Spotlight on Peru
It’s got something for everyone, particularly those who want to ‘touch the clouds’.
Peru is much more than Machu Picchu, the Inca Trail and the Sacred Valley. This fascinating land of archaeological wonders dating from the pre-Inca civilisations also boasts stark, striking deserts; beautiful beaches such as those at Máncora and Punta Sal; majestic Andean mountain splendour; a massive portion of the Amazon basin; and the world’s highest navigable body of water, Lake Titicaca.
Colonial splendour is to be found in the UNESCO World Heritage city centres of Cusco (former capital of the Inca empire), ‘the white city’ of Arequipa, and Lima, once the centre of the Spanish empire, now the gourmet capital of the Americas, with two restaurants in the world’s top 10 – Central and Maido.
Vinicunca, or Rainbow Mountain, is Peru’s new star of the Instagram era, but the place that should really get your attention now is Kuélap, ‘the Machu Picchu of the north’. This walled citadel atop a mountain near Nuevo Tingo was built around 500AD by the Chachapoya people (the Warriors of the Clouds).
Until mid-2017, it was accessible only by a five-hour hike or a long bumpy drive up tortuous roads, but now you can whiz up to it in 20 minutes on a scenic 4km cable ride. Rupac, a pre-Incan ceremonial site in the highlands near Lima, is another great getaway – at 3000 metres, it’s where you come “to touch the clouds”, the locals say.
For a totally different experience, head to Huacachina (hidden lagoon), an intimate little village clustered around an oasis about 300km south of Lima. A perfect honeymoon hideaway, it’s the sort of spectacle you’d expect to find only in the Sahara.