From Denver to the Andes: Joe's Adventure in Peru

At Outdoor Element, we’re all about making outdoor adventures exciting and stress-free with the right gear. But gear is only part of the story—real adventure happens when you step outside and experience something new. Recently, Joe, our CFO and all-around adventurer, took an amazing trip to Peru with his wife, Angela. They crossed a big item off their bucket list: Machu Picchu. Joe’s trip had a little bit of everything—beautiful sights, great food, and a few funny mishaps. It’s the kind of story that inspires us to get out there and explore. Here it is, straight from Joe:

Peru-Machu Picchu Trip 

October 2024 Angela and I knocked off another bucket list item – Machu Picchu. The trip was fabulous. We had a marvelous time, even with a few minor mishaps. Here is what we did and what we would have done differently.

We booked with UTO Vacations. Overall, I was pleased with UTO. The price was good and the service was on par. The communication was decent, but could have been a little clearer on some points. They could have been a little more thoughtful with our last night hotel stay (more on that later). Otherwise, UTO was good enough that I would use them again.

Our UTO-booked tour was mostly on our own, which I like. We had a guide the first day at Machu Picchu, a few rides included, and our flights and hotels were included. The rest was up to us. A little adventure without the hassles. I originally booked the tour to start from Florida, but then paid USD $500pp to change to Denver so we didn’t have to worry about separate flights to FL. Good call.

Weather was a little cool in Peru, so we didn’t bother packing shorts, which is good since Peruvians evidently don’t wear shorts much, even in the hot summers. My wife and I packed everything we would need into 2 personal-sized backpacks and 1 carry-on luggage. We pack light. And, bags were not included in our airfare, so why not save a few bucks.

We flew Costa Airlines from DEN – LIM with a 3-hour layover in PTY (Panama City). It was our first time on Costa – not great, but not bad. Seats were a little small and tight, food was edible but not a culinary delight, service was adequate. Some planes had charging sockets at every seat and device holders on the seat-backs. We watched media on our own devices with their wifi.

We flew Sky Airlines in Peru from Lima to Cusco. They were maybe a step above Spirit or Frontier, not too bad though. USD$27 for a carry-on bag.

Our cell phones are with Xfinity and we don’t have international calling included. I thought about bringing an older unlocked phone and getting a sim card. In hindsight, that would have been worth the little money (maybe around USD$25) and added hassle to get set up, but we made do with wifi. We downloaded offline Google maps, which was fabulous.

We were both surprised how few people in Peru spoke English, even at the touristy spots. Crazy. I need to brush up on minimal Spanish. We did OK.

Food was amazing, as we anticipated for Peru. For reference, $1 USD = 3.73 Soles. Most places accept credit card which was convenient. Always pay in local currency (soles) since you will get a better exchange rate from the CC company. We only exchanged US$260 cash at airport and pretty much spent it all by the last day.

Here is our itinerary:

Day 1 Fri: took a late, red-eye flight out of DEN to LIM via PTY. Plenty of good food options in PTY.

Day 2 Sat: arrived Lima around early afternoon. Arranged a Taxi inside the airport to take us to our hotel, Hotel El Tambo in the nice Mira Flores district, for about $65 soles (we didn’t find out yet that Uber works like a charm in Peru). This hotel was clean, quiet, in a good area, and had a decent

breakfast. We really liked the hotel. They helped us arrange a really nice tour for that afternoon (gave us about 20 minutes to relax before heading out). We paid a little premium to go through the hotel, but given it was last minute that was fine, US$38pp. If I had known better and planned ahead I would have booked something through Klook.com. The tour was a good choice. We asked for a recommendation for dinner and ended up at Panchita where we ate some Cuy – Guinea Pig. Overall the food here was fantastic, $265 soles for us two (cuy was $128). The Cuy was pricey and just OK, not worth the money. If you want to try Cuy, wait until you are in Cusco – cheaper and better, but still on the pricey side for Peru. We walked from Panchita to hotel following Google offline maps. Piece of cake.

 

Day 3 Sun: We went to church in the morning and then walked around the Barranco neighborhood. That was quite nice. We stopped in a local grocery store – always fun to see what they offer and how they offer it.

