Peru solo trip

I am a single 42 year old man without any kids or travel companions. I took a 15 night trip to Peru, to see ancient ruins, old artifacts, mountain scenery, and whatever else I might experience. My flights were on American Airlines.

Friday, June 27th: my first flight left Detroit at 6am. I arrived at my first hotel in Lima, Grand Hotel Betsy, approximately between 10 and 11pm. I had time to walk outside and buy a turkey sandwich from a low-end Peruvian sandwich shop before going back to the hotel to sleep.

Saturday, June 28th: First I bought some supplies at a Wong grocery store about 1/8th mile from the hotel. Then I went back to the hotel, ate some breakfast, and took an Uber ride to Fortaleza de Real Filipe. I started watching a video, in Spanish with English subtitles, projected onto a screen in a room of the fort. Then I noticed that an older guy was starting a tour in Spanish. I started following the tour. There were about 20 others. I was able to make out some Spanish words and phrases because I had taught myself some Spanish before this trip. I had taught myself some Spanish two other times, before I went to Spain and before I went to Mexico. I left the fort before about 2pm and started walking toward the coast, along a decrepit path past a wall of graffiti drawings. By coincidence I found a festival celebrating fish and Peruvian products. There were booths selling some edible natural products, prepared food, tables and chairs, and a stage with live entertainment. I bought some kind of recipe with chicken and rice. Then I went to the naval museum just because it was there and very close. I saw about 20 models of old ships. There were a lot of paragraphs in Spanish. I didn’t try reading most of it. Then I took an Uber south to an area along the coast, walked past a surfing school, went up some stairs and over a pedestrian bridge over the road, and walked to the Indian (souvenir) Market.

Sunday, June 29th: Major activities: the Huaca Pucllana ruins, the bus to Nazca leaving at 2pm. The ruins were only rediscovered starting in 1981. Previously it had been covered with dirt and grass and looked like only a big hill. The English guided tour automatically came with the ticket. My tour group had about 20-25 people. You can’t tour the place without a guide. The site was built by the Lima culture, sometime between 200 and 700AD. A hotel employee, possibly the owner or manager, picked me up from bus station in Nazca and drive me to the hotel, saving me some small amount of money. I spent a night at Hostal Camiluz.

Monday, June 30, 2025: Major activities: Pre-reserved flight over the Nazca Lines, afternoon guided tour of 3 sites near Nazca, overnight bus to Arequipa. I had an advance reservation for my plane flight. The plane only had 4 seats: me; another tourist, a guy who looked up to 20 years older than me, the pilot, and co-pilot/narrator. I paid a hundred US dollars for this flight with Alas Peruana. Most flights are 80 US dollars. I got a flight that might have been 45 minutes to an hour, instead of 30 minutes like most tours. Other planes might be bigger, increasing the risk somebody could be sick in the plane. I wanted as small a plane as possible. I was able to notice almost all of the shapes the narrator pointed out except for the last supposed shape. Maybe most tours skip the last shape because it is rather faint or hard to discern. Two employees of Alas Peruana picked me up at 8:30am and the same guy with Alas Peruana drove me back to the hotel. The car looked rather old and the seatbelt didn’t work. I was way more in danger in those car rides than in the plane ride. Also I didn’t end up getting into the plane until 10:40am; they waited for the clouds moved away before running my flight. The hotel employee who drove me to the hotel and back to the bus station, turned out to be an English speaking tour guide and offered to give me a tour of 3 sights, starting at 2:30. I took his tour. It cost 400 soles. He took me to the aqueducts, then Chauchilla cemetery, an ancient Nazca cemetery with no more than 12 excavated uncovered graves with visible mummified bodies, then the archaeological site of Cahuachi, with pyramids first rediscovered and uncovered starting in 1982. Then back to the hotel, then to the bus station. My bus ride to Arequipa left at 10:30pm.

