Peru: Our Introduction

Our first of many Pisco Sours

We returned to San Miguel after a wonderful trip to Peru that we were able to share with our younger daughter, Erin.  We were so impressed that we will spend several blog posts recounting our adventures.

Getting there was something of an ordeal, however. We left our apartment in San Miguel at 9:30 am and arrived at our hotel in Lima at 2:00 am the following morning--more than 15 hours on buses, plane and taxis.

First view of the Pacific

Exhausted, we fell into bed, but were able to rally later that morning when Erin met us to join  us for breakfast in the Lima neighborhood of Miraflores.

It's really nearly impossible to get around the sprawling and traffic clogged Lima without a driver--fortunately Erin found an incredibly good and charming driver, Daniel Flores, who chauffeured and cared for us throughout our stay in Lima.

Cuzco's Main Plaza

After a leisurely two hour breakfast and an introduction to Pisco Sours overlooking the majestic Pacific Ocean, Daniel picked us up to take us back to the airport for our flight to Cuzco, the Spanish colonial city and former capital of the Inka Empire.

Cuzco sits at an altitude of more than 10,000 feet so it is best to take a little while to acclimatize and adjust, so we had factored in a couple of days for doing just that--and it is a good thing that we did because Erin got incredibly sick our first night there, but miraculously recovered in just about 24 hours.

Interior Courtyard of JW Marriott, Cusco

Her recovery might have been enhanced by her surroundings.  For Erin, our tour of Cuzco and its nearby Inka ruins, was sandwiched in between two State Department business meetings, one in Trujillo (a city in the north of Peru) and a second one in Lima.

Knowing  how hard she would be working in both, she had consciously booked into a very nice hotel, the J W Marriott El Convento in Cuzco--one of the nicest hotels we have every experienced, with  extraordinary service and personnel.  The Marriott Corporation spent six years and untold amounts of money restoring a 16th century Spanish colonial convent and converting it into a world class, five star hotel.

Unfortunately we stayed at a pretty ratty AirBnB apartment a few blocks away. We only visited Erin at the hotel, but we were treated like valued guests whenever we were there, including being given a free box lunch and a free breakfast on our last day in town.  Each staff member seemed nicer and better trained than any we have ever encountered.

Cuzco has some charms, especially its main plaza and Cathedral, but we used it mostly as our jumping off place for our visit to the Inka ruins at Machu Picchu and Pisac, which we will talk about in our next blog.