Machu Picchu, Peru and Panama

Machu Picchu has been on the bucket list for a long time, so it was with great anticipation that we finally planned the trip to see it. For a couple of reasons, it made sense to bundle in a visit to Panama at the same time, so our itinerary included a four-day stopover in Casco Viejo, the old part of Panama City, a vibrant reminder of Panama's past and a standard tourist location fill with shopping, food, hotels and traffic.


Big picture, we flew from Boston to Lima through Panama City on Copa airlines, did a couple of days in Lima, a few days in Cusco and the Inca Sacred Valley it inhabits, did the Machu Picchu excursion, then flew back, stopping in Panama City on the way. Despite Peru declaring martial law a few days before we headed there (really), we didn’t have any issues during the trip. In Peru, we hired “Inca Experts,” a white glove service that makes sure you have seamless handoffs each step of the way. In Panama City, given we were at a single hotel the entire time, we just booked directly. Per our prior experience with South America (Ecuador and the Galapagos), we knew you had to prepare for exotic tropical locations and the unusual diseases that seem inevitably linked to them, by which I mean mostly food poisoning. Alison and I both suffered from it at different times despite only eating at high-end food establishments that you would think would be very careful not to make their customers ill.


Lima has the general feel of a lot of South America cities, too many people and not enough infrastructure. Narrow roads, crowded public transportation, too many cars, wide gaps between the haves and the have nots, and a general lack of zoning laws and/or planning to try to make it all work for the 11 million people that live there, up from 9 million ten years ago. There are a few major throughfares in Lima, and none of them have breakdown lanes. Given the dilapidated cars that many people drive, there’s almost always a breakdown that jams the freeways up; I think 75% of the time we were driving someplace we were in stop and go traffic for most of the way. It’s location on the top of a cliff looking down on the Pacific Ocean gave it stunning views (if you were in the sections close to the coast, which of course we were). Oddly enough, farther inland, the “old town” section of Lima (the seat of the government and a wide variety of elegant Spanish buildings and Cathedrals) was clean but half abandoned, with many buildings (and potential shops) closed and shuttered. A swarm of Turkey Vultures added a bit of gothic flair to the skyline, particularly around the cathedrals. And then there was the cat park. A literal park. For cats. More on that later.



Cusco was more of a tourist town and as such didn’t suffer from the same level of people/infrastructure mismatch. The entire town was very walkable. It (and Lima as well) was surprisingly enough a foodie kind of place, with high end restaurants that we wished had counterparts in Boston. We had one two and a half hour lunch scheduled in Lima that we had to abandon (due to the aftermentioned food poisoning from the day before), but we did hit one spot in Cusco that served food so beautifully prepared that it was a struggle to demean it with actual consumption. It served as a hub for visiting archeological sites in the Inca Sacred valley and the jumping off point for the visit to Machu Picchu.

Panama City was a bit more cosmopolitan, and while old town suffered from the same narrow streets and resulting traffic congestion it’s because they are the original cobblestone roads and Spanish style colonial buildings rather than bad planning. The only thing that seemed a bit odd was the extremely heavy police and military presence in what was essentially a small peninsula with nothing but shops, restaurants, and hotels (we heard the president was in town … but there were people with submachine guns on almost every corner). We did a few day trips outside the city for eco-tourism kind of things and, of course, the pre-requisite Panama Canal visit.


So, with the general intro out of the way, here’s the details, broken down in easily digestible sections instead of a day by day recital of our activities. Jump to: