Last conundrum before leaving:

The itinerary is
Arequipa 3 nights
Nasca 1 night
Lima 1 night
Iquitos 1 night then a jungle lodge

The bus isn't really working out for the Nasca Lines flight. The earliest bus from Arequipa leaves at noon so arrival in Nasca is 10 pm, too late to make arrangements for the next day. I had hoped to get there early enough to arrange to get an early flight over the Lines and make a 2 pm bus to Lima work. Trying online I am unable to get a reservation before 9 am, and with the pick up times and the pre-flight video it is cutting it too close for getting back to make a 2 pm bus (there is a 2:30 pm bus to Lima but arrival in Lima is after 10 pm and I figured it would not make enough of a difference). One tour flights web site has a warning that onward travelers should not book afternoon bus times due to unpredictability of flight times and weather.

Options:

1. Leave everything as is is, cancel the 9 am reservation but hit the Nasca streets early and see if an earlier flight can be arranged. If not, settle for the earthbound view: hire a taxi to go out to the lookout tower over two of the Lines and be back by noon, ready for check out, lunch and the next bus. This allows some appreciation of the Lines, and my wife wouldn't see them otherwise since she has ruled out the flight due to motion sickness issues.

2. Cut a day from Arequipa leaving just 2 nights, although arrival at 5 pm the first day and departure noon the third day does grant a bit of walking around Arequipa time in addition to a full day for sightseeing. Would have to somehow change the CdS bus ticket to the previous day, but there are plenty of seats. Means an afternoon in Nasca which may be dull. It also reduces 3 consecutive one night stays down to 2.

I confess that the Nazca lines hold no interest for me whatsoever so, if it were me, I would just skip Nazca and add the time to Arequipa (or Lima , or the jungle depending on how much time you have scheduled there). I try to avoid one night stays anywhere as they waste too much time in transit. In the case of Nazca, that seems compounded by the restrictive travel logistics. If operators say don't book afternoon buses, they presumably do so for very good reason. I cant imagine that there is any other reason than the lines to visit Nazca so if you cant source the flight you want then it will be time wasted

If I were tempted to go, it would seem pointless not to fly over the line and if one of you isn't going to fly anyway???

Arequipa is one of my favourite cities in South America and we have spent weeks there over the years. That said you can see a lot of the centre in a day (plus change). Monasteria de Santa Catalina alone will take up much of a morning or afternoon .

Checking Google Maps for reviews and pictures from the new lookout tower (2020), I’m impressed with the pictures. The glyphs and lines are clearly made out, and it would be a better marriage choice to do/experience something together. There’s also a good cat glyph on a hill someone photographed from a road. I think the morning only trip to the tower and the cat will work out fine.

I’m thinking the flight is a bit like bungee jumping in New Zealand, it becomes this must do dare thing because it’s scary and so many vomit.

And lucky to be flying American via Miami and not United via Houston where a hurricane will foul up travel this week.

If you really want to do the flight, I would fly from Arequipa back to Lima (about 2 hours nonstop and inexpensive). You shouldn't have to shortchange Arequipa very much. I never would have recommended bussing from Arequipa to Nazca.

From Lima there would be several late night busses on Cruz del Sur from Lima Javier Prado leaving late to Nasca, arriving very early and you should be able to either go direct to the airport or arrange something in advance.

Suggest leaving the spouse in Lima. I think I may have suggested another itinerary involving the spouse staying at a nice hotel in Paracas, but I can't be bothered to scroll back up and look, as I have my own trip to plan!!

I had not bothered with the tower but seeing the lines on the ground really is not that great.

Update from Lima: I somehow missed the ATM issues with Peru, and was planning on going that route only having about $300 with me. Anyway happy to report that near hotel I used a Banco de La Nacion ATM (curiously they say “multiRed” on them), easy to spot since they are bright red. I had the 400 soles limit to deal with but there was no fee and the transaction cost was only 0.5 soles off the official exchange rate. Too bad the location, hypermarket Tottus, is not open before it we leave for airport tomorrow. Located ATM using Google Maps. ATM Fee Saver app not very helpful.

I think that you can pay for most things with credit cards. Especially if you use taxidatum and Uber in Lima and Cusco.

taxidatum does not accept credit cards in the cars, needs to be prepaid by special email request with 5% fee added.

