Peru: Lima, Cusco, Machu Picchu, Incas, Bemond hotels
This sublime trip made me walk and trek, breathe deeply, and not so much leave my comfort zone as climb clear out of it.
Lima, I am reliably told, is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Machu Picchu, I am rudely informed, will probably kill me, given my weak eyesight and propensity to fall over unannounced. The plan is therefore simple. I will put myself in the hands of South American specialist Belmond and stay hopefully safe and probably upright.
I will fly for 90 minutes from Lima to Cusco, traverse the Sacred Valley of the Incas, go up and up to the heights of Machu Picchu, and along the way I’ll tarry in Belmond’s restored monasteries and lovely lodges and ride the 1920s Pullman-style Hiram Bingham train, imagining myself as a character from an Agatha Christie mystery. What could go wrong? Nothing, as it turns out, mostly thanks to Cusco-based guide extraordinaire Aly Amaut, who praises my stamina, if not my sure footing, at the end of what turns out be an adventure in the grandest sense, unified by hotels of great comfort and charm that provide the ideal base camps.
Ah, mira flores, or “look at the flowers” in Spanish, says my Lima guide Miguel, who adds that the capital “specialises in traffic jams and earth tremors”. Miraflores is a suitably pretty name for a largely residential precinct of Lima with palm-lined promenades of mansions and apartment blocks set atop cliffs that plunge to a strand of beaches. Here my circuit starts at Belmond Miraflores Park, a mirrored tower of a hotel with standard city architecture that belies the deep comfort and sense of style within. Big beds, pale marble bathrooms, classic furnishings, loads of flowers in public spaces and all the five-star touches make this property the perfect touchdown pad after flying from Australia to Santiago, Chile, and onwards to Lima.
The well-named Observatory Restaurant on the 11th floor is a glass-sided pavilion filled with greenery and a roof of circus-like canopies. It’s set by the heated lap pool and offers a small but excellent buffet breakfast, while Belo Bar, off the double-height lobby, is a clubby space with deep armchairs and chandeliers, and the prospect of light meals such as tequenos, or batons of fried dough stuffed with Andean cheese and guacamole.
A pisco punch should knock you out on a jetlagged first night in Peru, but not before dinner at Tragaluz, with its quirky wall art and pop-up gallery displays, hip waiters in braces and bow ties, and menu that roves through South America, occasionally via Asia, including good curries and dishes such as freshwater paiche from the Amazon, served with chorizo, plantain and heart of palm. Tragaluz serves the best food I encounter in Peru, and that’s not just due to its sublime pistachio creme brulee.
Tips: Stroll the safe neighbourhood, or cycle on one of the hotel’s complimentary bikes, past the odd pond at the porte-cochere, which is decorated with what I think are turtle statues until one lifts a front leg and slides into the water. Head right towards Parque del Amour, site of El Beso, a massive sculpture by Victor Delfin of a kissing couple in an ungainly pose that was unveiled in 1993 and is Lima’s most popular backdrop for marriage proposals, wedding photography and Valentine’s Day courting. This elevated park has bracing Pacific Ocean views and circular beds of bright flowers.
Take a deep breath. At an altitude of 3400m and one of the highest cities on Earth, Cusco literally takes your breath away. Even walking down the ramps in the airport terminal proves a chore. I fan myself with my in-flight reading, a copy of Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel Death in the Andes, and hope the title is in no way prescient. Aly’s greeting includes clear instructions to rest, drink Gatorade and sip coca leaf tea. Alcohol is off the agenda and those frothy and frisky pisco sours served on silver trays at Belmond Hotel Monasterio are only for the habituated. Is that the eerie soundtrack of a Gregorian chant I hear, and the rustle of monks’ robes, or am I hallucinating already?
This converted monastery hotel, and its neighbouring sister, Belmond Palacio Nazarenas, are the best hotels in Cusco, the nation’s designated historic capital and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983, honoured for its accessible blend of Spanish colonial, Amerindian and hybrid mestizo culture. The up-and-down city is the staging-post for visitors headed to the 15th-century Inca citadel of Machu Picchu above the Sacred Valley of the Incas, 80km to the northwest and at lower elevation. The Inca stronghold of Cusco is also worth close inspection for its pre-Columbian churches, baroque cloisters, and extraordinary structures such as the Temple of the Sun and the fortress of Sacsayhuaman overlooking the city. Aly takes me to look at the preserved remnants of Inca walls with such mastery of stonemasonry and engineering that in many cases the conquering Spanish built around ancient foundations rather than razing the lot.
The two-storey colonnaded Belmond Hotel Monasterio occupies a 16th-century converted seminary built on the site of an Inca palace, with a courtyard plaza at its centre. It holds a notable collection of 18th-century original artworks; there’s a gilded chapel and 122 guestrooms and suites with beamed ceilings, tiled floors, deep-silled windows with latched shutters and monumental furniture. At Aly’s suggestion, I sign up to have my chamber oxygenated via the air-conditioning system and sleep long and easy.
Tips: There are signing privileges for Belmond Hotel Monasterio guests at Belmond Palacio Nazarenas next door, a 55-suite heritage bolthole where the tisanes are blended from about 20 types of herbs grown on-site, the soaps are blended with botanicals, and beside the bed are tiny herb-filled pillows filled with sleep-inducing white and green sage, and camomile and lemon balm. Add an outdoor swimming pool heated to 28C, classy Andean cuisine and guided art tours of friezes, murals and looming portraits.
