Peru day 1 & 2 - Travel day and Cusco

Peru Day 1

And we are off to South America! 

Plaza De Armas in Lima

The pink dots are the regions that we did in this trip. We barely did 4 out of 25 regions in the country yet it felt so diverse. 

For future references, Lima is at sea level. Cusco and Puno is around 3300 meters while Arequipa and MP is around 2300 meters. And you do feel the high altitude acutely above 3000 meters while still manageable around 2300 meters. 

In our trip we saw travelers go from Lima to Arequipa before flying to Cusco to acclimate better. 

We won't have changed our trip as MP is the focus. But it's good to know how to plan our trips to other higher altitudes next time.  

Peru Regions and Places we went in this trip

 

Lima is the only international airport in Peru as of May 2026. During our trip Arequipa and Sacred Valley both indicated interest in an international airport but infrastructure is so lacking that I'm doubtful. 

We took Copa Airline, which flew into Lima with a stopover at Panama. Then we flew from Lima to Cusco which made a 16 hour travel day with all the stopover. Cusco is the only practical airport to access Machu Pichu (MP). 

We had a 3 hours layover and it gave us time to take a break and have lunch in Lima airport

Lunch at Lima Airport Domestic side

Cusco is a typical place to stage and plan Sacred valley and MP. Flying in, we can see the town in the mountains with a narrow air strip!

View of Cusco from the plane

Peru mountain range on the plane

Mountain range in Peru

Our hotel in Cusco is Tambo del Arriero boutique hotel for 3 nights. It's a couple of blocks from the main plaza with a reasonable cost of $100 a night. It's also very close to the office of the trek company.

We plan our last night in Cusco to go back to the same hotel so that we can leave the majority of our luggage with them and not bring to MP. 

Side note: Ollantaytambo is the town to get the train to the start of the hike and it's 2 hours minimum from Cusco. So it makes the hiking day a 3am pickup day. You can plan to stay in Ollantaytambo instead and get a 6am pick up. But it means you will need at least 2 days worth of overnight clothes plus hiking clothes and plan out the logistics of leaving your luggage with the trek company office. 

The hotel has great service. All Cuzco hotel seems to include breakfast and travelers are given a lunch box when you have to miss breakfast due to the 3 to 6am pick up for MP, Sacred Valley and Rainbow mountain. We only made it to one day of regular breakfast out of the days that we stayed there!

 

Cute hotel with upgraded amenities and pretty courtyard

Our Hotel courtyards

We had some altitude sickness pills. All hotels in the highland provide coca leaf to help with the altitude. We both felt fine when we landed. But just in case, we had a cup before settling in for the night. We were both exhausted from the long trip and didn't feel like getting dinner. 

Make your own Coca tea

Peru Day 2 Cusco City

Cusco is known as the city before MP =) But after this trip, i realized it's really more than a stop gap city. 

During the Inca time, it's the hub of the Inca empire, and a central fork to go into 4 cardinal directions, reaching Bolivia, Eucuador etc. 

It's a official Unesco World Heritage site and hold the Saqsaywaman and foundation stones of Qorikancha (Temple of the sun) 

Ps: The recommendation is to take it easy for at least a day to get acclimated with no alcohol. .

But that's not possible for our schedule 

We walked out to the plaza de armas and there a full parade going on. Had fun watching all the locals walking around the square with horses and bands. 

Plaza de Armas Cusco

Colorful Horses in the parade

Plaza De Armas

It took us a while to get through the square. Then we head to the Church and Convent of Santo Domingo that is also built on top of the Inca Sun temple.

View of the museum that has the temple site

Once we started climbing the steps, we can feel the altitude . I can barely climb for 10 mins and I'm struggling to catch my breath! 

We took our time making our way to the cathedral

Cusco Catherdral with the last supper showing a guinea pig

We stop at cute stores to buy souvenirs including a chocolate shop. 

Cacao tasting store

We slowly made our way to the mirador to see the city 

City Mirador view point 

The City of Cusco

Around the Mirador we stop at View Point Restaurant for a drink and ceviche 

Cute drinks, priceless view

We stop at Calle Siete Borreguitos with the aquaduct and the white washed walls

Calle Siete

More sites and one of the 7 lambs! 

All of this is us slowly making our way to the Inca ruins Saqsaywaman in Cusco 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n

The link has the significance of this fortress. It's clear the stone walls are so well built 

Saqsaywaman ruins

View of Cusco from the ruins

Roaming alpacas at Saqsaywaman

On our way back to the hotel, we stop at the trekking company to grab our duffel bag for MP overnight. 

