Our last couple of days in Lima, Peru.

This will be our last blog from Peru.
We arrived back in Lima on the 30th of November after 24 hours in a bus. Last bus trip: I think we won’t miss that too much!
We got to our new place in Barranco. Nice apartment. We did our regular settle in and shopping.
We had an very early start again the next day, so bed early.
On Monday the 1st of December, we got the visit of our Christmas elf, Willow. We were not sure if he will be able to find us, but he did! The kids were extremely happy.
The excitation couldn’t last too long, as we had to get dressed quickly and go wait for the bus to pick us up a bit before 5am.
We were going on a day tour, our last one is South America. The tour started with a couple of hours drive south of Lima. We stopped for breakfast (not included in the price, and it was pricey and pretty average. Anyway…). After that we took a boat toward the Ballestas island. We saw several cool animals. The most exciting was pinguins!!! It was one of the animals, the kids really wanted to see this year and now we did! They were Humbolt pinguin, small species but super cute! We saw a few and it was awesome. Lots of birds, some brown footed boobies (we saw the blue footed boobies in the Galapagos), some ‘star fish’ in shape of sun (not quite sure about this one!). It was a nice tour: we were on the boat for a couple of hours included the time to get there and back. There was also a big carving on a hill which has been there for thousand of years. Nobody is sure exactly when and why it was made. They call it the candelabra, but it looks more like a cactus to me. It is 170m tall, 60m wide so visible from pretty far. It pointed toward more lines made in the ground, the Nascar lines (which we didn’t have the time to see), so maybe it is to indicate direction. I’m not sure we will ever know.
After that, we went to visit the oldest vinery still operating in the America. They grow grapes, but don’t make wine, they make Pisco, the alcohol of Peru. It is a transparent alcohol pretty strong. You can drink it straight or in cocktail (Pisco sour is great). We had lunch there and then visited the place and did some tasting. It was interesting, even if the visit felt a bit rushed.
Back in the bus direction the Huacachina Oasis in the Atacama Desert, the dryest desert in the world. It used to be a natural oasis but is now artificial. I have to admit, that naively, I was picturing something more natural: a lake with nature around it… well there was a lake, with a few trees around, but not really a natural feeling. There is several restaurants and souvenir shops with a build ground (not sand). It was not exactly what I was expecting. Don’t get me wrong, there are dunes all around the oasis, but yeah. We went in the dunes to do a buggy tour. It is sold as an adrenaline tour, and it was! The driver drove in the dunes, pretty fast and up and down and sideways and scarily!! I don’t know if I am getting old, but I start to see a lot of danger everywhere! All I could think off, was we are going to flip over! Kev and the kids loved it. Emma especially was screaming from joy! I was not! But well, the other 3 loved it so! We stopped on top of a big dune to do some sand boarding. That was way more fun! As always Andrew was the first one to want to do it. That kid has no fear. Emma, as often was more hesitant. I had to do my trick of ‘if I do it, you do it too’. And it worked and she loved it. We did 2 dunes, the second one, much bigger than the first one, but still pretty fun. We had sand everywhere after though!!
After that we drove to another point to have a picnic facing the sunset. It was really nice.
One thing I liked, it that from the top of the dunes, you could see the Andes in the far distance. It was a really nice view.
We got back to our place around 11pm and it was a long day, but well worth it.
The next day, we took it easy in the morning, then went to the beach in Lima, as the kids asked to do that. They love playing on the beach and building castles.
We also tried to find some warm clothes, as we are heading to Canada next and it is going to be cold. We got Emma a jumper as she is the one with less warm clothes. But we don’t want to spend a fortune on that as we won’t use it back in Australia. We will wear layers and see when we get there.
For our last evening in South America, we decided to treat ourselves and Kev found a restaurant which looked nice. And it was. We had good food and several great cocktail with Pisco in it. We played a few board games as well. One of the deserts had a sauce with pisco infused something in it and the kids pretended to be drunk. It was a fun evening!
I will do a sum up of my feeling about Peru. There are amazing place to see here. Truly magical. Obviously Machu Picchu is fantastic to visit, but there are also other Inka sites to visit, a lot less known, that are also very worth it.
Try to avoid tours if you can. Learn Spanish, it makes your life so much easier as not a lot of people speak English here. If you speak Spanish, you can organise taxi to take you places instead of booking through tours, which are often rushed and/or trying to get you to buy a lot of extra things.
For me some of the highlights were: Chachapoyas in the north of Peru, a true gem with a lot to do and see. Arequipa is also a not to miss city, with amazing historical monuments to visit.
The Lake Titicaca was great with the floating island, but I think maybe there were better cities that Puno, around the lake to settle and visit the lake.
The food in Peru did not blew me away. We found some good food, but nothing that I will remember as the best meal ever. On top of that, there was not a lot of vegetarian options, which evidently was an issue for me. I ate a lot of tortilla de verdure (vegetable omelette).
I would love to come back to South America to visit more countries. I will learn some Spanish first though. There are so many more places to see here!
Mel

