A Love Letter to Peru
You were rich, and you made me feel rich. Spiritually and economically. Getting back to the U.S. and spending $39 on a mid breakfast from Dunks at JFK was a bit sad. I couldn’t help but think of how fantastic of a meal that amount of money was getting me and Jade in Cusco and Lima.
This is a love letter, so I have to start with your ace, Machu Picchu. How can I not? I don’t care how famous it is. I don’t care how many people have already been there and drawn the same conclusions. That doesn’t take away how incredible of an experience it was being up there.
I’ll never forget when we first got a glimpse of your strange city as a bus took us up the mountain. It was almost as if something was wrong, seeing them on top of these massive, beautiful peaks. Walking so close to the clouds was an absolutely wild feeling.
The rough roads and altitude, along with sleep deprivation from travel, had me feeling nauseous and exhausted on the way there, but the level of awe I felt once our tour began snapped me out of it.
It also made me feel grateful to be a human. There is something deeply inspiring about the fact that humans were capable of building such things so long ago. I’m not surprised that the Spanish never even found this place during their rule. It’s not exactly an easy place to get to, even today.
From Cusco, Jade and I were in a van from Cusco to Ollantaytambo, which included some scary moments. There were rocky roads that wrapped around mountains, and there was no railing separating our van from a hundred foot plus drop. From Ollantaytambo, we took a train to Aguascalientes. This part was almost two hours long.1 Every mountain we saw through the panoramic windows on the train was the craziest mountain I’ve ever seen. Once we got to Aguascalientes—Machu Picchu Pueblo—we took a bus to the world wonder itself, which included more scary drives on rocky roads high up with no railings.
As great as Lima was, the whole experience of Machu Picchu and coca tea and Quechua and the mountains and Incan legacy was something else. Cusco was the most radically different place I’ve been so far in my life. I’ve never felt something so foreign.
The Miraflores part of Lima was fun, but in a super different way. It could be any modern international city. We also met some of Jade’s extended family there, which was wholesome.
And your food, my goodness. It was as delicious as every Peruvian person promised me it would be. The ceviche, the soup, the alfajores, all of it was a chef’s kiss.
But I’m not going to act like you’re perfect. The fact you’ve had 9 presidents in 10 years is not exactly a sign of a stable country. The food was great, but often, your service was shockingly bad. And outside of your airport in Lima there were surely the poorest places I’ve ever seen in my life. I suppose it means nothing for me to say how hard it was to even look at the half-finished buildings, trashed sidewalks, and poverty-stricken neighborhoods, because living there is what is actually hard. The cherry on top of the challenges was the number of stray dogs there were roaming around Cusco. They seemed so damn sad.
But the experience of your mysterious and fascinating history, your proud and kind people, and your incredible natural beauty was overwhelmingly positive. As Jade and I kept saying to each other as we clinked a wine glass or a coffee cup—la vida es bella. It’s even more beautiful when you’re enjoying Andean soup at a restaurant right next to a stunning river and mountains, and there is a live indigenous band playing music, and you and the love of your life are an hour away from seeing one of the wonders of the world.
¡Viva Peru!
We were sitting across a kind couple from Mexico. They complimented my Spanish, which, to this day, makes me extremely happy.