Ultimate PERU Travel Guide | LIMA | CUSCO | TOP Things to Do in Peru

Come with us through six days in Peru. We visited the biggest sand dunes in South America, one of the seven wonders of the world, rode a boat to visit ancient geoglyphs and sea lions, toured on ATVs to archaeological sites, ate amazing food and so much more. If you want to know how to visit Peru on a budget you don't want to miss this video. What's up YouTube? Welcome back to our channel. It's the Chews here from Chews Explore where we teach you guys how to see the world and save a dollar. So we are here in another country, it's a bucket list country. Where are we my love? Peru! Flying with Avianca Airlines and using credit card points our flight was only 56 dollars per person. So see the world, save a dollar, you know. So the good thing about Peru is that Ubers do work here but we wanted to see if we could get an official taxi to take us for less than the Uber price. So we spoke with Yannatan. Yes so Yannatan, he gave us a really fair price, it was a really smooth ride and we highly recommend him. If you want his contact information it's included in our Peru guide, link in the description. Yeah so he dropped us here and now we are at our beautiful Airbnb in Miraflores and man this thing is beautiful. It's only 26 dollars a night and it has two bathrooms, two beautiful balconies, kitchen, two TVs. I mean I don't know what else I would ask for in an Airbnb. Alright so we just left our Airbnb and it only cost 8 soles to get here. We're riding with Peru bus all the way to Paracas. Paracas, stay tuned guys. Alright so we just got off the bus and we're in Paracas and as soon as you get off the bus there'll be tons of different tour groups who are trying to sell you their tour. So we did the middle tour around like 15 dollars per person to do the tour. So let's check it out. And we just pulled up to our first stop, it's La... What's it? La Candelabra. And it's crazy, dates back over 2,000 years old. It's humongous, it's over 100 meters big and it's right there carved into the desert sand. So literally beautiful and yeah, truly beautiful. Let's check it out. Alright so we just made it to the Ballestas Islands and this place is beautiful. The rock formations, the animals, the water, everything here is just stunning. It's literally like crazy. We just saw some seals and I think they're sea lions. Yeah some sea lions and you could really tell the difference between the males and the females because the males are a lot bigger. They're huge. Yeah, humongous. So we were walking and we stopped at Marinera Ceviche because we saw outside they have a special with 15 soles for a chicken plate and 25 soles. You know Liv only eats shrimp and rice so she had to get the shrimp and rice plate. Hers also came with ceviche which I ate and honestly I didn't think I liked ceviche but this was a really good ceviche. And Liv also got these fried breaded cheese sticks with all the... Picanhos. Picanhos. And all together this meal was 40 soles for the two of us so great deal and it comes with two drinks as well. Alright so we just came down back to Paracas Beach and it's beautiful here. The sun is out and it's ready to play. There's a lot of people and families here but there's something that really interests me but we don't have enough time. What is that Liv? There's a huge inflatable water park out there. It's similar to the one that we did in St. Lucia. But it's super cool and it's a great day to do it today because we didn't think that it was going to be any sunlight today. It looked so cloudy earlier. It was so so cloudy earlier but now the sun's out. Alright so we just got here in Huacachina. We took the Peru bus. It was kind of not really the Peru bus because it was really like a shuttle van kind of thing but the good thing about it is that it dropped us in Huacachina and when you're here everybody does the same thing so you don't really gotta worry about it. Just be sure to negotiate, negotiate, negotiate to get the tour that you want. Let's find one and let's go. Alright so we're super excited. We negotiated. We got it down to 30 soles per person which is less than $10 and that includes the entrance fee and we're about to get in this green buggy right here and the sun is about to set. It's about to be perfect so stay tuned guys. Woo! Alright so we just went dune bashing and it was completely crazy. I have no idea how he knew where he was going or if he knew or what we were doing. We're going all over the place but it was so fun. So we're here in the desert. We just grabbed our boards and hopefully we're about to sandboard in the desert so stay tuned. Let's go. Alright and we just are getting back to Huacachina. It's all lit up and it looks so beautiful at night. Come check it out here. Okay so the sun has set but the lights are on here in Huacachina. We got a couple hours before our bus back in Lima so let's walk around and check it out. Alright and let's get in the tuk-tuk. Alright so it's day two. The day started a little bit later than we typically do because we had a long day yesterday. 20 straight hours. 