Dinner that night we picked Chicha por Gaston Acurio. He's Peru's most famous celebrity chef in promoting Peruvian food to the world.  

We did their tasting menu that included 7 dishes, 2 cocktails, 3 Peruvian wines, water and coffee for $125 that's all inclusive. 

The first dish was a alpaca carpaccio, followed by a guinea pig taco. A rice dish with mushroom and scrambled egg, grilled trout with local potatos, hot stone of quinoa and beef ribs. Followed by 2 dessert, one is a palette cleanser and a really complex Chocolate and Lucuma mousse served in a chocolate husk. We also had Chicha sour as a cocktail which is a good introduction to chicas in Peru. 

What I like about this menu is it's really well thought out and executed. And it gives a very interesting twist to Peruvian highland food like Alpaca and guinea pig but in a totally different way. For eg tt's rare that alpaca meat is eaten raw due to concern for parasites. And the "cuy" guinea pig had a black corn tortilla and done in a chinese peking duck style wrap except with guinea pig. 

Tasting menu in Chicha

Peru day 3 - Sacred Valley

Sacred Valley 

The concentric rings of Moray

I learned today that sacred valley is not a place but a region. =) 

The Urubamba River fed into this valley and it's a fertile area for agriculture, spiritual areas of the Inca Empire. 

The practical aspect of going there is you need one more day to acclimate to the altitude. The sacred valley is around 2000 to 3000 meters so it's recommended that you take a day trip before hiking MP

Cusco has a tourist attraction sites call BTC Pass and it's slightly confusing. You can do the full one but realistically we never needed more than 4 for sacred valley and 1 for Saksaywaman due to lack of time. The Cathedral and salt mines are separate entrances. But this is why some of the tours put optional entrance fees for sites. They usually just go to the first site and confirmed who has the BTC pass and who doens't. And you can do a partial BTC pass. 

Sacred Valley tours typically include 4 different Inca sites in different order and they usually throw the salt mines in there too. The 4 sites are Chinchero, Urubamba, Ollantaytambo, and Pisac. 

Our first stop is Chinchero. This is the coldest out of all the places we went. 

We visited the Andinas women community. They showed us the parasites on the cactus that was used to color the alpaca wool naturally. And how they washed the wool with a natural substance. 

But I didn't feel comfortable buying alpaca from them as they felt very pushy. 

Andean Women community

Washing the wool with natural soap

Coloring using the cactus parasites and changing colors with it

After that we walked to the historic site. It has colonial style mixed with Inca ruins. The ruins are niches that's been cleared out by the Spanish when they are conquered. This is the place that we can see an airport area is being built. But we truly can't tell how the area can support a huge international airport. Let's see. 

Chinchero historic sites

Next stop is Moray. The guide explained that Moray is a sink hole and the Inca used it to experiment crops with different microclimates as created by the sink hole. 

Sink holes in Moray

The salt mines are next. They are really ocean floors created into mountains during plates movement. And for a very very long time, the sea water came out from the aquifers and are collected to form salt. They form 2 layers, the white and pink salt and harvested according to the layers. There are 3500 salt mines. 

And they sell tickets and the salt to fund 600 families who are part of the original ownership. But we are told that the salt water will only last 50 years more. 

Salt mines

After that we stop for buffet lunch at Urubamba which we tried a typical Andean buffet lunch. 

Buffet lunch at Urubamba

Next stop is Ollantaytambo. If it sounds familiar, it's the place where you catch the train for the hike or to go to Agua Caliante to catch the bus. If it sounds closely connected to MP, it is. If you decide to do the 4 day Inca trail, this is where you start, just like the Inca times. 

Our guide Eddy told us that during those times, the villages are made up of a agricultural area (the terraces), a worship area (the sun temple) and a residential area (the villages outside the terraces). 

Ollantaytambo is an important area and they think it's a research lab to experiment with crops and close connection to MP. The sun temple during the equinox will have the sun light out of the profile of the sun god. There's also a face of a profile formed naturally by the mountain. 

Ollantaytambo ruins

The mountain face profile

The sun temple in Ollantaytambo with the profile face in the mountain

The view of the terraces 

More cute alpacas! 

Final stop is Pisac. The sheer volume of terraces there indicates the Inca used it to mass produce and  food storage. 

