Why Peru?

Peru has been near the top of my bucket list for a while and when I started discussing a 2015 trip with my wife and daughter, it quickly established itself at the very top. Historical sites, ancient ruins, mountaintops, beaches, jungles, and quaint villages and farms have drawn me to parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Peru has every one of the above mentioned draws in abundance, plus, it has the added benefit of being much closer than Europe, Asia, and Africa. And since you travel mostly south to get there, rather than east or west, you can arrive there with absolutely no jet lag.

Everybody thinks of Machu Picchu when they think of Peru. Certainly you would be remiss not to visit these amazing ruins on a trip to Peru. But there’s a whole lot more to Peru than Machu Picchu. If you are into ruins, they are everywhere! Peru, after all, was the center of the Incan empire. There are Incan and pre-Incan ruins in the forests and mountains that are so inaccessible that they are rarely seen by anyone. There are ruins in small Peruvian towns that the locals don’t even notice because they live in and around them and they are merely part of the landscape of their daily lives. And there are ruins in the cities surrounded by more recent buildings. After the Spanish conquest, the Spanish destroyed many Incan buildings in an attempt to destroy the Incan culture. Often they then built new buildings on the Incan foundations. A severe 1950 earthquake in Cusco did major damage to some of these Spanish buildings while the underlying Incan bases were undamaged due to superior building techniques.

Then there are the Andes. Most of my time in Peru was spent at some serious altitude. Machu Picchu sits on a mountaintop at nearly 8000 feet. Cusco, the old capitol of the Incan Empire, is over 11,000 feet. The surface of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world is over 12,000 feet above the surface of the ocean. These mountains have created unique fauna and flora and unique human cultures. These mountains are the home of the chinchilla as well as the vicuña and guanaco the wild versions of the domesticated llama and alpaca. The hamlets and villages peppered throughout the country are filled with people living their lives in a manner similar to their ancestors and speaking Quechua, the language of the Incas. 

And there is the rain forest of the Amazon basin. While the mountains define Peru in many people’s minds, sixty percent of Peru consists of Amazon rain forest. Only five percent of the country’s population lives there and much of the area is trackless wilderness. This part of Peru contains tribes that have never had contact with the outside world. How many tribes and how many people living there is completely unknown, but there have been instances of individuals and small groups speaking unknown languages wandering out of the rain forest and making contact with villages on the edge. Peru contains more bird species than any other country in the world and is third on the list for mammal species, and it is the rain forest that gives Peru this biodiversity. Peru protects the land within the rain forest with a system of 75 natural protected areas comprising over fifteen percent of the country. The government does allow eco-tourists with the proper permits to explore parts of these reserves. While the tourism infrastructure in these areas is more primitive than most tourists are used to, those who venture there are able to see one of the last totally unspoiled areas in the world.

Thinking about traveling to Peru? Here’s a to-do list:

Here’s a list of things I thought about or did prior to traveling to Peru. If you’re considering a trip there, this could make a good starting point for you as well.

1 - Read this book: 

“Turn Right At Machu Picchu - Rediscovering The Lost City One Step At A Time” - by Mark Adams (Penguin). I was psyched about Machu Picchu prior to reading this book, but this informative, readable, and humorous book amped my enthusiasm even higher. I read it again after my trip with a completely new level of understanding. The second read was punctuated with lots of exclaimed “Oh, yeah!”’s by me when it discussed something I had encountered firsthand.

 In 1911 the young Yale professor and explorer Hiram Bingham (whom Indiana Jones is at least partially based on) discovered Machu Picchu. The relatively new publication, National Geographic, latched onto this discovery and made Machu Picchu, Hiram Bingham, and National Geographic famous around the world.

In the intervening years, revisionism set in, and Hiram Bingham was painted as an outsider who “discovered” ruins that the locals knew all about – and were using as a place to graze their sheep. He has also been vilified as a plunderer who carried priceless artifacts out of Peru to stock museums in the US.

