Peru Is Key 🔑 My 2.5 Week Trip report & recs

Title context

The meme "Perú es clave 🔑" is a Latin American meme, coming from this hype video for the meme-able Argentinian president Milei, which claimed that Milei would save the Argentinian economy with the same Neoliberal economic policies as Peru had in the 90s when Peru doubled its GDP. It's used sardonically nowadays as Milei has gotten more unpopular: Argentina's economy, while initially stabilized under Milei in Dec 2023, has remained weak and stagnant this year.

Logistics

Most tourists stay in Miraflores, a bougie neighborhood on a beautiful stretch of the coast, with several opting for the quieter and more artsy adjacent neighborhood Barranco. I went for the former and was happy.

I'm going to use local prices in this post, and as of writing, 10 Peruvian Soles (written as S/10) is $3 USD and quite stable. The cheapest way to get there from most of the US is to find cheap flights on Avianca, then transferring credit card points to Avianca to buy the flight. Spirit and Latam have cheap flights from NYC, Miami, Ft Lauderdale, and sometimes LA. The best cell carrier is Claro, which T-Mobile roaming uses, but all the e-sim companies I looked into currently use Movistar which is decent.

For getting around, there's an hourly shuttle between the airport and Miraflores where most tourists stay, a janky cheap share bike system exclusive to Miraflores (bike lanes are good but car drivers are not), and a crowded bus rapid transit system that can take you from the coastal neighborhoods to the city center. InDrive is the best ride share app for getting around: the app is glitchy and cash-only, but only takes a 10-13% cut. Didi is also pretty cheap and takes credit cards; Uber is still cheap compared to the US of course, and is probably safer for solo women.

Lima Highlights

🏄‍♂️ Beginner friendly surfing: Miraflores is an underrated surf spot, in part due to its cool water and rocky shoreline. The main break, dubbed Waikiki (or Makaha), is the first one you hit when you come down the beach-facing cliffs, and is lined with a dozen canopy tents with companies offering lessons and surfboards. If you know anything about the real Waikiki in Hawaii, you'll understand the namesake, as you might be standing for half a minute if you catch a wave. And, if the forecast is too big, you just don't paddle all the way to the back! Just check out the live webcams. The beachside tents seem to charge S/30 for a no-time-limit wetsuit & foam board combo, S/40 for wetsuit & real board, S/100 for a 90 minute group lesson with rental. People told me you can find cheaper instructors online if you have patience on Whatsapp. The one thing I could have done better was making sure I got a better wetsuit, since the one I got was torn, and been more careful walking on the rocks where I scratched my toe.

🥔 Food: It's great, in part because they embrace chili peppers (specifically the variety ají) more than most of South America. I balled out for the $140 USD Lima Gourmet Tour, and it was great, focusing on loads of classic Peruvian foods and drinks at fancy-looking locations. While sterile Miraflores is lacking in street food, the sidewalk stands in Lima's historic center and adjacent Chinatown were great, and I was happy with beef heart on a stick and fresh churros. If I come back, I'll want to try one of the more "innovative" fine dining restaurants like Central.

🕺 Party hostels: I enjoyed my evenings meeting people at Black Llama, where I'd say about half the people were Spanish speaking, including many Lima locals. It's also surrounded by bars and clubs, so rooms can be pretty loud at night. People said they also liked Pariwana nearby. The Viajero in Barranco is at a enormous, historic mansion, and I wish I had checked it out.

Cusco Area Highlights

🏔️ Ausangate: I rented a car in Cusco and drove to an airbnb on a ranch near the massive Ausangate mountain to stay for two nights. The main local hike is gorgeous and the parking area features a developed hot springs pool complex, however, the trail is covered in horse manure from all the trekking companies that lead multi-day hikes around the mountain. Driving around the mountain roads was super fun, especially on the quiet but bumpy dirt roads, and I ended up picking up a lot of locals who were walking between farms. They were plenty patient with my Spanish; it's their second language too! Renting a car online was probably the most expensive transit option possible since US my liability insurance doesn't cover Peru, but I don't regret a thing. I just wish I had picked the car up early and done Rainbow Mountain, which I learned tends to have safer weather in the morning than the afternoon.

🚶 Salkantay trek: I did the Salkantay Trekking company's 4-day trek to Machu Picchu, where you basically hop on a van during day #3 to skip a section of the traditional 5-day route. It was the most bougie version of hiking possible, where you hike between these these unheated but enclosed building-huts. You get served meals 3 times a day where chefs prep a massive spread of 7 or so dishes for the group to share. My guide had also worked at the far cheaper Machu Picchu Reservations, where groups are bigger (I saw 12-18 people vs our company's 7-12), the campsites are less comfy with fewer restrooms, and hikers looked to be younger & faster. I think Salkantay Trek instead of Inca Trail was right for me, since I wasn't invested in seeing every last Inca ruin. On Salkantay, the views are gorgeous, you can bring more stuff thanks to the horses, and there's less reason use poles since it's not as much of a knee burner like the Inca Steps. The trail is considerably less maintained and has a lot more horse poop though.

What I wish I could have changed was going during the actual dry season, ideally May, instead of late October, and staying longer around Cusco. While nights during the South American winter get frigid, shoulder season rainstorms, especially thunderstorms, were more of a headache than I expected. A lot of the more obscure activity operators doing mountain biking or mountaineering really only operate during high season. One more point for staying longer: you can't really party the night before you do anything since all activities are so early in the morning.

The Amazon around Puerto Maldonado

While the town of Puerto Maldonado itself is surrounded by loads of deforestation, 3 hours by boat up the Tambopata river lies several Jungle hotels surrounded by unspoiled forest, albeit downstream of an illegal gold mining operation that turns the river brown. I balled out on the 3-night Junglepro tour and it was awesome: we saw capybaras, an anaconda, caimans (alligator relative), spider monkeys, tarantulas, and loads of birds and insects. The hotel it's hosted from is quite fancy. Don't skimp on the time for this, staying 3 nights was important despite being $730 USD. I still suck at fishing, so I failed to catch any Piranhas as they ate 7 pieces of my bait. We lucked out with weather, since the animals aren't as active during the rain. This is certainly something better to do during dry season.