PERÚ: FOOD & TRAVEL

DAY 1 – LIMA

¡Welcome to Perú! Free day in the City of Kings. 

Once your plane lands on Peruvian soil, one of our Andina Amazónica hosts will be waiting for you at the airport to assist you and transfer you to your hotel in the famous “City of Kings.” Before dropping you off at your hotel, the Andina Amazónica host will give you all the information you need about the city, as well as tips and suggestions so that if you decide to explore on your own, you can do so with confidence and safety.

We will contact you upon your arrival, take care of your transfer in our private van, and make sure you can relax and enjoy your stay in Peru.

 

DAY 2 – LIMA

Historic center of Lima and the Museum Larco Herrera.

After a well-deserved rest and a delicious breakfast at the hotel, at the agreed time with our professional Andina Amazónica guide, we will first take you to explore the lively Miraflores neighborhood, with its romantic views of our coastline and beautiful boardwalk, to take a break and, if you’re lucky, you may see some surfers and paragliders flying overhead.

Then we will head to one of the most traditional neighborhoods in Lima, the neighborhood of Pueblo Libre, where our famous Larco Herrera Museum is located. It is considered the best museum in all of South America for the archaeological pieces it houses, pieces with the largest collection of pre-Columbian artifacts in the country, all of these objects made from clay, to extensive collections made from gold and silver. It also has an entire gallery dedicated to the famous “Erotic Guacos” collection, an exquisite collection that represents the veneration and worship of male and female fertility. Visiting this museum is the best way to introduce you to the beginnings of the Inca culture, a prelude to everything you will see and visit throughout Peru, to better understand how it originated and became a great empire in South America.

After the visit, we will offer you a delicious lunch on the vine-covered terrace of the museum café, a restaurant where you will have the opportunity to enjoy delicious dishes from our beautiful Lima.

After lunch, our host or professional Andean Amazonian guide will take you to the heart of the “City of Kings,” where you will visit the Plaza Mayor with its presidential palace, the Convent of San Francisco—including the underground catacombs—and the Casa Aliaga, considered the oldest mansion in the Western Hemisphere and still owned and inhabited by the 17th generation of the Aliaga family.

To end the visit on a high note, we will take you to a well-known restaurant awarded Michelin stars in our country, one considered for two consecutive years as the best restaurant in the world and the other as the best restaurant in the world in 2025, the famous Central or Maido.

 

DAY 3 – LIMA – SACRED VALLEY OF THE INCAS (CUSCO)

Over flying the Andes toward the Capital of the Inca empire

This morning, our Andean Amazon host will accompany you back to the airport in the City of Kings to board your flight to Cusco, capital of the Great Empire of the Incas. Flying over the Andes, you will be able to enjoy the fantastic scenery of the Peruvian coastline, the arid desert, the mountains and snow-capped peaks, and the fertile lands of the Cusco Valley, a unique and unforgettable experience. The flight takes approximately one hour and 30 minutes.

Once you land at the airport in Cusco, our Andina Amazónica host guide will be waiting to take you to the enchanting “Sacred Valley of the Incas.” On the way, we will visit tourist attractions such as “La Granja de Llamas” (a very entertaining and cultural place for children and adults, where you can see and interact with South American camelids).

After your visit, we will take you to lunch at one of the family-owned haciendas deeply rooted in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. This hacienda is located in a privileged area, as the fertile land is the main reason for the cultivation of giant white corn and its deep ritual and cultural significance in the Andes mountain range. While the hosts of the hacienda offer you a brief introduction to the history of corn, you will be transported back in time to the origins of this grain, which is so valuable to the whole world.

Lunch will be served at the hacienda, where you can enjoy a variety of dishes whose main ingredient is corn or the white gold of giant grains. You can also enjoy the beautiful “Marinera,” music and dance from our northern coast of Peru, in a demonstration of horses dancing with their human counterparts, keeping pace and synchrony, which makes this magnificent dance one of the most representative of the country.

After this magnificent lunch and depending on physical and biological condition due to the altitude, we continue the excursion to Pisac, visiting the archaeological site that shows the agricultural terraces carved into the mountain and adapted to its geography.

Pisac is characterized not only by its large number of original Inca constructions, but also by its cemeteries and common tombs dating back to ancient times, not to mention the spectacular view it offers as an Inca citadel built on the peak of the mountain.

Once the tour of the archaeological site is over, we continue our journey to the hotel, located in the heart of the Sacred Valley, Urubamba. One of the most beautiful hotels in our city, it is ideal for our guests from Andina Amazónica.

 

DAY 4 – SACRED VALLEY OF THE INCAS

Community cuisine, learning from the “mamitas” in Misminay

After a cozy night and an excellent breakfast, your professional Andina Amazonica guide will pick you up from your hotel to begin the adventure and discover part of our fabulous Sacred Valley of the Incas. Today we will visit two places considered icons of the Sacred Valley:

The “Maras Salt Mines,” where we will observe all the active pools that have been worked by man since ancient times to the present day. The guide will provide complete information on why and how the pools are fed with salt water from inside the mountain, the process, and the harvesting of salt.

