Exploring Peru

I became curious about Peru during our trip to Ecuador last year with Adventure Life. The Andes intrigued me during our travels in and out of Quito. The tipping point came after I read an interesting book entitled “Last Days of the Incas” by Kim MacQuarte. This book basically covers the history of the Inca Empire starting with the invasion of Peru by Pizzaro and ending with the Spanish conquest of Peru and killing of the last Inca emperor hiding in exile in the Amazon. How could a people develop one of the largest empires the world has ever known in just 100 years? Furthermore, how could such a large relatively advanced civilization be conquered in such a short period of time by so few Spaniards? Adventure Life’s “Panoramic Peru” trip helps put some of the answers to these questions in perspective. I suspect many if not most tourists visiting Peru fly into Cusco and go to Machu Picchu. While this is certainly a wonderful experience, if one wants to gain a deeper understanding of Peruvian culture, the “Panoramic Peru” tour is a great trip. As always with Adventure Life, the local guides are wonderful and they accompany you during the entire trip. I can’t believe we did as much as we did during our two weeks! We arrived in Lima in the afternoon via TACA Airlines. Most flights apparently get in later and people stay at the Ramada Inn right across the street from the airport. Since we were to arrive earlier, our tour coordinator changed us to a nice hotel in Miraflores, a prosperous commercial section of Lima with nice shops, restaurants and art galleries. We had a chance to go out to a nice restaurant the night of our arrival and then returned to our hotel.