29.11.2025. Another bus trip today, another overnight one. We're heading back to Lima for the last part of our Peru trip. Around 24hrs later we arrived. Still tired, a bit hungry and completely over buses. There's not much more to say, except it's now the 30th and I don't have to do that blog as it's included in this one. We got to our room, went for a walk and got some food. This place has a washing machine so we got stuck into that. Dinner was made and had, then off to bed early. We have a full day tour booked tomorrow.
1.12.2025. The alarm went off at about 4am. Get up and get dressed. Head down to be picked up for the day. The bus was later than they had told us, so we stood outside for almost 30mins. Finally on the bus and off. We're heading to a little coastal town called Paracas. First stop was for breakfast, not included. Way too expensive for eggs and toast, they obviously saw tourists coming. Now we're off to get in a boat and go see some marine life. The first 40mins was just getting out to an island off the coast. Once there we saw what we'd been hoping to see. Little penguins up on the rocks. An animal we had not managed to see anywhere else on our trip. It wasn't the hugest colony of penguins but it was really cool to see them. The kids were really excited. There were also grey footed boobies, cousins to the blue footed variant we saw in the Galapagos. There were a few sea lions and many other birds flying around. The islands themselves were interesting as there were arches or holes through lots of them. These islands are not volcanic, like the Galapagos, but rather have been pushed up long ago. The guide said that they were now slowly sinking. That maybe in a few million years they would be under the sea again. On our way back we stopped and looked at a Nasca line, carved into the rock on the coastline. They call this one the candelabra, but it's obviously a cactus. They didn't even have candelabras back then, C'mon. It's 170m high, 60m wide and carved deep into the rock. It was pretty impressive. After we docked we got back on the bus and headed for the next stop. A place called Pisco, where we will be having lunch. Thankfully lunch is included. Pisco is the national drink in Peru, and we are stopping at Peru's oldest still operating Vineyard. Correction, the oldest still operating Vineyard in the Americas. Pisco is distilled from fermented grapes, so there's fields of grapes growing all over the place. In the desert mind you, growing grapes in the desert. Part of the Atacama desert to be precise. From the coast you can see the Andes mountains. Water flows from the mountains and they use this and underground aquifers to water all the crops. The Spanish first grew grapes here centuries ago, but the grapes had too much sugar to make good wine. They worked out they could distill the highly alcoholic wine and make Pisco. So that's what they do. After a decent lunch we got a fairly brief tour of the facility, followed by a quick tasting. Pisco is not bad, I prefer it mixed into a sour. A usual visit through the gift shop then back onto the bus for our next stop. An oasis in the desert called Huacachina. It started as a natural oasis but is now kept full by artificial means. We were fitted for helmets, then marched up the sand to hop into a “dune buggy”. Gutted and modified 4wds basically. We had a quick blast over some dunes, then stopped near the top of some dunes. Photo opportunity time, people posing with the dunes or on top of the buggies. We did our usual selfie and the kids had to get into the action and climbed onto top of the buggy. Now it was time for sand boarding. Andrew was keen as. Emma did her usual “not sure I will wanna do this” bit. It's getting a bit old now. Getting over having to convince Em to do something and then she loves it. We all went down without issue. It's super easy, and pretty fun, but over in a matter of seconds. Once everyone was down, we walked over to the next dune to slide down. Ah the first was just a warm up. The next one is at least twice the size. Andrew did his usual thing and was right behind the guide. So he went second, after the guide. Lots of people thought he was brave, but I know the truth. The boys a lunatic! After we'd all done our second dune we got back in the buggy and roared off again. We stopped where a picnic had been set up. We all got out and found a spot. We had some wine and a selection of snacks, while watching the sunset. Back into the buggy and off back to the Oasis. I had to shake sand out of everywhere. Then back on the bus for a 4hr ride back to Lima. We got back a bit before midnight, had a very quick shower and put the kids to bed. It was a fun day, even if more than half of it was spent on a bus. Time for bed.
2.12.2025. Slow start today, then off to the beach. We'd promised the kids that we'd go to the beach to have a play. Even after being there for over 2.5hrs, they still hadn't had enough. We had stuff to do so we had to leave. We walked back and the kids showered and got ready to go out again. We went and got Emma a jumper for Canada, it's not gonna be enough but it's a start. After that we walked to a restaurant that I had found called Republica del Pisco. It has good reviews, craft beer and supposedly good food. They had two beers on tap, and I was interested in having a go at both of them. When I ordered however, I was told they had neither of them at the moment. Excellent. I opted for a Republica sour instead. A unique take on a whiskey sour, this one using the juice of 4 different berries, and Pisco, with some of the dried fruits sprinkled on top. Pretty bloody good. Dinner was huge, I didn't feel I needed to finish the kids plate. I still did of course. A couple more drinks, desert for the others and our last night in Peru was done. Onto our next country tomorrow.
Kev

This is my sum-up on Peru, in this sum-up I will talk about the highlights of Peru. The main thing to see in Peru is Inkan ruins and the main Inkan ruin is Machu Picchu, Machu Picchu was really cool, there was so much to see and it was so big. Another highlight is Sacsayhuaman, the rocks where so cool, they were all cut to fit together. Yet another highlight is when we saw penguins, they were really cool and we also saw some dive into the water. Another really cool experience is when we went sand boarding, we went so fast and it was so cool, we were sand boarding in the Atacama desert. To round it all up, I liked Peru, it’s been nice, would I come back? Yes, but the next country is Canada (and then after that JAPAN (Mum edit: in a couple of years though!!!)).
Andrew (10years old)

This blog is about the highlights of Peru. I enjoyed Peru a lot. I know how lucky I am to see Machu Picchu. I loved going on ziplines. I loved going sandboarding. It was cool to see the rainbow mountain. It was absolutely awesome to go in the buggy and ride on the sand dunes. We saw penguins IN THE WILD and not in a stinking zoo. We also saw a condor. I would like to come back to Peru. I got sick of rice, and I am sure mum did to because that is basically all they had. I feel for you, mum (Mum edit: Thank you sweetheart!).
Emma (9 years old)Read more