Then we will visit the archaeological site of “Moray,” considered to be the Inca laboratories, where our ancestors captured all their agricultural knowledge related to atmospheric phenomena, astronomy, and the lunar calendar to study, understand, develop, and genetically modify the native products of the coast, mountains, and jungle. which is why, today, Peru produces more than 5,000 varieties of potatoes, a source of national pride!

After completing the cultural part of the excursion, we will now head to one of the most beautiful villages with spectacular views, Misminay, where you can enjoy panoramic views such as the fertile Maras Valley and the snow-capped mountains. Once the residents of Misminay have given you a warm welcome in their own unique style, they will take you to one of their homes to learn about and participate in the preparation of an ancestral and revitalizing drink called “Aqha” or chicha de jora, a traditional drink made from different types of corn. You will also learn how to prepare the tasty “uchucuta,” a mixture of chili peppers and other ingredients with ancestral flavors and traditions, a special stew for meals in the Peruvian Andes.

After a delicious lunch with local products and together with the local residents, we will take you back to your hotel to enjoy your free afternoon.

 

DAY 5 – PACHAMANCA – MACHUPICCHU

Inca architecture in Ollantaytambo and train to Aguas Calientes

Today we will take you to the ancient city of Ollantaytambo, considered the last living Inca citadel, due to the architectural layout of its streets, which have maintained their originality over the centuries despite the Spanish invasion, and due to the customs and traditions, as well as the clothing that is still worn in many communities far from the town of Ollantaytambo. Your professional Andina Amazónica guide will take you through the typical streets of this beautiful town, where you can appreciate its original Inca urbanism. You will see the irrigation channels located in the streets, which are still in use, multi-family houses with their interior courtyards, and the emblematic simple and double-jamb trapezoidal Inca doors (a symbol of hierarchy and status in Inca times).

After visiting the village, your host will take you to visit the archaeological park of Ollantaytambo, an excellent place to learn about Inca architecture and engineering, captured by our ancestors in the crafting and working of stone blocks for the construction of the Great Temple of the Sun. Ollantaytambo is a clear example of the skill of the Andean people in building architectural marvels without the need for today’s sophisticated technology.

The excursion will leave you with a hearty appetite, so after the visits, we will take you to enjoy a wonderful outdoor banquet, the “Traditional Pachamanca,” whose name means “earth pot.” Your participation in the cooking is very important, as the chef will explain each Andean ingredient that goes into this exquisite stew, such as marinated lamb, pork, chicken, potatoes, and others, all cooked on stone and under the shelter of our mother earth. The combination of Andean flavors and the ingredients in the stew are a testament to the great diversity and nutritional value of the Inca Empire in its glorious past.

This afternoon we will head to the train station to board the first-class Vistadome train bound for Aguas Calientes. The trip takes an average of 1 hour and 40 minutes to reach the wonder of the modern world and the town of Aguas Calientes (where you will spend the night). During the train ride, you will enjoy dreamlike panoramic views, traveling parallel to the sacred river of the Incas (Vilcanota or Urubamba), appreciating the farmlands, local towns, villages, mountains, snow-capped peaks, and of course, the flora and fauna of each place.

 

DAY 6 – MACHUPICCHU

Exploring the New Wonder of the Modern World!

Finally, the long-awaited day has arrived! After an energetic breakfast, your guide will pick you up and take you to board the buses that will take you to the Inca Citadel of Machu Picchu, a majestic icon of Peru with much religious and astronomical symbolism, designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1983.

Your guide will share with you the history, geography, archaeology, and more of the legacy of our ancestors, taking you back to pre-Hispanic times so you can understand the importance and magnitude of what was the most important civilization in South America. After a tour of approximately 3 hours, we return to the town of Aguas Calientes to enjoy a magnificent lunch before boarding the train that will take us back to Ollantaytambo, where our driver will be waiting to take us back to the hotel in the sheltering Sacred Valley of the Incas to rest.

 

DAY 7 – SACRED VALLEY OF THE INCAS – CUSCO

Learning a little more about the Super Potatoe

After a hearty breakfast, we will take you to another picturesque village. High above Urubamba, we will introduce you to the ancestral history of the potato, its origins, its genetic diversity, and its uses in Peruvian cuisine. Leaving the hotel in your private van, we will drive for about 30 minutes to the “House of Manuel Choque,” a local farmer from the district of Chinchero (an area that produces more than 600 varieties of potatoes), who has changed the way we see potatoes as just a carbohydrate and revolutionized this tuber to make it an antioxidant, thus creating the famous “Super Potato.” In his space, carefully designed to welcome tourists from all over the world, you will be able to appreciate different varieties of potatoes, shapes, sizes, and colors, learning about this tuber that saved the entire world from famine during World War II and subsequent wars. We will also learn about its ancestral value and how Manuel Choque gave it that extra boost to turn it into a superfood of the future. He will also explain his project with “Oxalis,” another high Andean tuber rich in antioxidants, from which he produces three types of wine. Today, these wines can be found in the best international markets and restaurants recognized as the best in the world, such as Central or Maido (in Lima) or Mills by Central in Cusco.