Milk was sold in bags (in addition to bottles & cartons) – interesting. The streets were very clean – no trash around. We took a taxi back to the airport (the hotel arranged it for us, $80 soles) for our flight to Cusco via Sky Air (one bag cost USD$27). We deplaned on the tarmac and it was a little windy and chilly up at 11,000 feet elevation (24^th highest elevation commercial airport in the world). I misread our tour itinerary (it showed “Private | Transfer from…”, which I misread as we needed to arrange) and we paid for a taxi to bring us to our hotel. Evidently there was someone waiting at the airport for us. Oops. We stayed at the San Francisco Plaza Hotel (room 302) right in the old district. Thumbs up – large rooms, good service, OK breakfast, quiet, clean, safe, within walking distance from most things you want to see right in Cusco. The restaurant we wanted was closed, so we stumbled into a small roasted chicken restaurant Grimaldos where we were the only gringos. Yummy and cheap ($34 soles for enough food for us to eat and share with others in there), right on a smaller Plaza San Francisco. We even stumbled on an artisan market in the plaza which was fun.

 

Day 4 Mon: We had previously booked a full-day Sacred Valley tour on klook.com for around $29pp. The tour was 6 am to 6 pm. Another minor mishap here.

Our hotel was just outside of the pickup area, so I arranged for us to be picked up at a different hotel just 3 minute walk away. Nobody came to get us and I didn’t have cell service. Fortunately, the young lady at that hotel called the tour people for us and they sent a taxi to pick us up to join our group. The tour people evidently did this with another couple, since we waited a few minutes after we joined the group for the other couple to arrive. We then started our tour with about 12 other people from all over – all Spanish speakers except us. Our tour guide did double duty for us in English. He was great. We did have to buy a “park pass” to get into the sites – not included in our $29 tour fee. We bought the 4-site tourist ticket which we needed for that day (circuit 3: Chinchero, Moray, Ollantaytambo, Pisaq), $70 soles pp.

For a little more ($130 pp), we should have bought the 16-site pass that is good for 10 days as that includes Sacsayhuaman, a bunch of museums and more. Our day-tour was fantastic, included lunch with was OK but at a cool restaurant overlooking the city. The sights were great. I would highly recommend this tour despite our little mishap. We got back to town a little late and then hurried to meet some friends of ours at a great, new restaurant Suyu. We had a wonderful 7 course dinner with dessert and a native dance show. Two thumbs up.

  

 

Day 5 Tue: We had planned to sleep in a little and then walk to the train station for the train to Aguas Calientes which is just below Machu Picchu. Here is our third minor mishap. I misread our tour itinerary again. We got a call at 6:05 am from the front desk saying our ride to the train station was here. That woke us up in a hurry. Luckily we mostly packed the night before, so we got up, quickly showered, dressed and packed everything up in 10 minutes. We left some luggage at the hotel since we stayed there again later in the week. Our ride took us and one other couple to the right train station Ollantaytambo almost 2 hours away. The train station in town that I was planning to go to was the wrong one – that train would have stopped at every little town along the way and it would have taken us forever to get to Aguas Calientes.

We got to the Ollantaytambo station in time, waited about 30 minutes on a cool, old platform, then hopped on our PeruRail train for the 1.5 hour ride to Aguas Calientes – nice, tiny mountain town of 6,000 people that most likely only exists because of the Machu Picchu tourists. After meeting our guide, grabbing lunch and checking into our hotel, we hopped on a bus up to Machu Picchu for our 1:00 pm entrance time. There is a road built solely for the buses to bring up tourists. It goes straight up 1,400 feet of elevation gain via lots of switchbacks. Fun. Machu Picchu is absolutely amazing. We did circuit 2 this day with our guide.

