity, so a lot of bouncing on your bums (that's why we needed the Inka massage the next day! ;). But you could rein them in.

You might want to ask for a shorter, easier ride, esp for the kids.

More about horseback riding... we really loved that experience. We were the only 2 people on this tour and we went through winding trails with beautiful changing sceneries -- mountains, valleys, farmlands, rivers in a distance. We didn't see any other tourists around until we got to the Moray ruins and Salineras.

Along the way, we saw women and children picking corn on the field, sheep, donkeys, bulls. In fact, we encountered a few traffic jams on the narrow winding trail (barely 2 ft wide in places ) with a group of donkeys and even bulls coming from the opposite direction! Each party had to maneuver the animals so we could pass each other. Pretty fun.

But again, you need to balance yourself on the horse, as you could easily fall off.

JC98--

I'm working on a trip report, but I think we must have been in Cusco at the same time. Different people's perspective on the same things are interesting. We purposely planned our trip so we could be in Cusco for Corpus Christi; it was one of the highlights of our trip. Different strokes for different folks.

JC98,
Thanks for being open to questions. We will go with our kids 12 and 16,leaving in just a few days . We plan to hike Huayna Picchu. Trying to decide about running shoes vs Keens for that part of the hike.What is your take on that? We are pretty fit and have hiked Angel's Landing in Zion which sounds similar in exposure. I had heard that one needed to do that hike first since there is a limited number of people allowed up. Was this how you did it? How long does it take to hike up? We are currently scheduled for one day with a morning tour,after our train gets in at 10 am and a potential second day at Machu Picchu so were planning to hike then.
Much appreciate your advice and also am noting the restaurant for a meal .
Evelyn

JC98 I just thought of something else. Would you recommend a restaurant in Cuzco, or let us know if there is one we should avoid? We will be there during Inti Raymi, which will no doubt make everything very crowded.
Evelyn

venturesome, replies to your questions:

HUAYNA PICCHU HIKE:

* Shoes: Good traction is a must, as the path could be slippery. Keen shoes should be ok if they have good traction. But you may want to wear socks too, as toward the evening in Machu Picchu you'll get bitten by some invisible insects. We wore good hiking shoes (Merrell) and thick hiking socks. Even then these insects bit through my socks.

* How long: It took us 1 hour to go up, and about one hour to come down. We stayed up there to relish the scenery, but there's a guard up there who tried to get people off the peak. He didn't bother a few of us up there too much. We were taking our time to enjoy the scenery and take pictures. Take your time--you'll see wild orchids and exotic flowers blooming along the path. And look at the surrounding mountains. Going down I thought was harder because the path was steep, narrow, and the stone steps were kinda slippery. Some places there are no ropes, so you have to hold on to the previous step as you go down to keep your balance. It's shorter than Angel's Landing in Zion, I think, but more slippery.

* When to go: Best to go early in the morning. Once we were in the park, we right away headed toward the entrance of Huayna Picchu to sign in and climb up. It was after 8:30 a.m. when we signed in and we were already in 160 and when we came back the numbers almost ran out. If you have 2 days in MP, best to go early morning on the 2nd day then.

* Intipunktu Trail (Sun Gate): If you have time, also hike on this portion of the Inca trail. We wish we had time to do this. And skip the trail to the Inca Bridge--it's not worth it. The hike is not that interesting and they don't let you get close to the bridge. You can only see it in a distance because some tourist fell to their death sometime back. Skip this trail and do the Sun Gate trail instead. We wish we had done this.

RESTAURANTS IN CUSCO:

* Pukara -- Decent Peruvian food. Just off the main plaza. Reasonably priced. Try their chicken and rice dish--cooked like a paella even in a mini-cast iron pan.

* Granja Heidi -- Near San Blas. Excellent place for breakfast. Fresh milk, yogurt, butter, cheese from this German expat's farm. Everything was freshly baked and yummy. The restaurant itself was bright and airy, like a Scandavian house.

* Chez Maggy -- your kids might like this. Pizza baked from a wood burning oven. The crust was good, but the toppings and flavoring were so-so. Very busy and slow service though. We tried to avoid eating pizza in Peru, but ended up eating here because of a disastrous meal right before that in another restaurant (forgot what it was called but recommended by Lonely Planet.)