Tuesday, July 1, 2025: I had a lot of difficulty sleeping on the bus even though everybody was rather quiet. The bus arrived sometime before 9am. I got a taxi to my hotel, La Casa de Chamo Hostel. My first stop was to get a new SIM card from Bitel, because I couldn’t get my T-Mobile SIM card to work even though it worked in Lima. It cost me 10 soles. My first museum was “Museo Santuarios Andinos”. The visit automatically came with a required guided tour; I got an English speaking guide with just one other tourist. This is the museum with a replica of a mummy called “Juanita”, a girl who was killed as an Inca sacrifice when she was about 12-15 years old, sometime between 1440 and 1480. Her frozen body was discovered in 1995. I wrote in my notes that I then went to 2 small archaeology museums but I didn’t write the names of the places in my journal. Next was the Mercado San Camilo. I sat at table at a restaurant in a space in the market and had a recipe consisting of some kind of weird pastry made with slices of potato; rice, and a tomato stuffed with little pieces of meat and whatever else, which was nasty because it was horrifically spicy. Then I went to a small art museum with very little on display. Then I hiked up to Mirador de Yanahuara. It is a scenic viewpoint at an elevation of about 7,840 feet, with a fancy paved patio and a view of El Misti Volcano.

Wednesday, July 2, 2025: Major activities were the “Monasterio y Museo de la Recoleta”, and the Santa Catalina Monastery or “Monasterio de Santa Catalina de Siena”. I arrived to the first place 7 minutes after 9am; they opened at 9am. I saw some pre-columbian pots with faces carved into the sides, a few fragments of old textiles, a room full of old coins and old paper currency. Another room had old stamps but I didn’t bother looking at them too closely. At the Santa Catalina Monastery, I paid extra for the optional English guided tour. It used to be, rich local families would be sure that one of their kids because a priest or monk, or nun. Families would spend the equivalent of at least two-hundred thousand US dollars to send a daughter here; the girl entered at the age of 14, had 4 years when she could technically choose to leave but few or no girls left in this novice period. Then the nuns could never leave; they died in the complex. Then I had some low-end restaurant food: a soup that was good, and a plate with bland plain white rice, a sliver of fried chicken, and a gross little pile of cut beet and some other red vegetable. Then I went to the city museum. It had a room with paintings, and other rooms with old black-and-white photographs of the aftermath of earthquakes in Arequipa. Then a major Cathedral or church which re-opened at 5pm, then I went to the “World of Alpaca”, just because I needed something else to do. This is a small museum dedicated to the industry of making clothing and textiles out of Alpaca or Llama hair; at the end is a store selling high-end products, owned by the Mitchell group... My bus to Cusco left at 9pm.

Thursday, July 3rd, 2025: Again, I had a lot of difficulty sleeping on the bus. Even though all the other passengers were quiet. The bus kept accelerating fast and slowing down fast... in Ollantaytambo, I stayed at Hostal Wayras. I was mortified to find a barking dog at this hotel; I can’t stand the barking of dogs. My first stop was “Sitio arqueológico Pinkuylluna”. This is the remains of smallish stone buildings on flattened areas along the side of a mountain, used to store food; the cool temperatures caused by the wind against may have provided a sort of primitive refrigeration-like effect. It took some effort to hike up to the ruins. I saw no more than 15 other tourists on my way up and down. There was no charge. I only had to write my name and possibly passport number in a book at a booth with an attendant.... Then the Ollantaytambo Sanctuary. It cost me $70 soles, + $300 for the optional 2-hour English speaking private guide. I am unsure whether the guide was a waste of money. Maybe he pointed out details I would have missed. Maybe I could have taken away my need for the guide by checking some blog or websites or done background reading in advance. Also I made the mistake of only buying a ticket that would let me into this site and 3 other sites instead of buying the 14-site tourist ticket. I had intended to buy the 14-site ticket, before my trip, but then at the site, I totally forgot... Later I ended up buying the 14-site ticket in Cusco, wasting about $19.75 US dollars... Then I ate some crappy restaurant food at Restaurant Qori Illari... I wish I had continued walking just a little farther from the rest of the tourists before picking a place to eat... then I bought a little bit of fruit at the municipal market in Ollantaytambo. This is in an area just beyond where most of tourists go.