Went to 2 clinics for yellow fever vaccine, private one Suiza Lab (nice and English speaking, 190 soles) and a public one (along the Pacific at Augusto Pérez Araníbar Avenue 1756) which offers them free according to signage, all the time and no waiting. Unfortunately refused both locations due to wife’s age (she just turned 60 3 months ago). I figured we could sign a waiver or something, but no dice. Will have to use DEET religiously in Iquitos and jungle, maybe get some netting for head.

Adding that someone did a yellow fever vaccine study of about 100 older western travelers to an infected yf area. 2/3 got the vaccine and none got guillain-barre syndrome, and of the 1/3 who did not get vaccinated, none got yellow fever.

Delving probably too deep into this, for people over 60 with a 2 week stay in a yellow fever area

4 out of 100,000 will get yellow fever

8 out of 100,000 who get the yellow fever vaccine will get guillain-barre syndrome from the vaccine.

Hence the reason that the Peru Health Ministry is telling vaccination centers to refuse people over age 60.

Still giving yellow fever too much thought but this fairly authoritative website is indicating no yellow fever cases in the Iquitos area in the last 18 months.

https://www.paho.org/en/file/148267/...token=T-eLTXD6

The chances of getting YF on a two week trip are very low, but as that report points out , outbreaks can happen at any time. It is all about risk v reward. I got my second YF jab around the 60 mark (a few months later the WHO announce it lasted for life!). I would be less concerned about getting the vaccine for South America than I would for Africa. We got our first shots many years ago when we did volunteer project in Sierra Leonne (along with vacs for diseases I hadn't even heard of.

As you say, the only way to avoid any mozzie borne disease is not to get bitten by covering up and spraying. Good luck with that, I lost count of the number of bites I got on a week long trip to the Bolivian amazon!

Good to know that you got fee free withdrawals from Multired. I have seen varying reports on that on Tripdavisor some saying they did, some saying no. maybe it is something to do with specific cards or banks or ATMs. I also just read that Scotiabank were also allowing fee free with withdrawals which may be worth trying.

As mlgb say most outlets other than the very smallest will now accept card or contactless. Happy travels

Being contrary but would rather take a 10 hour bus ride than fly and deal with Lima traffic to airport chaos and airport bag check chaos and general airport chaos.

FWIW: It’s a Capital One 360 Mastercard. Had the taxi driver stop on the way to the airport and got another fee free 400 soles, different multiRed ATM.

"Hence the reason that the Peru Health Ministry is telling vaccination centers to refuse people over age 60."

That's standard advice unless there is an active outbreak. But you were only trying to get it at a reduced or free cost for a future trip to Africa. I am actually not completely surprised that they refused since I think the rare severe side effects are far worse than Guillain-Barré syndrome. Well covered in crellston's post #95!!

Ihope you didn't waste a lot of time and expense on this futile quest.

Why would you not want to reserve taxidatum in advance? Have not done the math on your exchange spread but is it much better than 5%?

I usually just keep extra USD as emergency cash. It is widely accepted and hotels do exchange if you ask the night before. Some Soles are handy for small purchases like bottled water etc. But you probably won't need to make another withdrawal.

This is probably a basket term for things including Gillian-Barre syndrome which causes muscle weakness and paralysis which is not always temporary. If you recall both the Johnson&Johnson covid vaccine and the swine flu vaccine in the 70s were terminated for this reason.

The Ollantaytambo ruins ticket office only takes cash, and 2 of the combo tickets was 260 soles so already nearly out of soles so changed $50 at a restaurant, the rate wasn’t that bad. There’s a multiRed ATM in Aguas Calientes and 2 in Cusco so that should end the drought. I mean I brought the dollars for a pinch so used them as that’s what they are for. It’s just I am an experienced traveler but got caught out anyway.

Taxidatum reservations are not prepaid. It’s a reservation then cash payment upon completion system. They can set up credit payment but it’s a couple extra steps and in advance.

Yes about Africa, my wife will skip anything yellow feverish, I think Southern Africa is OK.

Stray comments:

1. In September in the Cusco/Sacred Valley it’s warm, no need for puffer jackets or mittens or wool cap. Your main concern for packing is warm sleepwear.

2. Europeans shame Americans for large restaurant portions, but Peruvian portions are substantially bigger. We have reduced meals to two per day as a consequence, although packing Tupperware to store restaurant leftovers wouldn’t be a bad idea.