20 straight hours we were going around bus to bus but it was well worth it because we saw so much but today we're chilling in Lima and try some local spots and tell you guys what you should do in Lima. So we just left Alto Quepez which we thought was a takeout only spot but we were the ninth and tenth person in line so we actually got to sit down and eat inside. Yeah so it opens at 12 o'clock every day I believe and so you kind of wait in line before it opens and get a seat and it's delicious. Yeah the food was fantastic. I got the combination platter which was chicharron, ceviche as well as the rice con moriscos and it was really good and the best part was that it I'm actually really surprised they only have a four burner stove top and they cook all the food on a stove burner stove top and this food this restaurant was actually featured on Netflix so you know it's good. Yeah so I actually had the seafood rice but it only had shrimp and lobster in it and it was the best and they give really large portions. I took some home. So I definitely recommend to eat here as well. And we just pulled up to our next spot which is Parque Kennedy which is named after John F. Kennedy and Liv wanted to come here. Why Liv? All of the gatos. All right so there's lots of greenery here, lots of flowers and lots of cats. I was afraid there weren't gonna be any but there's a lot of cats and they're friendly. Not only that they really take care of the cats here. You can see they have like a lot of different food bowls for the cats to drink and eat and it's a good time to come here just to stroll by and look at the cats. If you're a cat person. Yeah that's true. So we're walking downtown Miraflores and it definitely has like some European vibes to it. Liv got caught. They had this beautiful gelato restaurant called La Arandan and of course you know Liv got to get her gelato. But I couldn't get out done. I saw this frozen yogurt place. This was literally one dollar so I had to get it Maracuya and we're gonna keep walking. I hope we don't get got again down here. So we walked all the way down and we're here at El Mar or like the oceanfront area. We're at Larcomar station and it's a beautiful greenery here. There's palm trees. It's just a beautiful like nice art scene and really cool is that there actually is a super cool mall right here on the oceanfront. So definitely check this out here. We're walking down El Mar and we see a place that looks like we can go down to the beach area. It's a little cold so we're still gonna head to the beach because you know we're in Lima so why not. From here I see people in the beach. It looks like a lot of people surfing so let's see up close. All right so we came down and I was right there's lots of surfers here. We are at Makaha beach and there's tons of surfers even though it's like mid 60s but everybody has their wetsuits on and they also want me to go surfing with them. Maybe on another day but not today. But there's lots of surf schools here if you're interested. Makaha beach. The mark of the beach is Waikiki beach like Nicki Minaj says to the islands of Waikiki. It's like nah but this is a beach that is literally right next door. I don't see too many surfers here because it looks like it is way harder to surf here because these waves look super intense and they go all the way to the um to the shore. So I don't know about this one surfing. But we made it to Parque Del Amor and it's pretty much a love themed park. So there's a huge statue of a couple in the middle of the park. It's like a huge heart in the middle that you can see from above and there's also a gate with locks on it so you can put your initials on there and lock it on the gate. Lock of love. Yes and then there's also a lot of mosaics and it really reminds me of Parque Del Gaudi in Barcelona. So it's really cool here. She went there without me so I didn't see Gaudi park in Barcelona but it's beautiful here and it overlooks the water and the surfers that we just seen. And we kept walking on the mar and we are at the Miraflores lighthouse. This might be the smallest lighthouse I've ever seen but it still has beautiful views because we're looking at El Miraflores. So let's check it out. All right so now we're at Parque Chino de Miraflores and this is probably my favorite park so far. So they have really nice peaceful music playing, they have water, they have koi fish and it's just a really nice beautiful park to come to. Yeah it's good and there's no bad kids running around so I like that. At least while we're here. Good morning, good morning. It's day three here and as you can see we're not in our Airbnb anymore. We are at the Lima airport because we are heading to our next destination in Peru. We took a quick Uber. I think it was 40 soles and it got us here. All right so we just took a one hour and 10 minute flight from Lima. Now we're in Cusco with JetSmart. It was only $28 and it was a cool comfortable ride and now we're here. As soon as you get there what people tell you to do is to try to prepare for altitude change because we're about 13,000 feet above ground and they gave us this coca leaves to help with the altitude sickness and this was only one four soles. All right so as soon as we got here we had to eat at a local recommendation which is La Nueva Champa and the food is fantastic. I got some soup. Very good. A cocoa tea. I got a steak, fries, potatoes, rice, egg. Give me a bit of everything. It's live performance here and Liv what did you get? So we actually didn't have cocoa tea. We had mata? What was it? Muña. Muña tea and I actually had an omelet that was so good. Like really good. It was huge. Had a lot of vegetables in it and rice as well as french fries as well. All right so we just pulled up to the main square in Cusco and it looks like it's a celebration today. We asked and they said it's El Fiesta de Carmen. I'm unsure who Carmen is but let's celebrate with them. This is super cool to get a cultural event here on our first day. Okay and we're now about to board on a bus to go from Cusco to Aleante Tambo. Sorry if I put you that way. Let's go. It's about a two hour ride so let's head and look at these beautiful views here. We're almost at Sacred Valley now. All right and we just got here at Aleante Tambo. Sorry I keep butchering it. We're right here. We're gonna wait for our train to then go to Aguas Calientes. Here is a good place because there's a ton of shops where you can go get your traditional ponchos. So we got these right here. We paid 110 soles for the two of us so pretty good I think and let's head out. So we just got off the train and we're in Aguas Calientes. It's night time here and it's a beautiful town. It's dark right now so you can't really see the landscape but we looked up and we saw a shadow of a mountain that looked humongous. So we'll see. And we just checked in our place at El Tambo. Nice quaint hotel room. It'll do it for the night. It's a bathroom. Cool. So what's really surprising to me is that it's so lively right now. I mean all the restaurants are open. A lot of people out here are trying to get food and stuff so. So what do we have today? So we're walking on the avenue that our host at our hotel recommended and we saw this guy giving out signs so we felt bad for him so we decided to eat here but the food looks really good actually. One thing that was recommended to me by our Peruvian friends, Alejandra, is Lomo Saltado which is a Peruvian dish but I got it with alpaca. What? So in preparation for Machu Picchu tomorrow, I got the alpaca. Okay first bite, first impression. If I see one of them tomorrow, I'm taking them back and I'm cooking them up. And Liv also got the fried rice. You know Liv, she gotta get fried rice. They didn't have shrimp so she had to get fried rice. Highly recommend coming in here because the food is really good honestly. Good morning, good morning. It is our second day up here in the mountains and it's currently eight o'clock. We're gonna go and eat breakfast and head to Machu Picchu today. Yesterday we came at night and we didn't realize how really beautiful it is here but just look at this when I walk. Alright so we just got our bus tickets. It was about $24 per person round trip to go from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu and back. We got about 30 minutes to spare until we go to Machu Picchu so we just got breakfast at Montu restaurant and it was pretty good. I got a chicken and egg sandwich and Olivia got scrambled eggs, plantains, french fries and rice and a coffee. We were super excited to take the bus up to one of the seven wonders of the world, Machu Picchu. We also had an amazing guide Miguel who brought the wonder to life. In total, it took us around three hours to explore the ruins and we were blessed to have a bright and sunny day. These pajos were good for photos but too hot to walk around with. We made an entire video on how to save money, a ton of helpful tips and our full experience on Machu Picchu linked in the description. Alright so we just got off the bus here and we walked up the main street where all the restaurants are and we stopped at I believe it's called Peruvian Flavor because they had a really good special. It's a three course meal for 18 soles which is like five dollars per person. Liv got the quinoa soup with vegetables and I think it has some chicken in it and also got some fried rice and vegetables and for dessert I got a banana with chocolate. And I got the trout because I hear that the trout here is local to Aguas Calientes and it's a little spicy but really good and I also got the cream of chicken soup as well. Alright and now we're in the artesano market here in Aguas Calientes and it's really cool here. You can come you can negotiate prices and get something good to take back home or to rock for yourself. But we want to collect as many stamps as we can so we are here at the ministry of culture and here they actually have an official Machu Picchu stamp so you can literally use this and stamp your passport. So I'm gonna do it. So we just were walking along the tracks and we saw a really cool fruit ice cream store and everything is made out of fruit and it seemed really good. We got the chimoya which is like soursop and avocado and dulce de leche. It's really good. Alright so we just got to restaurant El Meridor. So pretty much we just walked up and down the street and this was the restaurant that was calling us. So pretty much they have a cool rooftop, well balcony seating. It's really cute, really great lookout and they have great menu items. Yeah so I came here really just because they had a special for a hamburger and Liv got a personal pizza. You know Liv only eats pizza. Because we're about to head back to Ollantaytambo. So we're gonna need some food for that ride because when we get there probably it's gonna be closed. So we're just getting off the bus. We made it here in Cusco and as soon as you get off you start to notice a couple things. The first thing is it's cold. Yeah so it gotta be like 30-40 degrees here. You see Liv got a hat. We got our ponchos, our jackets on because it is cold here. Yeah and not only that our walk to our hotel is supposed to be 17 minutes away but the altitude difference between