Friday, July 4th, 2025: This was the day of my visit to Machu Picchu. My train ticket to Machu Picchu town said the train leaves at 8:29 but show up by 7:59. I barely arrived at the train station before 8pm. My ticket for the site was for 1:00pm. The weather was marvelous. There was no rain. In the town I had time to eat Alpaca meat at a restaurant while waiting to take the bus the rest of the way to the site. The alpaca was good. It had very few globs of fat. It reminded me of tuna and roast beef. I got a guide to the site after I bought my bus ticket while waiting in line to get on the bus. I am unsure whether the guide was a waste of money. Yeah I learned a little from the guide but I doubt it was enough to justify not touring the site unguided. The guide didn’t say the supposed names of the different areas of the site, and I forgot to ask. The train got back to Ollantaytambo at about 8pm.

Saturday, July 5th, 2025. Today was my pre-reserved taxi tour of the ruins at the ruins at Chinchero, the Maras Salt Pans, and the ruins at Moray. The ruins at Chinchero are at an elevation of about approximately 12,343 feet. There you see ancient Inca ruins, and a church the Spanish invaders built on top of some of the ruins, in 1607. I was out of breath when I was about halfway up the incline up to the ticket booth. I started walking slower. At the top I stood still for a while. Then I was able to tour the ruins as if everything was fine. The elevation didn’t cause me any other problem that I am aware of. The Maras salt pans are where a stream apparently full of minerals including salt, is made to empty into a lot of rectangle areas with short sides where the water evaporates and the salt is left behind and workers harvest the salt, package it, and it is taken to wherever it is sold... Moray is more than one huge circular indentation with terraces originally used to grow crops... I arrived at my hostel just after 3pm. Then I ate Chinese food at a restaurant approximately 1/8 mile from the hostel. Then Museo de Arte Popular. It’s a small place with a few framed pictures in one room, and another room full of display cases with figurines, multi-colored sculptures, and 3-dimensional scenes full of many little models of people. Then the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo. It was listed on 14-site tourist ticket. I saw 2 rooms with recent paintings, then I walked across a courtyard and peeked into an open door and somebody eagerly ushered me in and gave me a ball point pen... I was at the back of an almost full big but not too huge room full of rows of chairs and a stage... a free concert of Japanese music was being conducted by 3 Asian-looking guys... I needed to sit for a while anyway... you should be open to unplanned events and finds like this in travel...

Sunday, July 6th, 2025: Today was my pre-reserved taxi tour of the ruins at Pisac, the market in Pisac, and 4 other ruins I don’t remember immediately until I look at my pictures again: Tambomachay, Pucapucara (or Puka Pukara), Qenqo, and Sacsayhuaman (or Saqsaywaman). When I got back to Cusco, there was a huge, long and long-lasting parade in and near the main square at the center of Cusco. I didn’t go to the souvenir market in Pisac. I told my driver to talk me to skip the souvenir market at Pisac and just take me to the food market in Pisac, where I had some kind of soup and a plate with chicken and rice.

Monday, July 7, 2025: First the “Church and Convent of Santo Domingo of Guzman”. It is a church built over the remains of an Inca Temple. Next was the Museo Inca. It was just a small place with not much more than 5 small rooms. Then the Mercado de San Pedro. I had a soup, ceviche with too many onions, and rice with some kind of fish or oysters or mussels. Yeah I ate some treyf in Peru... My next stop was the Inka museum... if I remember right, this is the place with a scale model of Machu Picchu and two volunteers or staff demonstrating ancient whistles, flutes, and ocarinas. Then I had time for the Museo de Arte Precolombino. The place is not too huge. All the objects were well described in Spanish, French, and English. There was old pottery, figurines, silver and gold objects and a few pieces of jewelry. Then the “12-sided stone” – it is labeled on google maps; it is an unusually shaped stone in an ancient wall in an alley. Then the Sapantiana Aqueduct or “Acueducto de Sapantiana”. By this time it was dark. Then to the “Centro Qosqo de Arte Nativo”. It was on the 14-site ticket. This is a performing arts place; this was a show with dancing, and about 13 instrument players, including a vertical flute, at least one classical guitar, and mandolins and possibly other guitar-like instruments. The show lasted from 7 to 8:15pm.