 Mark Adams, after delving into the history of Machu Picchu and perusing Bingham’s trove of papers at Yale, concluded that perhaps Bingham was more complex than either National Geographic or the revisionists imagined, and that perhaps the mysterious city on a mountaintop was even more mysterious than anyone thought. To pursue the story, Adams, a magazine writer whose previous camping experience consisted of sleeping in a Sears Roebuck tent in his parents’ back yard, plunged into the Peruvian wilderness. This book not only provides the reader with solid background information on Machu Picchu, it also entertainingly educates about Peru itself and the people who live there.

2 - Stuff to protect your health:

• Sunburn -  Peru is close to the equator so it is getting a whole lot more direct sunlight than the temperate areas of the world. You may lose sight of that fact when you are in the relative coolness of the mountains. But the high mountains actually increase your sun exposure even more since the sun is being filtered through less atmosphere than it would be at lower altitudes. So wear sunscreen. Bring it along, or buy it in shops in the larger cities. You may even find it in smaller villages, though this can be hit or miss. Don’t just carry the bottle around, but apply it. Then reapply later. Then keep slopping it on. Also, wear a hat. Wear long sleeves. Bring your sunglasses. You will not be sorry. I encountered a certain number of human lobsters while traveling in Peru who did not follow this advice.
• Malaria and Yellow Fever - If you leave the mountains and go to the rain forest, you are entering mosquito country. Mosquitoes in these areas can carry Yellow Fever, Malaria and other bad things. So make sure your Yellow Fever vaccinations are up to date, and take antimalarials. Atovaquone-Proguanil was the drug that was prescribed for me prior to my trip. Also, when traveling in the rain forest, avoid shorts and short-sleeved shirts. There are tons of light weight pants and long-sleeved shirts made for the tropics and available on line. Google it – it’s that easy. Also, make sure that you sleep under mosquito netting in the rain forest. My experience has been that mosquito netting is pretty much automatically provided. I also suggest that you slather on the Deet and treat your clothing with Permethrin. 
• Altitude sickness - It probably won’t kill you, but it may make you wish you were dead. This is not to say that you’ll get altitude sickness, but the altitude WILL affect EVERYBODY. When you arrive in Cusco or Puno, you will find you will be out of breath just walking around town – a few stairs or a little hill, and you’re winded. We thought spending a partial day in Cusco and a day in the Sacred Valley would provide ample time for us to acclimate to the altitude prior to our Inca Trail hike. We were wrong. I was gasping for breath most of the time I was on the trail. This is a unique experience, so why not spend 3-4 days acclimating prior to doing the trail and actually enjoy the walk instead of panting all the time like I did? Get a prescription for Acetazolamide before you travel. It does help with altitude issues. Also the locals swear by coca tea and it did seem to help me. (Unrefined coca products, such as coca tea, leaves, and candy are legal and readily available in Peru. Just don’t take them out of the country if you don’t know their legal status in the country you are traveling to.) But in the end, your best bet is to spend the time to get acclimated. 
• Food and water borne illnesses - Drink bottled water. Avoid uncooked vegetables. When I was a lot younger than I am now, I did not follow these rules because I wanted to fully experience the country I was travelling in. Consequently, I fully experienced their gastrointestinal diseases as well. As an older, more cautious traveler I do watch what I eat and drink because I eventually learned that it sucks to be sick while you’re travelling. As a precaution I suggest that you get a prescription for Ciprofloxicin to bring along in case you get a food-borne illness. Keep in mind that Cipro will only help if you have a bacterial illness. Antibiotics will do nothing for norovirus or any viral illnesses for that matter. 
• Other stuff - The list of health issues you could encounter is endless. The list includes Dengue Fever – another mosquito borne disease, hepatitis, and other nasties that you are so remotely unlikely to come in contact with that I am not going to worry you by listing them here. For some of this other stuff, I suggest you take a look at the CDC’s web page for Health Information for Travelers to Peru . Also, it is important to make an appointment with your local travel clinic before doing this trip to get your Yellow Card (International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis). And finally, don’t let this list of health precautions deter you from taking this trip. I caught a cold while traveling in Peru. That’s it. Most people leave Peru every bit as healthy as when they arrived – and perhaps a lot happier. 