In general, go with restaurants recommended by Fodor's -- they have good taste in general (the editor should be happy to hear this. :). Don't trust LP's recommendations too much for food. LP is good for how to get around on your own but not for culinary matters.

For that night with bad food, we wish we had gone to MAP Cafe at the Museum of Precolombian Art instead -- $35 USD for a prefix with wine.

Hope that helps.

thanks so much for the excellent advice! I'll be copying these pages and putting them to good use.Thanks also for getting back to me so quickly. We leave in 3 days .
Very exciting!
Evelyn

venturesome, have a great trip with your family! It's also good for me to answer questions here. It's a way for me to capture what we experienced.

A useful thing to bring to Peru is the Ocean nasal spray. My nose bleeds almost every day probably because of the dryness and the high altitude. Best to irrigate the nasal passage.

Thanks so much for the report! Julies, I am awaiting yours as it seems you travel in the same style I do.

Can you please elaborate on your accomodations, ie., cost, location?

I am doing a similar trip in Nov. but it will be for 1 month and include some other destinations.

Thanks!

eurotraveller, all of our hotels are recommended by guidebooks and tripadvisor. They're walkable to the main plaza of each city. They're all double rooms with private baths and include breakfast except for Ninos Hotel in Cusco. Ninos Hotel is our favorite--very charming and it's run as a charity.
The price is in the budget category--$40 to $45 USD.

Thanks JC! I already have my sites set on Nino's so I hope they have a room when I get my schedule nailed down.

Cheers!

JC98 - Thanks for all of the great info here. For our trip next year, we are thinking of doing a similar itinerary (maybe Arequipa instead of Lake Titicaca). Did you feel you had enough time in Ollanta, AC, MP, and Cusco? Anywhere would you would have added time?

Also, just curious what the total cost for your trip was? You don't have to answer that, of course. I am just trying to get a sense of costs as I am used to traveling in Europe, and this would be our 1st trip to S. America. We are going to Costa Rica in January, and I was surprised to find that hotel costs aren't any less $$ than in the US. It sounds like Peru is much less expensive.

sessa, we thought going back to Machu Picchu the 2nd day would be good. We hiked Huayna Picchu, and wished we had more time to hike to the Moon Temple, the Sun Gate, and other peaks. The landscape there is very spectacular. I guess the point of Machu Picchu is its setting. The ruins are not as great as other more important parts of the Inca empire, like Cusco.

We spent 3 days in Cusco, and thought that was a bit too much. Maybe because of the ongoing festival, many churches and museums were closed, so we were walking around wondering what to do after seeing the festival for 3 days in a row (in Cusco alone) and every day elsewhere too.

Traveling in Peru is pretty cheap we thought. Don't know the total cost (usually not good at tracking these things), but you can stay in pretty clean, safe, decent (sometimes charming hotel) for around $40 USD a night. Taxis are inexpensive. A private taxi for going long distance in the Sacred Valley for the whole day costs less than $50 USD. Or you can try to take the public bus (in the Sacred Valley for instance). We didn't take it but heard from many travelers we met who took it, and thought it was a fun experience. The bus fare is only $1 USD for a 1 1/2 hour trip.

Only Machu Picchu is the most expensive. One day admission is $45 USD. Roundtrip bus from AC is $12 USD. The Vistadome train from Ollanta is around $70 USD one way. Backpacker train is $20 USD cheaper. You can do Vistadome one way and backpacker train back, like we did. We thought the backpacker train was pretty decent.

Overall, Peru is very easy and inexpensive to travel in. I'd highly recommend it. You get beautiful landscapes, ancient ruins, living indigenous culture, colonial architecture, interesting food. And it's pretty safe and clean too. That's another aspect that impressed us -- how clean the streets in Peru were--from the little towns to big cities like Lima. Cleaner than big cities in the US!

Thanks for sharing all this information.

Looking back at the questions, I forgot to answer this one:

BUS FROM CUSCO TO PUNO

The stops we made are listed below. The descriptions come from Inka Express's website:
http://www.inkaexpress.com/

I thought the sights were interesting. See athom (Karen)'s excellent trip report. She's more descriptive than me. :)

Andahuaylillas: Referred to as the Andean Sistine Chapel because of its magnificent frescoes, the church is but one example of the mestizo baroque architecture typical of the Cusco School which was prominent in the 17th century. You will marvel at the ceiling of carved panels covered with gold leaf.