here and Aguascaliente is significant. So we're walking here and we got to stop every couple blocks because our chest feels so tight. So just to be mindful for when you guys get here. And here's our place here. Quechua Hotel. We got this place for $23 a night. Nice, clean, comfortable for our stay here. Good morning, good morning. It's currently 5 30. We're heading to the Central District in Cusco because we got a ATV tour. So let's head out there now bright and early. We're tired. All right so we drove about one hour and we're in Cusco. Look at all these dope ATVs. I'm so excited to do this here guys. Got our helmets, got our gloves. Ready to ride out. Yeah she does it like an astronaut, right? All right so I guess I was supposed to ride with the visor down and my face looked mad crusty. All the dust is in my face. But we're at a point now where we're off the ATVs and we're going to walk the rest of the way now. All right and we just pulled up here to Moray. And this is beautiful. If you guys can see they have these perfect circles terraces. And this dates back all the way to the Incan times. And each one of the different circles has a different microclimate which they use for agriculture. So each one of them will have different vegetation and agriculture. And that's how they were able to have so many different species of corn, potatoes, and different crops. Super cool to see. So this site dates back to the ancient Incan times. But it was not discovered until about 70 years ago. So a lot of this stuff is still pretty well preserved. And there's three different ones. So they have the big one I just showed you. They have a medium one. And then they also have a small one here. Okay and we just pulled up to Maras de Incas which are the salt mines. And it's beautiful here. It was about 10 soles per person which is a little over two dollars. So stay tuned. We'll take you guys through. So the really cool thing about these Maras salt mines is that there's over 3,500 of them. And they're all family owned. These date back pre-Incan times. So the only way you can actually get Rupul is through marriage. So you can't go out and buy one. Now these salt mines, there's three different layers. There are three different types of salt. There's the regular table salt. They have like the Himalayan sea salt. And then they also have the like Epsom salt. Salt that you kind of bathe in for the medicinal purposes. So just really cool to be here. The salt that is here is naturally occurring from the mountains. And the salt pools are actually three times more salty than the ocean water. All right so we took a little siesta and we're back out on the road. I'm not gonna lie Cusco might have the weirdest temperature changes I've ever experienced in all my travels. When there's no sun it's cold. It was like 32 degrees this morning. And now you're in the sun and look. But at night you don't want to do it. All right so for lunch here we ended up going to Chicha which is a world famous restaurant from Gaston. It was like a 20-minute wait which we were really surprised because we thought it'd be a longer wait. But it's like three o'clock on a Monday. The drinks are phenomenal. We both got mocktails. I think it's called Mia Morada. So it has Chicha Morada in it which is from the purple corn as well as some coconut and lime. I got a Chicha Morada frozen. And I also got, you know I'm Jamaican so I had to get the oxtail stew. I saw it on the menu. And then it also has the fettuccine. It is phenomenal. So much flavors in this. This might be my favorite dish that I've had so far here. And for Liv. So I got the spaghetti with shrimp and it's absolutely delicious. It's cooked to perfection and I'm loving it. All right so we just walked to a street that has the 12-angle stone. And it is amazing the things that the Incan people were able to do here. So using no mortar or any cement they made these boulders on top of each other that just hold in place. And some of them the angles that they fit in are phenomenal to see how it all holds together. It's like a massive puzzle. Yeah this is Tetris times 10,000. So once again this altitude with the stairs with the climbing with the incline it does not mix well. So we're walking we're trying to pass the sunset but at the same time we're trying not to pass out. So let's head up and let's see what else is up here. All right so we just made it to the aqueduct. The Sapantiana Aqueduct. All right. It's beautiful here. The water flows right down and we're here around the time of sunset and we're the only ones here so beautiful. And right from the aqueduct you have some of the best views of the city. So I highly recommend coming here. All right and our next destination is the Temple of the Moon and it looked like we were really trying to go to the moon because we were going uphill seeing some crazy views and it got so crazy that even our uber couldn't go all the way because this car was stolen. So we had to get out. We're gonna see if we can walk to the Temple of the Moon. So we couldn't get to the Temple of the Moon in time for the sunset but that's what drones are for. That hike up this street is crazy so we just decided we're just gonna head back down. All right so we're here at night and we just pulled up to Sagrada which means sacred and we heard a lot of really good things about it and I'm not gonna lie it definitely is holding up to what everybody is saying. I got the Asabuco because I've never heard of it and it's a traditional Incan Peruvian dish and it is fantastic. Olivia got a veggie pizza but it's delicious just look at it. Buenos dias. It's our last day here in Cusco. Actually it's not even a real full day because we're actually in the taxi heading to the airport to head back to Lima tonight. So stay tuned now another travel day. All right so we just touched down in Lima and I'm so happy to be back. It's a lot easier to breathe here. I don't have any kind of a headache and a lot warmer in Lima. I'm excited for Lima. So the Airbnb is in a cool location because we're right by the Lima beach that's right over here and there's a lot of other condos that are here but this Airbnb is pretty nice. It's $33 a night and it has a nice kitchen. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms and just a beautiful ambiance here as well so I highly recommend coming here as well. All right and for lunch we just pulled up to Republica del Piso and it's really nice here. It's a beautiful ambiance. They have all these different colors in their wall and they also have different specialties for the days of the week and the lunch specials as well so it was pretty inexpensive for our time here as well. I got the criollo which is like a chicken stir-fry noodle. It was pretty good and Liv and I both got virgin cocktails and they were pretty good as well. You know Liv got really two options of stuff she eats. The shrimp and rice, vegetable shrimp rice and margarita pizza. That's more than two options and it wasn't a pizza. It was actually a flatbread. So she got a cheese flatbread. No it was pesto. It had pesto, it had cheese, it had tomato, it had some other seasonings on top. It was good. She got a cheese pizza. And we just made it here to the Barranco district which is a famous area in Lima and it's beautiful here. They have really nice architecture, these beautiful mansion looking buildings, bright colors and so much beautiful street art here. They even got my boy Lebron James but the reason why Liv wanted to come here was to go see this bridge. So we go here looking for this bridge and guess what? It's closed but it's okay but it's still beautiful. Definitely beautiful. Love it here. So artsy. So when you walk all the way down the street that's underneath the bridge's sides it'll lead you all the way to this beautiful oceanfront view. You can watch all the people surfing and it's just really nice. Yeah it has a lot of waves that are on the shore but they're not so bad and aggressive and there's a lot of people that are out here surfing today and the best part about it is because it's a lot more sunny today the water looks so much better. Much bluer. I'm gonna tell you guys something really funny about Olivia. Whenever we go down somewhere I just know my head coming back up is gonna be brutal for her. So what she does is she acts like she takes out the camera and tries to take pictures. She really just wants a break. Oh yeah yeah she just wants a break. So right in the heart of Bronco district is creme de la creme which is a really highly recommended gelato place and we ended up getting the lucuma and the blueberry cheesecake flavor. So lucuma is actually a local fruit in Peru so had to try that and I couldn't resist the cheesecake so let's try it. All right so the sun just set we are here in Lima's main square. We just stopped by here all the way at churros de San Francisco because we hear they're supposed to have the best churros in all of Lima. It seems like it the line was extremely long. Yep but we got all three flavors that they had. There's three soles per churro so we're excited to try these out. So right down the street from the churros place is Plaza de Armas and this is pretty much a huge huge building huge square and they do the changing of the guards I think around 12 o'clock every day so that'd be something really cool to see but of course we're here at night. So what's also really cool about Plaza de Armas is it's a huge square with a lot of different lights and beautiful buildings that surround it and there's tons of people here so it's perfect to people watch and there's a beautiful water fountain in the middle that you can see all the way around. All right so we're here at Parque de Aguas and every night at 7 15 8 15 and 9 10 pm they'll have a really cool water show where they have huge water fountains with lots of different lights and music playing so it's really cool. We walked all the way here just to see this and it was only four soles so check it out. We made it here at Siete Sopas or the seven soups because they're known for their seven soups. So I'm not a big soup person but it was highly recommended to me so I definitely had to come here. It was a long line but we just got a food I got through the Criolla which I'm not even sure what it is but it was recommended to me and it is fantastic lots of flavor in it. Unfortunately they don't have any vegetarian options in their classic soups and only on Wednesdays they have minestrone soup so Liv is here eating french fries and ketchup so here we have. All right and we just made it back to the airport and man Peru was a dream. It was one of our bucket list countries and for good reason and unfortunately we weren't able to see everything so what that means is we will definitely be back but thank you guys so much for checking out our channel. Please be sure to like comment and subscribe and we'll see you guys on the next one.