At the end of a delicious lunch and tasting of potato-based dishes, all grown on the farm and served on the plate, we will return to the city of Cusco, but not before passing through and walking around the beautiful village of Chinchero, another ancient citadel whose Inca and colonial architecture blend so well that they make this place another attraction and a must-see for visitors.

 

DAY 8 – VINICUNCA – MOUNTAIN OF COLORS

Walking on a rainbow on earth

Well rested after a good night’s sleep at the hotel, our guide and driver will pick you up early in the morning to travel south of the city, where we will visit one of the most amazing natural and geographical attractions on the planet, a place that perfectly represents the geological formation of our Andes: the mountain of colors, “Vinicunca”

Leaving the hotel, it will take us a couple of hours to reach our first stop, where we will have a tasty breakfast. then we will continue the journey for a couple more hours towards the Mountain of Colors, observing along the way the peculiar colonial-style towns, the different colorful clothing of their inhabitants, the adobe houses with red tile roofs, small squares dominated by colonial temples, etc. Leaving the paved road behind, we will continue along a dirt road for a couple more hours, this time appreciating rural life, scattered farming communities along the way, precarious adobe houses that are crumbling with the passage of time, corn and potato fields, small schools, and some improvised soccer fields.

Once we arrive at our destination, we will begin the hike at your pace, without any pressure or demands, since we have the whole day to enjoy our mountain adventure. We will visit the site and take our time to take photos, clearly appreciating the pigments that have formed over the years due to the presence of oxides, minerals, temperatures, glaciation, atmospheric erosion, among other factors. Returning to our van, we will head back to the restaurant for an energizing lunch and then return to the city of Cusco to let you rest at your hotel and enjoy more of Cusco at night.

 

DAY 9- EXCURSION TO SOUTHERN CUSCO

Day trip to the famous bakeries of Oropesa and the aqueducts of Tipón.

After breakfast, your professional Andina Amazonica guide will pick you up at the agreed time to take you to explore the southern side of the city of Cusco. The famous colonial town of Oropesa is renowned for its variety of artisanal breads, handmade and baked in traditional colonial clay ovens fired with wood.

As you approach the village from the highway, you will begin to smell the delicious aroma of bread, which will seduce you and lead you to the home of one of the master bakers who specializes in preparing sourdough and baking bread. The master baker will show you and teach you the ingredients, steps, and secrets so that you can bake your own bread in your own style and the way you like it best.

After the bread-making classes and tasting different types of bread, your bread will be placed in the oven to bake. Meanwhile, we will return to our van to continue our excursion with a visit to the Tipon archaeological park, considered a masterpiece of hydraulic engineering and a testament to the Andean people’s ability to work with stone, join it together, and make water flow through stone channels to irrigate all the agricultural terraces nestled on a mountain cliff.

After the visit, we will stop by the colonial oven to pick up your molded and baked bread. We will then head to a local restaurant for lunch to try other culinary dishes with local flavors. Then, before returning to the city of Cusco, we will walk and visit a beautiful village called “Andahuaylillas,” where the indigenous population was subjugated and indoctrinated through the murals displayed in its small but beautiful temple: “San Pedro de Andahuaylillas,” considered the Sistine Chapel of South America.

In the evening, after a rest, we will offer you a short tour through the history of Peru’s flagship drink, “El Pisco”; taking you on a short but spirited Pisco tasting experience in our city. We are sure you will be immersed in the exciting history of grape production (the primary ingredient and basis of our emblematic drink), its origins, when it was first brought to and cultivated in South America, and its production to make different types of Pisco, such as the famous “Quebranta,” the base of the popular and exquisite “Pisco Sour.”

 

DAY 10 – CUSCO – LIMA, HEADING HOME

Street food at the Farmers’ Market

After breakfast and checking out of the hotel, our van and our Andina Amazonica ambassador will be waiting to bid you farewell from our city and take you to the airport, but not before visiting one of the famous traditional and original markets of our city of Cusco, “El mercado de wanchaq” (The Wanchaq Market). Here, you will have the opportunity to mingle with the real life of the Cusqueños, observe how local products such as fruits, vegetables, meats, tubers, clothes, and traditional costumes are sold, and you may even find the famous seamstresses of yesteryear, who still use their sewing machines to design and make clothes for the local people, a legacy from our grandmothers. After enjoying the food market, we will take you to the food court, showing you the dishes on sale to the public, and you can taste whatever you like during this visit, such as the famous quinoa chicha, fruits such as lucuma and pacay, among others that are new to you.Finally, we will accompany you to the airport and help you check your bags so that you can be dropped off at the boarding gate and have a safe and happy trip after your experience in Peru!