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Peru 2024
  • Bert Vandecasteele
  • Bert Vandecasteele

Peru 2024

Travelling the typical tourist trail from Lima, over Paracas, Arequipa, Cusco and the Amazonas. Read more
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  • Trip start
    May 1, 2024
  • Bert VandecasteelePeru 2024Traveler
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    Lima's hip places: Miraflores & Barranca

    May 2, 2024 in Peru ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    After a massage to be prepared for the many steps & stairs the coming three weeks, we discovered Lima's boho city districts Miraflores and Barranca, where some local food market (having the national fish dish Ceviche with Chicha Morada - a Prehispanic corn beverage originally from the Andes) and graffiti walls are a must-see! We finished the day with a Pisco Sour, the national cocktail... Next to the Inca Cola, we already ticked quite some culinary boxes during our first day! That tastes for more!Read more

  • Bert VandecasteelePeru 2024Traveler
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    Pinguins & sandboarding

    May 4, 2024 in Peru ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    On Saturday, we experienced some other first-times of our lives: we visited Ballestos Islands to see wild Pinguins, sea lions, dolphins, and even a whale! The water is so rich of food that Paracas has such a variety of animals around!
    Another waw moment was our stay in the Huacachina oasis in the middle of the desert. Despite being really touristy, we had an adrenaline rush in the dune buggies and while sandboarding!
    The sunset in the middle of the desert made the day perfect!    Read more

  • Bert VandecasteelePeru 2024Traveler
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    Impressive Cesna flight over Nazca lines

    May 5, 2024 in Peru ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    Last Sunday, we enjoyed a flight over the Nazca lines, which are Unescorted World Heritage because of its cultural importance and age - being between 1500 and 2500 years old! Incredible how the Nazca Culture could make these huge geoglyphes without seeing the bigger picture from up there, where we were: high in the sky. It was a great flight seeing monkeys, spiders, hummingbirds and many more! Impressive!
    In the afternoon we booked a hotel to chill at the pool (no pictures though) and had some decent food made by a lovely grandma before we took our first night bus to Arequipa. Luckily we booked a luxurious version with 160-degree seats so we could also sleep somewhat... in the end a more positive experience than expected!    Read more

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    The White City

    May 6–8, 2024 in Peru ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Our 2nd UNESCO World Heritage site of our trip was Arequipa aka the White City, because of the white vulcanic stones used to build the old city center. Having as many inhabitants as Cologne, the old city center was really peaceful & quite.
    We really loved our visit to the Santa Catalina monastery which was a city in the city including different streets, once giving place to +200 Dominican nuns! They lived in complete isolation...
    The Plaza de Armas is the main square of the place where the cathedral took a complete side of it... Huuuuuge! Having a Pisco Sour with a view on the cathedral from a bar on top of the arcades seemed a good idea to us, however, our bellies thought differently afterwards - clearly a tourist trap... at least we could take a lovely selfie there...
    In the evening we decided we deserved a good piece of meat, having an Alpaca steak... surprisingly nice!    Read more

  • Bert VandecasteelePeru 2024Traveler
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    Altitude makes us lazy!

    May 7, 2024 in Peru ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Our second day in Arequipa was mainly to chill since the altitude of 2330m made us very lazy: much more than visiting Juanita, an Inca mummy from a 14 year old girl that was sacrificed to the vulcano gods, next to enjoying the sunset with a lovely view on the city and the Misti vulcano was not possible.
    Also perfect to book our bus to Puno leaving at 5am the next day... I think we might need some more holiday after this trip 😂🤷🏼‍♂️    Read more

  • Bert VandecasteelePeru 2024Traveler
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    Uros islands - a room with a view!

