The Best Reason for Bragging Rights in Peru
- Singing Protest Songs 'Til the Sun Comes Up: A musical highlight of a visit to Peru is visiting an authentic peña, a small, informal club featuring musicians and patrons singing the songs of música criolla or música folclórica. The best are in Lima, but one of my favorites is Peña Usha Usha, in the northern town of Cajamarca.
- Checking Off a Gourmet Tour: If you've discovered Peruvian cuisine, you'll have an inkling of how wonderfully diverse, creative, and accomplished it is. Trying ceviche in Lima or along the north coast is a must, but go beyond that and hit restaurants serving some of the finest regional cuisines in Peru (Arequipeña, Chiclayana, Cusqueña). Or knock off a tour of all the restaurants of Gastón Acurio, Peru's best known chef and a global ambassador for Peruvian cooking.
- Taking the High Road: The Ferrocarril Central Andino, called the "Tren Macho," is the highest railway in the world, climbing to more than 4,500m (15,000 ft.) on the way from Lima to Huancayo in the Central Highlands. Unfortunately, the passenger railway has experienced all kinds of problems in recent years; even when it's on, it travels only once a month from July to October. If it is running, though, it's a truly thrilling and occasionally vertigo-inducing ride. If you're one of the lucky few to ride it, you've got plenty to brag about.
- Surfing Big Sand: The southern desert of Peru is a strange, unrelenting landscape, but it has the highest sand dunes in South America. An extreme sport quickly gaining in popularity is surfing the dunes on sand boards and areneros (dune buggies). The biggest are near Nasca, but probably the prettiest spot is the dunes that ring the Huacachina Lagoon outside of Ica.
- Gazing at the Stars at Sacsayhuamán: The Sacsayhuamán ruins are amazing enough by day; imagine those immense, elegantly laid stones at night, high above Cusco. At night, it won't be hard to perceive the Incas' worship of the natural world, in which the moon was a deity. If your visit coincides with a full moon in that gargantuan sky, you'll be talking about it back home for months. A similar experience would be hiking along the Inca Trail and spending that last night before pushing on to Machu Picchu under a full moon.
- Lighting It Up at Tres Cruces: Beyond the remote Andean village of Paucartambo, known for its Virgen de Carmen festival, is Tres Cruces, perched on a mountain ridge on the edge of the Amazon basin. Famous for its almost hallucinogenic, multihued sunrise, the spot was held sacred by the Incas, and it's not hard to see why. During the winter months (May-July), the special effects are beyond belief. To enhance your bragging rights, note that Tres Cruces is a royal pain to reach.
- Hopping the Hiram Bingham Train to Machu Picchu: Once upon a time, you could zip to the most famous Inca ruins by helicopter, but for my money, the new old-world luxury train named for the discoverer of Machu Picchu is even better. With wood-paneled cars, full white-glove meal and cocktail service, on-board Peruvian musicians, and an included tour of the ruins, it's definitely traveling in style. Sure, it costs several times the regular tourist train, but this is Machu Picchu, right?
- Scaling Huayna Picchu in Record Time: Huayna Picchu hovers above Machu Picchu in the classic postcard shot of the ruins. People of all ages and decent physical condition can climb to the summit; to properly boast, you've got to race the steep stone path in close to record time (about 15 min. at last report). Even if you don't beat the record, you can savor the stunning, indescribable view as you wait for your heart rate to return to normal.
- Completing a 5-Day Andes Trek: Hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu may get all the attention, and though it's still one of the greatest ecoadventures on the planet, it's gotten a little popular for true adventurers. Trekkers in search of more solitude and hardcore authenticity are instead heading to Choquequirao and other sites in the southern highlands, where the Incas once roamed but few tourists do.
- Running a Class VI in Colca Canyon: Extremely technical white-water rafting in the Colca (as well as Cotahuasi) Canyon is the stuff for which bragging was made. Imagine telling your friends that you hurtled down the river at the bottom of a canyon more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon! This is for hard-core runners only; trips are expensive and lengthy.
- Rumbling by Truck to Puerto Maldonado: If you like tests of sheer perseverance, travel by truck from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado, the gateway to the Tambopata Reserve in the southern Amazon. It'll take between 3 and 10 days on a road that's 95% unpaved, but what's time (and a sore body) to a good story?
- Trippin' Jungle Style: If spotting wildlife and trekking through primary rainforest isn't stimulating enough, you can do your best to imitate the ancient ways of Amazon tribes and shamans by taking part in an authentic ayahuasca ceremony (there are lots of hucksters, so you have to find a real practitioner, or shaman). The natural hallucinogenic potion, made of herbs, roots, and other plants, is supposed to mess with your mind. But for locals, it's a deeply respected ritual.
- Fishing for Piranha: If you visit a jungle lodge, you might have the opportunity to head out on the Amazon or its tributaries in a dugout canoe to fish for piranha. Most are surprisingly small, but their famous teeth are very much present. For a special dinner, have the lodge cook fry 'em up for you that night. For extra credit, do it from a swanky Amazon river cruise boat, such as the ultrastylish Aqua Expeditions.
- Bagging 6,000m (20,000 ft.) Peaks in the Cordillera Blanca: For expert climbers, the Cordillera Blanca is a mountaineering mecca. From May to September, fit climbers can score several 6,000m (20,000-ft.) summits in the Parque Nacional Huascarán in just a couple weeks. Huascarán, at 6,768m (22,205 ft.), is the big one, the highest mountain in the Peruvian Andes and the tallest tropical mountain in the world.
