Interested in vacation in Peru

Machu Picchu is a must. I'm aware that's likely a given, but still. Best day of travel in my entire life.

Everything in that part of the country is great. The Urubamba Valley, etc. Moray. Salt mines.

The dunes in Ica are incredible. The coast in Paracas.

Lima has some good restaurants.

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Especially of the Chifa variety.

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Americans think that "sweet-and-sour sauce" means something that comes out of a bottle and is made from sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. In a Peruvian chifa, it means a reduction sauce of jungle fruits that were picked a few days earlier. Chifas are awesome.

You could also choose to go to Iquitos and spend several days at an Amazon River lodge. If so, then the choice of lodge is critical. Much of that area is not virgin rainforest, and I did not see the level of wildlife that I've seen elsewhere (such as Panama).

But Iquitos itself is fascinating, even if there's little to see and you can see it in a few hours. Iquitos is the world's largest city not connected by road or ocean -- you can fly in or travel on the river -- so there aren't so many cars on the streets, as the only road outside the city goes to the nearby town of Nauta and comes to an end there, so people drive around town in these motorcycle adaptations.



Iquitos became a huge boomtown a hundred years ago, when the areas rubber trees suddenly made some people very rich, like the builder of this mansion.



And the Amazon is so vast. Even so far upriver as Iquitos, it dwarfs the Mississippi -- it's about 4 miles across here.



I saw both the gray and the pink river dolphins, and swimming with the pink ones was nice.

Spending time with the monkeys, toucans, etc. at the animal rehabilitation center was certainly worthwhile.

Certainly, at any lodge, you'll be able to fish with a cane pole and catch some piranha. They are tasty, but you obviously want to be careful taking them off the hook. This little guy was a little small to eat.



Flying to and from Iquitos and spending several nights in a jungle lodge would obviously take up the right of the time on your trip.

Those then, are what I would say are the three real options for your other time in Peru:

1) Southern route
2) Iquitos and the Amazon
3) Chiclayo and Iquitos

And, as others have said, Peruvian food is amazing, because the different climates allow for such regional variation and fusions. You must eat some cebiche (spelled with a v instead of a b in other parts of Latin America). My mouth just waters at the thought. There's a new Peruvian restaurant here in Baton Rouge, but the cebiche didn't compare to what I got in Peru, and the rest of the food wasn't anything special either.


In the dry, almost desert area of Chiclayo, you might get some delicious cabrito, or goat:




The Inca ate cuy, or guinea pig, as part of religious rituals. It's still a special meal. I found the game flavor strong, but not at all unpleasant. Though the one on my plate is fried, it's more often served roasted.




In the Andean area, you might get alpaca steaks or even ravioli stuffed with alpaca meat, as I had in Urubamba.




In areas closer to the jungle, you might get something like this incredible seafood meal that was steamed in a banana leaf in Tarapoto:




And, yes, there are good chifas all over Peru, and you should eat at a couple of them. You'll notice the yellow liquid in our glasses. That's Inca Kola, the Peruvian answer to Coca-Cola (and actually owned by Coca-Cola).