    May 8, 2024 in Peru ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    Because of our super early-morning trip from Arequipa to Puno, reaching a max. Height of 4500m, we arrived at 11:00 in Puno, the gateway to the Uros islands: hand-made islands of Schilf by the local Uro indigenes... we had the honor to stay with a lovely Uro couple on their island! Despite being a bit spartanic, having limited amount of warm water, no flushing toilet, and no decent isolating walls (with 3 degrees at night quite chilly) you can only love the incredible views on the Titicaca lake, the highest lake on earth! Nature pure!Read more

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    Route of the Sun

    May 9, 2024 in Peru ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    The day we took the Route of the Sun on The Andean Highlands, from Puno to Cusco, started with a lovely sun rising experience at the Titicaca Lake. It was something mystic and immediately made us forget the early morning waking up at 4:30!
    Our day got almost ruined not being on the passenger list of the day tour we booked. Thx to the lovely guide, Marita, we could still take the three last places in the bus, so, lucky us! We visited along the road - with the highest point (the Raya pass) at 4.325m - a lithic museum, a pre-inka settlement and a Spanish kolonial church completely painted inside! Unfortunately, no pictures allowed 😕.
    In-between that all, we had a great food buffet at a place where the view from the hammock on the waterfalls was exquisite!
    After a Full day of Bus hopping, we are ready for some more chill days in Cusco!    Read more

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    Food paradise Cusco

    May 10, 2024 in Peru ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    Our first day at Cusco was one to enjoy the city atmosphere & Spanish colonial architecture (which was built on Inca Tempels to vanish them from history... ) For us for sure the nicest city in Peru: we especially loved the less loud people & cars, the great Peruvian fusion kitchen and some other food aspects, such as the local market hall! Happy we are here for several days to come!Read more

  • Bert VandecasteelePeru 2024Traveler

    Chill acclimatisation day in San Blas

    May 11, 2024 in Peru ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    Our second day in Cusco was a chill one since we had to acclimatize to the height resulting in mainly enjoying the city from the place where our apartment was, being the higher San Blas neighbourhood. We also enjoyed the festivities of Ascension Day with a brass band at the San Blas church... Quite a bit off now and then, but hey - part of the experience 😉. The sunset was enjoyed at Christo Blanco - the highest point with a wide view over the city.Read more

  • Bert VandecasteelePeru 2024Traveler

    A valley sacred with tourist overload!

    May 12, 2024 in Peru ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Our 12th day of our Peru trip was a full day trip through the Sacred Valley, which is the Urubamba valley in Peru where many Inca temples, palaces and villages were built. Most of the times the Spanish conquerers built a church on top of it to show their power!
    The Inca also had impressive plant laboratories which were huge round terraces used to make plants more cold resistant by only taking the best seeds at the bottom (where it's up to 6 degrees warmer) and plant those one lever higher. This was repeated several times to adapt the plants' resistance. Smart!
    Another genius Inca place was their salt mines, where they let the water, coming from a tiny, but very salty stream, evaporate in big cubes to cultivate salt. An impressive sight.
    In Ollantaytambo, we visited the largest archeological site of the Sacred Valley, unfortunately filled with too many tourist, letting us feel like sardines in a tin! This small village is clearly suffering from this amount of tourists!
    So, we were really happy to leave this village by train to Aguas Caliente, the place where our visit to Machu Picchu will start tomorrow!    Read more

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    That new world wonder Machu Picchu

    May 13, 2024 in Peru ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    The highlight of every Peru trip is usually a visit to one of the new 7 wonders of the world, Machu Picchu. This old Inca village full of temples is Unesco World Heritage not because of its age (it's barely 600 years old), but because of how intact it still was when it was found in the early 20st century! This was mainly because the Incas left it before the Spanish conqueror arrived. They did hide it for them, so they could come back one day, which unfortunately never happened...
    To avoid we were just watching a bunch of stones, we booked Edu as guide, wo could tell great stories from back then and was also a great photographer, hence the many pictures from us here - sorry, not sorry 🤷🏼‍♂️. It was worth every picture!
    Our overpriced train back offered lovely views and even some entertainment on board but also had an average speed of only 30km/h...    Read more

    Trip end
    May 20, 2024
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