Raqchi: (or the temple of the God Wiracocha) 121 kilometers from Cusco, this Inca temple is monumental:100 meters in lenght, 26 meters in width and 14 meters in height. Divided in two naves, each of these still retains the base of eleven giant columns. The base of the walls consists of Imperial Inca stonework with a top section of adobe. Adjacent to the temple, we can see many storehouses, used for various purposes: military and religious

La Raya: The highest pass on the route between Cusco and Puno, La Raya is 4335 meters above sea level. Beautiful landscapes await you, as well as the animals that are symbolic of the Andes: llamas, alpacas and vicunas. This is a region situated between two cultures, Quechua and Aymara, as well as a composite of two terrains: the dry and arid altiplano and the more verdant Quechua valleys and rivers.

Pukara: This is the most important and oldest ceremonial site this side of Tiahuanaco.Characterized by a serie of staired plateforms, the ruins also reveal some litosculptures and tombstones, all witnesses of a pre-Inca civilization, possibly one at the origin of the Andean culture of the Altiplano.

A clarification on the stop called Pukara above. The Inka Express website says you stop at the ruin, but we didn't. We went to a small museum instead and saw some interesting rock sculpture from some indigenous group (sorry, don't know the name. The problem for me going on a tour for this portion instead of doing my own research. ;) ). We also went into an old church ourselves. The church looked impressive, but sadly in disrepair.

JC98 - Thanks so much for your response to my questions on time/costs - it is extremely helpful. I am SO excited to start planning this trip!!

Just a quick add-on to the Inka Express bus ride. At the stop in Pukara, my son and I decided to walk the 5 minutes (300 m) up to the ruins instead of going into the museum. We had the place to ourselves, and though it's not one of the most impressive sites, it was in a prety impressive location and was interesting to walk around. Overall, I'm not sure I'd recommend this bus ride, it was a little long and I thought the Sistine Chapel analogy was quite a stretch. But the adobe Raqchi ruins were a real high point. I have never taken an organized tour before, and this gave me a taste of what that would be like -- descending en masse off the bus, into a courtyard to a tourist restaurant for a nondescript buffet lunch, milling around behind a tour guide and waiting for the bus horn to honk to pile back in, stopping at a place with people holding llamas and dressed up to earn a few soles for a picture and trying to sell the same stuff you see in every market in Peru. But I admit, those ruins at Raqchi were really nice.

For travel between Cusco and Puno, I would really highly recommend the overnight bus on Tour Peru. It was about $15 or $20 and its "bus cama" (bus bed) claim is not too far off the mark. It reclines almost as much as a business class seat in the air and the bus was heated and clean. Of course, arriving in Puno at 4 in the morning is not terribly convenient, but the owner of All Ways Travel and the Lake Titicaca tour we took had someone pick us up and bring us to his apartment, where we slept for a few hours -- pretty incredible, I thought.

JC98,
I was wondering about the museums you saw in Lima. We are thinking about a full day tour in Lima and can't decide on which tour to do. If you have any advise I would appreciate it.
- A City Tour + Lunch + Museums of Lima
- B City Tour + Lunch + Gold Museum
- C Pachacamac + Lunch + Museums of Lima
- D Pachacamac + Lunch + Gold Museum
- E Pachacamac + Lunch + City Tour
- F Museums of Lima + Lunch + City Tour
- G Museums of Lima + Lunch + Gold Museum
WHICH ONE ???????????
Or is it better to take a half day city tour and combine it with a night tour with dinner & show. Thanks for any advise.

JC98,
Do you mind providing the specific dates you ran into the fiestas? I want to plan my trip next year and have it revolve around the fiestas...
Thanks!

fides, the Ollanta festivity we saw was on Sat, 5/17. But people said the fiesta started the week before that. And on 5/18, the festival continued with a bull fight even, but we missed it.

The fiesta continued for the whole week after that. We saw it in Aguas Calientes and for all 3 days we were in Cusco. The last and culminating date of the festival in Cusco was on 5/22.

It's the Corpus Christi fiesta. The date might vary from year to year, so best to google it.

fishman, we didnt' take any tour in Lima. We went on our own.

Visited a bunches of churches and the Inquisition Museum (nothing much there; can skip) and the Larco Herrera museum (lots of pre-Colombian potteries, with the erotic ones being the most famous). We wanted to go to the National Museum and even took the taxi there, but it was closed for earthquake inspection that day. Bummer. We'd have preferred that over the Larco Herrera museum.

