Peru (Machu Picchu, Cusco, and Lima)

The second half of our Celebrity land and sea trip to Ecuador and Peru started with a flight from Quito, Ecuador to Lima, Peru. The first week of our trip in October of 2022 included a day in Quito and then week long cruise in the Galapagos. Following that amazing cruise, we hopped 3 flights and landed in Lima. Our travelling party was cut in half, only 8 people were on the follow on trip, and other than us, they were all Canadians. Our goal for this week was to visit the ancient Incan fortress of Machu Picchu, but as we would learn, Peru is much more than just a few old stone buildings on top of a mountain.

Lima

After a week of early wakeups and long days of exploring the Galapagos, we were excited to get to sleep in at our beautiful Marriott in the Lima business district. At noon we boarded our bus and met our two guides and driver for the day. Being a passenger in Lima is similar to sitting in an arcade race game without putting any money in. You’re just watching what looks like the craziest race in the world and have no idea if it’s a real race game or a bumper car adventure. We travelled to a local market on our bus/race car/dune buggy, after seeing so much wildlife and vegetation during the previous week, it was a little strange to see fish, octopi, shrimp, and oysters stacked up on ice.

Our lunch stop was at a seaside restaurant called Cala, a high-end spot with a beautiful view of the waves coming in and steep cliffs to our back. It was a perfect location for the paragliders that we were able to watch while enjoying our lunch.

After lunch our bus took us on a scenic tour of the old town area with some of it’s architecture borrowed from European immigrants who arrived and built exactly what they knew, rather than what made sense for a coastal desert climate. We stopped at Hotel B and learned how to make three local drinks, including the Pisco Sour that they are famous for. We enjoyed dinner back at our hotel and prepared for yet another flight the next day, this time to Cusco.

travel to Cusco and Urubamba

We arrived at the airport in Lima early the next day. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that our one guide Arthur would remain with us for the rest of our trip, no more wandering around strange airports and ending up in the wrong line! The flight to Cusco was relatively uneventful with an amazing view of the Andes Mountain range, the small settlements at the top of the world, and beautiful glacier fed lakes. The landing in Cusco was interesting, the airport is in the middle of the city and the city is surrounded by mountain peaks, the cross winds made it bumpy and the sharp 180 degree turn to approach the runway meant we were counting trees during the turn. We grabbed our luggage and boarded our bus with our Cusco-based guide joining us for the next couple of days. The drive to our hotel for the next two nights was two hours long through the mountains with a stop to stretch our legs. We got to enjoy a patio overlooking a valley cut by the Urubamba River, a river that eventually becomes the Amazon in northern Peru.

We arrived to the Tambo del Inka, our hotel in Urubamba, a small town at the intersection of several valleys and right along the Urubamba River. The resort was amazing with its high roofs, wood and stone construction, indoor/outdoor pool, spa, and spacious grounds.

We started the next day at Pablo Seminario’s world famous ceramic studio. We toured the grounds, chatted with the resident rescue Macaw population, and did some shopping. We boarded our bus and headed out to Pilcohuasi, the small town at the base of Templo del Sol. This location is at the intersection of multiple valleys along the Inca Trail and acted both as a fortress and grain repository for multiple Andes civilizations throughout the centuries.

Rescued Macaws greeting visitors to the ceramic studio.

We boarded our bus again to head to Wayra - Relais & Chateaux for lunch and a show. Along the way we saw several cliff side sleeping pods that you can apparently only get to by climbing up to them. Wayra has a large dining area and a field for their Peruvian Paso Horse Show.

Machu Picchu

The highlight of the week was upon us, we woke up with the excitement of knowing we were headed to Machu Picchu today, the great hilltop fortress of the Incan Empire. We packed our bags and sent them ahead since we wouldn’t be returning to Urubamba that evening. The bus ride to the train station was relatively short, the train ride would be about 90 minutes, with much of it riding along the same route as the Inca trail. We had a few minutes to wander around Aguas Calientes, the small town where we catch the bus to the top.

Once we reached the top, we enjoyed lunch at the Belmond Sanctuary Lounge and then entered at the gate. The walk up isn’t steep but it does take a while along a number of switchbacks. There is a lower platform full of Instagram posers and then an upper platform that provides a lot more space for pictures. There will be very few areas or pictures without other people for the rest of the day, we just had to wait our turn each time for the shots we wanted. The only place we weren’t able to go to was the small hill in the back that apparently required a special pass. The mountain top on the far end of the site would have been a whole extra trip, it had a grain silo with what would have probably been a pretty impressive view.

The area is remarkably well preserved, due in large part that it was only discovered by the outside world in 1911, however locals had been living on the site for generations. We had read that the area was heavily roped off with defined paths and you weren’t allowed to stop or turn around. We didn’t find this to be true, the guides attempt to keep the groups moving but there are frequent stops when they discuss the history of that particular spot. There are some areas that are roped off for our protection and the preservation of the site, but we didn’t really find that it hindered our ability to enjoy the area.

After a full day of exploring, we boarded a luxury train that would take us to Cusco. We thought we might get a little stir crazy on a train for four hours but boy were we wrong. The food choices were a little limited but it wasn’t bad, the train also had an open bar with plenty of options. The lounge car ended up being a pleasant surprise with it’s cozy seating, live music, and fun loving staff who managed to turn the place into a night club.

Cusco

We checked into our hotel after the train ride from Machu Picchu, it was pretty late at night and we didn’t really have a great grasp of where we were until the next morning. The Monasterio is a former monastery turned luxury hotel. The cloisters were very well kept and we enjoyed breakfast in one of them. We boarded our bus and visited the Church of Santo Domingo, built over the top of an Incan temple during the Spanish attempt to erase Incan culture from the landscape. We followed that stop up with a visit to the large Jesus Statue on the hilltop overlooking the city. We were supposed to visit an archeological site nearby, but a protest was going on at the time and we weren’t able to make it in.

Our final stop of the day was to the Museo Sulca Textiles. We got to feed Llamas, Alpaca, Guanaco, and Vicuna, four completely different animals that we likely would have just called Alpacas had we seen them separately. We took pictures with the animals and then watched the staff dye and weave garments in the traditional Incan way.

Headed home

After our full day in Cusco we were headed back to the airport the next morning for a flight to Lima. Before being dropped off at the hotel back in the business district we were taken on a walking tour of the Lima Main Square. One last dinner at our hotel and then back to the airport for our flight home in the morning. This was a pretty amazing trip, we thought we’d just be led around for a week waiting to go to Machu Picchu, but there was plenty more to see in Peru. From the modern city of Lima, to the surprisingly large center of Cusco, to the rural community of Urubamba and its ceramic shop, we found things to see and do everywhere we went. It took us a long time to get this trip to the Galapagos and Machu Picchu finally in with the pandemic, but it was well worth the wait. Hats off to Celebrity Cruise Lines for making this trip unforgettable.