Tuesday, July 8: Today was my flight from Cusco to Lima. It took until almost 5pm to get to the hotel, Lima House Hostel. The traffic was ten times worse than near home in Michigan. Then I ate ceviche in a restaurant. It came with too many onions and a bit of potato and sweet potato. Then I had time for “Circuito Mágico del Agua”. It cost 5 soles. It is a park with multiple illuminated fountains. I was starting t have some distress in my digestive tract but I didn’t feel too sick.

Wednesday, July 9th: First was the Lima Cathedral. It had the supposed remains of the conquistador Francisco Pizarro (March 1478-June 1541), and at least 2 small catacombs. Then the “Museo del Convento de San Francisco y Catacumbas”. This is a monastery that multiple underground rooms retrofitted with electric lighting, with the scattered cones of a lot of people. Later at about 7pm I saw the Casa O’Higgins, a small art museum on 2 floors of a historic house where Bernardo O’Higgins lived. He had something to do with the independence of Chile. There were about 20 masks on a portion of the wall on the 2nd floor.

Thursday, July 10: From Wednesday at about 10pm to about 3-4pm Thursday, I had a horrifying sickness that affected my digestive tract. Finally at 4pm I was able to leave the hostel and walk to portions of the remains of a stone wall built around part of Lima in 1684-1687. Then I saw part of Museo Centro MUCEN: this is an art museum with some display cases with old Peruvian coins and paper money, and some ancient artifacts and pottery. In my notes I wrote that I saw Casa O’Higgins after Museo Centro – now I don’t remember which day I saw it.

Friday, July 11th: First Museo Larco, an archaeology museum with well described old pottery and artifacts. I left this museum and returned, to go to a small market where I just had pea soup that cost 4 soles. I was trying to cautiously eat just a little bit per sitting in case my sickness wasn’t fully gone. I did not get sicker. In Peru, they don’t sell drugs over-the-counter. You have to go to the counter of a small pharmacy, tell the pharmacist your symptoms, in Spanish, and then they give you what they think you need, and they don’t sell whole boxes or bottles of multiple pills. They just give you one serving or each thing or enough for a day. The pills are all individually wrapped in blister-packs. Next was the “Museo de Arte de Lima”. The were more ancient artifacts, non-ancient Peruvian Paintings and furniture, a few pieces of ancient pottery, a few old strings with patterns of knots which were used to keep records. The Incas didn’t have writing. Then the Anthropology Museum. I didn’t try reading most of the Spanish but there were more ancient artifacts and rooms about the effort to make Peru independent from Spain. These museums weren’t too huge. Then I walked on some streets in or near the Jesus Maria district thinking I would find a restaurant but I didn’t see anything appealing. Then an Uber back to the hostel and the same restaurant on the street the hostel is on that I had been to once already. Unfortunately I was not able to sleep before my taxi to the airport at 3:05pm, because there was loud music in the room from an adjacent venue, which lasted until 2pm. I wish I had stayed in Grand Hotel Betsy in Miraflores, again, in my second time in Lima.

My flights back to Detroit worked out ok. I got back to my apartment at about 1:30am Sunday, July 13th.

Additional observations:
I was afraid I would be too cold at night in Cusco and Ollaytaytambo in case my hotels were not heated. My hotel room in Hostal Wayras in Ollantaytambo was not heated but I didn't have a problem. My private room in Andes House Hostel in Cusco had an electric heater on the wall near the ceiling. I slept with a knitted hat.

Everybody thinks the elevation in the Andes will cause a problem. Nobody thinks of food poisoning or parasites or whatever sickness I got.

I don't know whether I got my sickness from the water or the produce I bought, or both. I rinsed my mouth and washed the fruit and lettuce and cucumber I bought, in tap water. Additionally I read that red dragon fruit can cause digestive problems for some people. I had one red dragon fruit. That was my first and last one of my life.

I didn't take any local buses even once. I took some Uber rides and did a lot of walking.

I am unsure whether I learned enough from my guides to justify spending the money on them.

Otherwise my trip worked out ok because I didn't loose my passport and I made it to all my reservations (Machu Picchu, and my long-distance bus rides).

Thank you Michael for this detailed trip report.

I see you have broadened your eating preferences since your trip to Mexico!

Cheers, FD