3. Peruvians basically don’t smoke. Most tourists in Peru are from Latin America, then the rest split between Europe and North America. The tourists from Latin and North America generally draw from nonsmoking cohorts, so when you see someone smoking it’s likely a European. For someone like me who can’t stand smoke (making places like Central and Eastern Europe basically off-limits), Peru is a refreshing alternative.

4. Considering the minimum cost to visit Machu Picchu ($200 as a day trip from Ollantaytambo using the cheaper early and late trains) and the massive production and line waiting, is MP really worth it? Both my wife and I are leaning to NO it isn’t.

Stray responses!

1. I agree and generally just go with layers rather than puffer jackets - cant stand the things. They make me feel claustrophobic , but maybe I am just weird?
2. I think in many places, a lot of meals are intended to be shared family style
3. Entirely agree . As someone who once smoked a very long time ago, I can't stand tobacco smoke and will walk out of a places if anyone lights up near me. Never seen it as problem in Peru.
4. I agree. Whilst MP is considered one of the top tourist destinations in the world, IMHO there equally impressive, but admittedly different ruins ruins elsewhere in Peru that are not overrun with tourists. There is much more impressive mountain scenery elsewhere in Peru. When I see posts on TA and Fodors taking for advice on 10 and even 15 day itineraries for Peru, I do question whether spending a disproportionately large amount of time visiting MP is wide. I have long said that the best way is a day trip from Ollantaytambo but even that is becoming prohibitively expensive .

I have an Amex/Avios companion voucher burning a hole in my inbox and am half thing of a return to Peru (or Central America, Colombia, Patagonia, South Africa, Japan - so many places, so little time! I may be coming back to these forums for input at some point.

Just to note Lima is cooler than Cusco and the SV
this month but layering works there too. Agree with tourists and smoking and large portions.
i would do MP. I think you will regret not going if you do not. The train ride to AC is scenic. The buses to MP go by the time of your entrance to MP so for example if you have a 1000 entrance you get in line at the 1000 line. 25 minutes to MP. A few weeks ago we had a 3 pm Circuit 2b
entrance and when we finished we got a bus back to AC in a few minutes. The next morning we had a 10 am Circuit 3 mountain climb. The line for buses back at 1300 was about 45 minutes long.
Our tour guide said crowds are less in September and it’s more crowded in the morning than afternoon.

I didn’t have that MP bus experience, waited about 45 minutes to get on a bus (in the rain). Decided to walk down. I realize we could have waited till 10 (our MP admittance time) and hardly waited but didn’t want to risk it. As you know, now all the 9:00 ticket times are allowed on a bus before any 10:00 people are allowed to get on a bus, even if they have been waiting 1-1/2 hours and 9:00 people are just walking up.

There was this bus crash the same morning we went up, about 15 minutes after we passed that spot. The most unfortunate thing about the crash victims is they can’t possibly have seen a thing at MP. We saw the clouds lift about 11:30, about an hour after the crash (those people were going down from an early visit).

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/mac...icans-injured/

At first I was disappointed not to get a sunny day, but MP is dramatic with clouds. Recalling that in the Yellow Mountains of China, visitors are considered lucky when they get clouds and the landscape looks like a Chinese watercolor.

Amazonia:

Considering a trip report but adding comments for Amazon here.

Wanting to see the actual Amazon in addition to the rainforest, booked Explorama Lodge east of Iquitos, with tips (for 2) US $440/day, with all food and transportation.

-at the end of the dry season saw no more than 5 mosquitoes and had no bites.

-Amazon is considerably larger than Mississippi at similar distance from ocean, by several factors. By my estimate the gradient (slope) of the Mississippi is about triple the Amazon, so the Amazon is going to “pond up” (flood) much more easily in rainy times.

-Explorama provided a personal 24 hour guide who found us many dozens of birds, plus 3 kinds of monkeys, bugs, lizards, trees. We could get dawn hikes or night hikes or boat trips or whatever we wanted. All questions satisfactorily answered. It’s not my usual travel method but I found it really rewarding. I’m likely not going back.

-Nearly all of Explorama costumers were on package tours and most of those were Chinese. The guides were roundly disparaging of Chinese behavior.

-Explorama offers 3 lodges, a remote one with mosquito nets only and no power, one with screened rooms and 18 hours of power, and one with AC and pool. We split our time between the latter 2.

The cost was huge but we ran across a woman from France who visited a lodge near Puerto Maldonado and saw no animals so spending some money makes sense to me.