Wow, Peru by far was one of my favorite countries I visited during my 5 month expedition down in South America. It was such a special trip… after realizing I had a four day vacation (and my generous manager Cyrus letting me have a few extra days off) I was able to get a week off last minute to travel.
My older sister flew down, and we go to spend my 26th birthday hiking Machu Picchu! Peru has amazing food, beautiful sites, amazing textiles, and now holds one of my favorite places in the world… the Amazon Rainforest. I could not have been more grateful for opportunity to see such a remote part of the world. I felt like this trip was just highlight on top of highlight, filled with kind locals who went out of their way to show us around, people magically understanding my Spanish, and getting to spend truly unplugged time with my sister.
If there is one place in the world I could recommend anybody to visit, it would be the Amazon river. It was such a magical place that photos cannot fully depict. Let me know if I can help you plan your trip there, it will change the way you see nature and it worth the hassle to get to!
ITINERARY
April 2019 - 7 Days @ Cusco & Iquitos, Peru
Cusco - Sam Trek Travel
1 Day Sacred Valley Tour
1 Day Machu Picchu
1 Day Rainbow Mountain
Iquitos - Treehouse Lodge
3 days @ TreeHouse Lodge (by far my FAVORITE experience I have ever done!!!)
Cusco HIGHLIGHTS
Booking with Sam Trek Travel. I was beyond happy that I choose this tour company. They were amazing and took care of everything. The tour guides were sweet and accommodating… when my sister was feeling altitude sickness they even looked up a hotel for her to rest in, and when we were running late for our flight they sent someone and he road all the way in the cab with us! We booked the 2 Day / 1 Night Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu Tour and then added in a private driver to Rainbow Mountain the next day.
Touring Sacred Valley. Note, there is HUGE altitude sickness but we got to see so much in one day. The altitude sickness is no joke, and the roads are winding, but here are a few gems we saw along the way…
Hiking Machu Picchu on my 26th birthday!!! We got to Agua Calientes the night before, woke up at 5am and began our trek. Getting to actual Machu Picchu we took a bus (really easy) and then hiked the actual Machu Picchu mountain. Be sure to get tickets ahead of time. (We got our tickets two weeks ahead). It was a tough hike, and we ran out of water, but it felt super momentous to be at something I had been wanting to go to since middle school with my sister. Haha we even met another girl who was hiking Machu Picchu with her mom on her 30th birthday!
Shopping for really bomb souvenirs! Popular honestly everywhere, Agua Calientes has huge flea markets for great souvenirs. They have literally everything under the sun with alpaca wool (it’s so soft)… think socks, sweaters, blankets, etc. We each got alpaca wool blankets, two alpaca hair white pillows (brought both to Bejing!) and our favorite find were these beautiful wool pouches. They litearally look like they are from Anthropologie and only cost $5. We must have bought at least 5 each hahaha but they are great for putting cosmetics / underwear when you’re traveling, and serve as good pouches.
We went shopping in a variety of markets but a few favorites include:
Mercado Central de San Pedro (located in Cusco)
Outside Rainbow Mountain
Agua Calientes
Hiking Rainbow Mountain. This was our favorite thing we did… it even made Machu Picchu pale in comparison (and we both thought Machu Picchu was beautiful). We got super lucky and the weather was amazing. You could see all the beautiful landscape. Because the altitude was so bad (legit we couldn’t take two steps without being out of breath), we both took horses up. It ended up being around $30USD round trip, but was well worth it because it also let us admire the view on the way there. What most people don’t talk about is literally how beautiful the trek to Machu Picchu is, beautiful landscape mountains everywhere. We even caught a few actual rainbows at rainbow mountain… and because we were so high up the rainbow was upside down!
Crazy good Peruvian food. Ceviche, pisco sours, lomo saltado… sign me up!
Republica Del Pisco: Crazy good pisco sours (duh, in the name) especially at happy hour
Museo del Pisco: Really fun environment, and excellent tapas menu. Front room has a huge dance floor.
CUSCO lowlights
Bring mosquito repellant to avoid bug bites. They still have a way of finding you even at Machu Picchu.
Altitude sickness is no joke. Bring altitude pills, chew coco leaves and eat coco candy. Sacred Valley Tour was a horrible experience for the body.
Getting to Cusco is hard. You have to fly through Lima to get to Cusco, and both times in Lima we had early flights. First night we decided to skip out on the hotel and we barely slept. The airport was horrible, (and also it’s weird that even at like 4am there are people just walking around), and second night we only got a few hours of sleep.