Pisac

Beautiful mountain view in Pisac

After the terrace, the guide brought us to Pisac town. It's a mining town and there's beautiful silver and stones jewelery. 

Beautiful jewelry in Pisac

After the tour, we got back to cusco and called the guide to make arrangements for the pickup the next day for our 2 day Inca trail. We had to miss our briefing at 6pm as we got back to Cusco at 7pm. Apparently not a lot of people make it for briefings as a lot of folks usually go do Sacred Valley tour before the hike 🙄 

Site note: the Sacred Valley really can use 2 full days as you barely get 15 mins to walk the ruins and there's a lot to see. Out of the 12 hours, 4 are on the road to get there from Cusco.  

We had a quick dinner at JC Cafe before going to sleep as the pick up the next day is 3am! 

JC cafe simple chicken soup and burger for dinner

Taipei trip day 4

Taipei Trip Day 4

View of Jiufen from the tea house

Today is a day trip to Yehliu, Shifen and Jiufen. 

I picked to depart later at 11am hoping to catch sunset at Jiufen. But it was too rainy and cloudy which is a pity. 

Also, this is the last weekend of Chinese new year and it's a holiday on Friday. So it's really crowded for the trip especially for Jiufen as locals and tourists flocked to the same spot =) 

The guide 巧巧 who really did a great job helping my mum with the tour all day as there's a lot of challenging steps and sandy areas involved. 

Tea with Qiao Qiao the guide

Helping my mum navigate the steps

On our way to Yehliu we pass by the local beaches. There are places for seafood and hot springs along the coast line which would be great if you can drive and do a weekend trip there. 

Seaside town with crab and hot springs hotels

Yehliu is a geopark with the formation of rocks from geological volcanic actions. The black area are corals, with the sandy base. 

The queens head is the famous one but it's getting smaller every year! 

The Queen's head

There's are all kinds of shapes like Cinderella shoes,  peanut, candles holder, mushroom, ice cream etc. 

The Park

The different rock formations

Shifen is an old town that's geologically unique for lighting the lanterns as it's humid and rainy most of the time. And there's less risk of house catching on fire from the lantern. Write your wishes on the lantern and they will light it up to raise it in the sky

It's popular with locals who like to go there with a slow train without worrying about driving. 

Lantern lighting at Shifen, writing our wishes on the lantern

It also has one of the biggest waterfall park in Taiwan 

Waterfall park in Shifen

On the way to the waterfall we went through a suspension bridge next to the train tracks. 

Suspension Bridge

Had an interesting snack at Shifen which is a rice paper wrapped with ice cream and peanut candy. A very typical Taiwanese flavor of mixing sweet and salty again. 

Yummy peanut cracker ice cream roll

Jiufen is a gold mine town that reach a peak of wealth. Hence it has the oldest cinema in Taipei. 

Is also super popular with tourist due to the Japanese animae Spirited Away as there is a tea house that looks like the structure in the cartoon. Phil also came here for "somebody feed Phil" series recently that created more attention. Plus it's a 3 day holiday so even the locals went there for tea and snacks. 

AKA IT;S SUPER CROWDED!

The crowd in Jiufen!

We had yuyuan at one of the famous place and it's nice and chewy. 

Yuyuan which is balls made with tapioca flour and yam 

Sweet bread roll that reminds me of churro except less crunchy

We also went to take picture of the famous tea house and quickly came out from the crowd

It's really pretty with all the lighted lanterns that makes it looks like a old Japanese house

Ah Mei Cha Lou which is the old tea house

After that we visited the oldest cinema in Taiwan

Sheng Ping Xi Yuan which is the oldest cinema in Taiwan

Due to the crowd the guide brought me to the tea house via a short cut through an old mining tunnel

Mining tunnel

We finally settled at a traditional tea house with an ocean view and had some tea and snacks to close out the day. 

Finally away from the crowd

3 of the tea house in Jiufen. The wood one is the oldest at 150 years but has no sea view

Next day is a travel day so I finally had my Ah Zong Mian xian and concluded my trip to Taipei. 

Ah Zong Mian xian and You tiao

With the guided tours, I have more knowledge of the city and the food. 

Things have not changed too much since I was last here except housing have greatly increased. 

The people is extremely friendly and it's very safe to walk around. 

Lots of Japanese and Korean tourists still flocking to Taipei and I truly enjoyed the trip to get to know Taipei again!