Starting with the Pacific coast, one of the driest places on earth where rain is almost unknown except for the devastating storms which happen once in a lifetime, and which may well be responsible for wiping out successive civilisations….
Continuing to the thin, pure air of the Highlands which brightens every colour, and the local people revel in this, wearing the brightest of patterns in joyous colours.
Where guinea pig is a delicacy, tamales (thick rissoles of maize meal) are a staple dish and the drink everyone wants to learn how to make is a pisco sour.
For the uninitiated, as David Drew writes, Peru normally means the Incas, an extraordinarily well organised society that tamed their harsh environment and produced a uniquely formidable architecture in meticulously fitted stone. But in reality their grip on the area was short – some 100 years at most, and brutally cut short by the invading conquistadors.
For thousands of years before that, a variety of civilisations, each reaching heights more astounding than the last, had developed in Peru, and not just in the Highlands, but more significantly, along the long stretch of Pacific coastline. This is a strip of desert which runs for 1,000 miles through Peru and down into Chile where rain almost never falls.
By the first millennium BC, the peoples of the coastal valleys had learnt to irrigate the desert, transforming the river mouths into verdant oases that supported huge populations who built enormous constructions: temples, cities, vast palace compounds.
One of the great secrets that Andante’s travellers come to share is how untouched and little visited are most of the stupendous archaeological sites of Peru. Standing on the sandy plain near Trujillo on Peru’s north coast, for example, where once stood a great city of the Moche people between the enormous pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, we hear how both structures are built like Russian dolls, one construction laid over another. You could be on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes in the late 19th century – such is the quiet, the air of mystery and the knowledge that so much remains to be discovered.
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The exciting excavations at the temple of the Moon, Trujillo, revealing vast new stucco panels from former temples, since each was built over the other, like Russian dolls
The same is true of Chan Chan with its great mud brick compounds (the biggest in the world) for the rulers of the Chimu. Each king building a fresh compound of his own next to his predecessor’s.
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In Chan Chan, the greatest adobe city on earth, each new ruler created his royal compound afresh, a neighbour to his predecessor’s.
The arid conditions of the desert preserve past generations and their artefacts in sometimes shockingly fresh condition. Walking through the cemeteries of El Brujo, for instance, human bones and woven fabrics emerge eerily from the blowing sand. Hundreds of years have passed since their burial, but their mummified remains and brilliant weaving is just dessicated. Great private and public collections of pots, mummies and vast quantities of textiles hve sat in display cases and museum stores for many years.
One of the greatest fascinations here, despite the arrival of the conquistadors, is the strong and detectable continuity from the pre-Columbian past to the present. In the more remote areas of the country (some of which we visit), traditional farming communities maintain a way of life and many basic beliefs which appear to have changed little since ancient times. And it is this very basic “human” connection with the past which makes a trip to Peru so intense and exciting. 
Andante guests (bottom left) concentrate on balancing as they walk alongside the salt pans. The pans are all individually owned and tended by local people.From the arid desert landscapes of the coast, with the majestic but eerie adobe ruins, the contrast could not be greater when you then arrive in the brilliant colours of the verdant Highlands of Peru. Landing at Cusco, a sign welcomes you which tells you that it is not Altitude Sickness which makes you feel giddy, it is being so close to heaven. And it might seem that there is much truth in this.
Much has been written about Cusco, The Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu, and I very much doubt that I could improve upon it here. Suffice it to say that it is all true. The air is clearer, the colours are brighter, the people more colourful. David’s local connections through working with the Cusichaca Trust mean that we are greeted by local villagers and invited to a potato tasting (there are hundreds of different varieties) in one of the villages famed for its weaving.
As well as the hundreds of different types of potato (of which we sample many), Peru produces a magnificent variety of maize cobs…These connections mean David also knows exactly how best to visit Machu Picchu – a first visit at the end of the afternoon when all the day trippers are returning and the site is quietly waiting nightfall, and then up before daybreak to ensure we are sitting waiting in the greyness of dawn to catch the first dramatic shafts of light as they strafe the iconic hillside opposite and illuminate the Inca village below. These are the things that memories are made of…
The mists rise as the day dawns over Machu Picchu. It is a magical moment – humming birds and butterflies suddenly appear from nowhere as one of the most dramatic sites in the world is lit up for another day.
Click here for the webpage for this tour
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