3 - Let your credit card companies know that you’re traveling internationally:

When those first Peru charges show up you don’t want the good folks at your credit card company freaking out and cutting off service.

4 - Think about your phone:

Phone technology is complicated and changing even as I write this, so read this and then contact your phone company. There are several phone technologies in use in the US. The system is set up so you can seamlessly contact your friends regardless of what sort of phone they’ve got. But, don’t assume that your phone will work in Peru without looking into it. About half the phones in the US use CDMA technology – which means there is no SIM card to ID the handset (with CDMA, the handset ID is embedded rather than in a separate SIM card.) Thus, if your phone is like this, you can't change out a SIM card to use it in Peru or any other country. Most of the rest of world plus about half of the services in the US use GSM – which do allow swapping out SIM cards – get the right SIM card in your phone and you are good to go regardless of where you are traveling.

 But it is even more complicated than that: Almost all new phones in the US, regardless of service, do have SIM card slots – but they are for a new system called LTE. While there are some LTE systems in Peru, it is new (I’m writing this in 2015) and not widespread.

The good news is that there’s a company called InTouch Global (phone: 800/872-7626) that renders all of my advice about phones moot, since they will advise you regarding if your phone will work in Peru or wherever you are traveling. If they determine that your phone won’t work, they’ll rent you a phone and ship it to your door prior to your trip.

If you do carry your phone and you can’t use it as a phone, bear in mind that it will still connect with Wi-Fi wherever you find a Wi-Fi hotspot. And also bear in mind that there are phone aps that work via the internet – such as Skype and Facetime - that will work just fine without a standard phone connection.

Also worth mentioning: You may have run across information that you can rent a phone at kiosk in the Cusco and Lima airports. These kiosks did not exist when we made our trip and when I checked with Information at the airport in Cusco, they told me that this company was no longer in business.

5 - Think about your electrical needs:

Are you bringing along any electrical devices that will need to be plugged in or recharged? If so, keep in mind that the Peruvian electrical grid runs at 220 v. All of the electrical plugs I encountered while I was traveling there accepted both the flat, American style plugs, and round European style plugs (the Peruvian plugs have flat slots with round holes in the middle). If you are traveling from the US, you should carry a round to flat converter in case you run into a situation where the outlets only accept the European style plugs. But bear in mind, these plug converters DO NOT STEP DOWN THE VOLTAGE! Somehow my daughter missed this point and brought her electric toothbrush which she then carried around as useless baggage for the entire trip. Fortunately for her, she was able to purchase one of the old fashioned, human powered toothbrushes which were available everywhere. If you are traveling with phones or laptops that plug into a charger, chances are good that the charger will accept a variety of voltages and can be plugged into the 220 v outlets with absolutely no problem. This information should be printed right on the charger. For example, my camera charger says “Accepts 100 – 240 v.”

 6 - Make a packing list: 

 Here’s mine -

•  Yellow card (vaccination form) 
•  Passport 
• Camera + equipment 
• Phone 
• Electrical plug converter 
• Some ziplock bags to keep things dry in the rain forest 
• Clothing – If you are going to be both in the mountains and rain forest, you don’t need two complete sets of clothing. Think layers! When you are in the mountains, put a sweater and/or a jacket over that lightweight tropical shirt. And you don’t even need to pack a sweater since everywhere you go everybody will be trying to sell you a wool sweater. And everybody will say that their sweaters are alpaca wool. And some of them really are! 
• Shoes – You’ll need hiking boots, or at least some heavy duty walking shoes if you’re doing the Inca Trail. And you should think about waterproof shoes if you’re going into the rain forest. Remember that you can combine both the heavy-duty and waterproof features in one pair of shoes. Then toss in a pair of flip flops and you’re good to go. Who wants to fill up their luggage with extraneous pairs of shoes?! 
• Rain jacket or poncho – a must if traveling in the rain forest! 
• Toiletries and all those meds I talked about in the health section