THe AmaZON, IQUITOS HIGHLIGHTS
Sigh… The Amazon is such a magical place. It was by far my favorite trip I have been on / my favorite place to visit in the world. Treehouse Lodge did a wonderful job of providing excellent customer service and an eco-friendly / authentic experience without sacrificing the beauty of the Amazon.
I highly highly recommend Treehouse Lodge, it is pricey ($300~) a night, but they provide a private tour guide and an amazing three meals a day. We stayed 3 full days and 2 nights; paying $600 for this amazing experience was well worth it. The Treehouse Lodge basically gives you a personal tour guide that lets you pick from any activities you want to do during your stay. It’s amazing because you really don’t need to plan anything ahead of time and they totally cater around your schedule (from airport pick up to the owner showing us around Iquitos after…) Here were a few of my favorite activities…
Night jungle walk: Letting your eyes get accustomed to the night and seeing tarantulas, monkeys, snakes… it was frightening but honestly super cool.
Listening to wildlife at night: This was my favorite thing I did with my sister. We stayed up late at night (a bit buzzed off of caipirinhas) and listened to all the wildlife (fish jumping in the river, frogs chirping, monkeys howling) late into the night. The treehouse is located deep inside the rainforest and getting to hear unfiltered sounds was fucking. unreal.
Eating amazing food fresh from the Amazon: Hearts of palm, fresh squeezed juice… yum
Jungle boat tour in the morning. Highlights include looking at toucans, woodpeckers, sloths, just doing their thing in nature. My favorite part of the tour was finding these beautiful giant water lilies in Oxbow Lagoon; combined with a light drizzle of rain it felt so unreal I thought I was in a Dr. Seuss novel.
Fishing for piranha and then eating them later! We legit sat in the middle of the river, had a piece of red meat tied to a wooden stick and waited patiently for a piranha to bite to pull it out of the river.
Jungle walk through the forests: Swinging from vines, seeing Mother Nature provide all these plants that are later used in medicine, and drinking water from bark, I cannot believe how beautiful the Amazon is and hope it will always remain this untouched.
Visiting the Amazon community: Our tour guide took us to his hometown village, and I never felt such a difference in world / community before. Inside the village, people live in these open huts and sleep on the floor (if you sleep in hammocks / higher up it’s easier for insects to bite you). There was a 7 year old girl drying palm leaves to replace the roof of her house, a “market” which was a guy sitting with a blanket selling pens and a Nokia phone haha, and people enjoying their time together playing soccer. It was refreshing to see, and reinforced this idea that you really don’t need much to be happy. You can bring school supplies to donate to their local school (lol they now have a box of UberEats notebooks).
Holding Pedito the Sloth: One of the families in the community has a sloth Pedidto (and he has a girlfriend who occasionally stops by) that you can hold. I have never felt a love as strong before with a sloth until I met Pedito.
Caiman “hunting” at night: The Amazon’s “streets” are basically rivers and you go around late at night shining a flashlight looking for “red eyes” ala caimans. Our tour guide would find one and catch it with his bare hands!!! Then we release it back in the wild.
Swimming with pink dolphins: Dropped us off in the middle of the river, and we waited as pink dolphins came swimming around us. The current would push us down stream, and then the boat would catch us again to bring us back.
Walking up for Amazon Sunrise: Absolutely breathtaking.
Staying in the treehouse: This in itself was so cool! My sister would literally cry whenever we would see a spider (thank goodness only twice) but the treehouse itself is so beautiful (as is the lodge / cafe area) that the feat in architectural lodging itself is amazing.
Meeting people from Cordoba, Argentina x Taiwan: There was a huge group of older (50~) Chinese Argentines who lived in Cordoba, Argentina (one of the first cities to have launched Eats in Argentina!!) and Taiwan. They didn’t speak any English but it was freaking amazing getting to communicate with them in Spanish x Chinese. I’d love to share more about this experience if you’re ever interested but Chinese has gotten me so far in South America (sometimes further than English) from the streets of Brazil, to Uruguay, to now the Amazon!
Owner Ricky taking my sister and I around Iquitos: After a lovely stay, Ricky took me and my sister on a tuk tuk through Iquitos and we got to explore the flea market and local sites together. Normally this place wouldn’t be as readily accessible (honestly even a bit unsafe!) so I am glad we had a local who was kind enough to show us around.
Machu Picchu