The best church was the one with a network of catacombs in the basement --you see bones and skulls in piles and different configurations.

JC98 - thanks for the plug for my trip report! And glad you had such a good time. Your report adds lots of good info - thanks for posting.
Karen

We should thank you, Karen, for the great trip report. Our itinerary was pretty much based on yours!

Here's a louder plug. :) Everyone, definitely check out Karen's extremely useful Peru trip report! Click on her username in the previous post.

JC98, thanks for the report. Can you comment on the Wiracocha Inn in Aguas Caliente? I have read that the hotels there are generally not great except for a couple of very expensive ones. Would you recommend the Wiracocha?

Thanks!

jaxtraveler, response below. Hope the format below is easy to read.

HOTEL REVIEW: WIRACOCHA INN

Where: Aguas Calientes

How to reserve: Email. I also called to make sure they had our reservation.

Cost: $45 USD for a double room, private bath, breakfast included (usual breakfast in Peru--flat bread, juice, tea, coffee, banana, and egg on request).

Location: Right next to the Urubamba River, up the hill from the train station, but a short walk to the bus that takes you to Machu Picchu.

Room: Clean overall, bathroom is clean. Good, hot shower. Bed is good, but I thought the bed cover small musty but my husband said he couldn't smell anything. I threw off the cover.

We had a room on the 2nd floor with a huge glass window opening out to the rushing Urubamba river below and across the bridge is where the locals live. We like this view, but we couldn't sleep at night because of the fiesta going on all night long across the river. The rushing Urubamba river couldn't drown out the loud band. :)

Except for the noise from the fiesta, we liked the location being next to the river. We also walked across the bridge and wandered around on the local side. Dropped into a big tent where the festivity was, and old women welcomed us in to drink a beer and chicha. We just smiled and declined. It was safe to walk around out there, and we dropped into a small grocery store and bought outselves a bottle of beer instead. :)

* We also asked them to pack sandwiches for us to take to Machu Picchu and they did, and charged us 3 soles each ($1.30). They're tiny flat bread with jam, and another with scrambled eggs.

Advice: Make sure you print out a copy of the reservation including the price they quoted you. (Good practice for any hotel in Peru.) When we checked out they were asking $55 USD (instead of $45 USD quoted in the email). I corrected them, and they immediately accepted it w/o checking my reservation. Not sure what the deal there was--maybe they were hoping we forgot how much it was supposed to be?

Overall, it's a decent place to stay given AC doesn't have that many options. The best part for us is the river location.

Hi JC98,
We're off to Peru mid October. We're planning on doing your same itinerary. We'd like to do Amantani Island and overnight in Kantuna Lodge. Can you please tell me more about this? We are not sure how to arrange getting to the island without a tour but the tours seem to only offer a home stay. We prefer the Kantuna lodge. thanks,

Tuni01, best to go with a tour like All Ways Travel to Amantani. You can just do the transportation w/ them and stay in the lodge on your own. Email them and ask for that option.

They were responsive when I tried to contact them, but unfortunately we couldn't go w/ them because we didn't allocate enough days in the area. You need 3 full nights.


We ended up asking the owner of Kantuna Lodge to get us private boat and there were glitches and they were not too reliable. A bit stressful. I don't recommend going with them.

ttt

thanks JC98. The area looks beautiful. We'll see what All Ways can offer for private tranfer back from the island. We'd be ok with taking the tour over but would prefer to boat directly back to Puno vs. going to Taquille. this is only because my husband doesn't want to spend hours in the boat.

There's a public boat that goes from Amantani back to Puno -- takes 4 hours.

When we got there, the Kantuna Lodge owner claimed it wasn't running on Sun when we had to return to Puno to catch a flight out that afternoon. We had emailed him before and he confirmed everything was fine, and we even asked Puno tourism office and our Puno hotel owners and they said thewould be a boat. Somehow, Kantuna claimed there wasn't one on Sun, so we ended up paying for a private boat to go a peninsula, and take the local combis (all colorful people)running on dirt roads w/ a transfer at a local market in the middle of nowhere -- it took another 4 hours by combis to get back to Puno. It was quite an adventure (since no tourists were in sight out in the middle of nowhere, and not possible to take a taxi). In the end, I guess we had to thank Kantuna lodge for giving us that experience.