Cusco is Peru’s handicrafts hub; pop into Millma’s boutique on Calle Triunfo for soft baby alpaca shawls, sweaters, gloves and scarves. The covered San Pedro Market is the place to pick up textiles at stalls presided over by ladies in high hats and striped ponchos but quality is variable and there’s “baby alpaca” and “maybe alpaca”, laughs Aly.
Beside wide lawns circled by hummingbirds and dotted with eucalyptus trees by the Urubamba River, terracotta-roofed blocks of casitas and villas, their balconies brimming with pink hydrangeas, cascade down the hill at Belmond Hotel Rio Sagrado. With no televisions unless requested, this is the place to kick back in quiet accommodation with plain timber floors, tangerine bed-throws and decorative ayacuchanos cushions woven with flowers and vines.
But first, there’s the 46km drive here from Cusco and the obligatory stop at the Andean weaving village of Chinchero. At the fair trade co-operative of Centro de Textiles Tradicionales, women in jackets with intricately embroidered bodices, collars and cuffs spin alpaca fibre and wool and make blankets and shawls on old-fashioned wooden looms. I buy a sturdy blanket created by Lidia Callanuaupa Alvarez in natural dyes of cochineal and mustard seed, 90 per cent sheep and 10 per cent alpaca.
At 8am each day, the resident alpaca “lawnmowers” Phuyo (Cloud) and Apu (Mountain) at Belmond Hotel Rio Sagrado are fed milk from baby bottles and guests are encouraged to do the honours, although a slurp or two and the lot is gone. The soil here is rich and alluvial, the surging river a constant soundtrack, and the town of Ollantaytambo, one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the Americas, is tantalisingly close. Horse-riding, kayaking and mountain biking can all be easily arranged. A welcome note from the general manager suggests looking for “torrent ducks” that swim against the river’s currents and wishes guests an “intensive rest”.
The food here is similar to that served at the Cusco sister properties, with an emphasis on local ingredients, such as those famous Peruvian potatoes (about 4000 varieties, at last count, from pink to purple, twisted to dimpled), alpaca, creamy Oxapampa cheese, corn, quinoa, and ceviche, the national staple. On warm days there are pachamanca pit-style barbecues on the lawn, with the meat sprinkled with Andean mint, wrapped in corn husks and slow-cooked over river stones.
Tips: You’ll have done sufficient climbing in Cusco, so request a ground-floor room with direct garden access and within easy reach of El Huerto restaurant and its adjoining bar, where there’s an open fire and alpaca blankets to hand. There are golf buggies to whisk you up to the reception area and Spa Mayu Willka has bubbling pools, full-length windows with river views, “altitude-adjusting therapies” and the bonus of warmed-up slippers and gowns to slip into in colder months.
Belmond’s Hiram Bingham train offers a day service from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, the closest town to Machu Picchu, then it’s a winding bus trip up to the citadel’s entrance. Do not do this as a day trip as it is simply too rushed if you really want to scramble, as I do, around the rock terraces and trails of Machu Picchu all afternoon and again next morning, climbing for about an hour to the Sun Gate at the head of the Inca Trail.
Belmond Sanctuary Lodge is the only accommodation at the citadel. It is virtually next door, so close you can get to the gate well before the morning’s first buses arrive. I imagine I will be at the head of the line but I have failed to take into account the Australian backpackers who burst from the bushes after climbing from Aguas Calientes. They beat me to the top of the queue and we all laugh that I have taken barely 50 steps to reach the line from the lodge’s front door.
Tips: This is a smallish hotel and not as smartly kitted out as other Belmonds in Peru but it doesn’t need to be. The snug guestrooms are decorated with local textiles, the bed is soft, the shower is hot and strong, and Tinkuy, the big dining room, is convivial, with cheery bartenders offering at a least a dozen pisco-based cocktails, roving musicians and the suggestion of “potato masterclasses”. There’s a garden thick with orchids and gusts of butterflies to relax in between timed entries to Machu Picchu.
On my last night, I shake tiny pebbles from my shoes and sit up in bed making notes with Lidia’s blanket wrapped around my shoulders. These are the tangible souvenirs I will take home as memories of a trip that made me walk and trek, then walk and trek some more, breathe deeply, push as hard as a torrent duck and not so much leave my comfort zone as climb clear out of it.
Susan Kurosawa was a guest of Belmond and Qantas.
-
IN THE KNOW
Belmond’s inclusive classic and adventure packages, round-trip from Lima, include Cusco, the Sacred Valley of the Incas and Machu Picchu. The itinerary includes day journeys on the 1920s Pullman-style Hiram Bingham train, with observatory car and fine dining aboard, between Cusco and Machu Picchu. Belmond’s hottest new product
in Peru is the overnight Andean Explorer, with sleeper cars, which runs between Cusco and Puno (Lake Titicaca).
Qantas flies from Sydney direct to Santiago, with onward connections on LATAM to Lima. A Qantas Global deal for the return Santiago leg, valid Sunday to Friday, starts at $1642. If entering Chile in either direction, a reciprocity visa fee applies for Australian passport holders.