He was very passionate and fun – knew all the great photo spots. There were lots of people, but we still enjoyed it very much. Breathtaking. We stayed up there a few hours. By the time we were ready to come down (just a little before they were closing it down for the day) there were no lines for the bus. Earlier there were long lines. We stayed at the Wirococha Inn Hotel – small rooms, decent breakfast, clean, adequate. Lunch prior to Machu Picchu was at Tunawa, $174 soles, and afterwards dinner at The Peruvian Flavor, $190 soles (total for 4 people each meal)

 

Day 6 Wed: We got up early, ate breakfast at the hotel, and headed back up to Machu Picchu for our 6:00 am entrance – first one of the day. No problem getting on a bus early. We took circuit 3 today which is much less crowded. We felt like we had the place to ourselves at times. We had awesome weather up at Machu Picchu both days despite a little rain back at the town. Again, this place is absolutely breathtaking and amazing. We walked around for a few hours taking only a few pictures since we took many the day before. Some people hike up or down and some people hike the Inca Trail 4 days to get here. I would love that, but just didn’t have the time. In hindsight, it might have been fun to hike down one of the days. We talked with people who rode the bus up and hiked down so they didn’t have to wait in the long afternoon lines for the bus down. Food in town was good. It is Peru after all. Big market to buy all sorts of souvenirs. After coming down from Machu Picchu we still had a few hours to kill and sat down and watched the locals playing a competitive game of soccer (football).

These dad-bod dudes were moving. I was impressed. The train back down was a little longer, over 2.5 hours, since it stopped at several small mountain stations along the way. Our driver was waiting for us when we got to the train station and drove us the almost 2 hours back to Cusco. Pretty drive. Quick dinner at Grimaldos again – good chicken, 48.5 soles for the two of us.

 

 

Day 7 Thu: We had planned a relaxing day to just walk around at our leisure. As we were walking near San Cristobal cathedral, we were approached by someone who talked us into taking his horse-riding adventure, $330 soles for us two.

We hopped in his car, drove up the mountain a little to a village where we got to pet some Al Paccas and Llamas. Here we paid for the horseback ride adventure because we needed to pay with credit card (for a 10% premium) instead of cash. Then he drove us to where the horses were and a young guide who didn’t speak English led us around, our private guide. We saw some ruins and did some caving. We had a great time, lasted just a few hours. After the horse riding (a couple hours) they drove us to the Cristo Blanco to end our tour. We walked around, then down to Saqsaywaman (“sexy woman”) and then started walking back to town. On the way down we came across a great little gelateria called Voghera. We met the owner from Italy. Great people and yummy gelato. The owner is an Italian-trained chef so we asked his recommendation for the best Peruvian food in Cusco. He said Limo Sushi Bar or The Market. We didn’t try either since we already had plans, but next time… We felt safe walking wherever we went.

The plazas were a lot of fun. Back in town, we met up with our friends who live in Cusco. We then did a little foodie tour starting at the San Pedro Market for some fresh fruit drinks, then ate Cow Heart from a street vendor (very tasty) and other fun stuff. We finished off with an amazing dinner at Mare – a tiny restaurant with great food and reasonable prices.

 

Day 8 Fri: We started out with a very yummy breakfast at the San Pedro Market – more fresh fruit smoothies, Chicharron sandwich, butifarres and a large avocado.

Cheap and very yummy. Great place – very local vibe, authentic food, also has a large merchandise market, fruit and veggie market, and meat market. Really fun to walk around. We then walked around town and had a very nice casual day before taking an Uber to the airport for our flight back to Lima. The flight was delayed so we didn’t get in until after 8:00 pm. We had an hour Uber ride to the Hotel El Tambo 1 again (same hotel we stayed at earlier). We called it an early night since we had an early flight.

Day 9 Sat: early 6am flight home to DEN via Panama City. Given that we had an early flight out and flew into Lima late the night before, it would have been really nice for our tour company to have booked us a hotel much closer to the airport. I get that they want to use the same hotels, but in this case it was silly to get into Lima 9 pm, drive 1 hour to hotel, sleep a few hours, leave hotel at 3 am to make our flight from Lima on time. I would have gladly paid a little more to stay at the airport and avoid a couple hours in an Uber.

This was a great trip. Machu Picchu lived up to expectations. Weather was good. Tour arrangements were good. A few things could have been improved, but overall a wonderful time.

 

 

Joe’s adventure in Peru is a great reminder that the best trips are the ones where you embrace the journey, not just the destination. From stunning views at Machu Picchu to trying local food (and even horseback riding), his trip shows that every moment—planned or unplanned—can turn into a memory worth sharing.

At Outdoor Element, we want to help you be ready for anything, whether you’re exploring ancient ruins or just hanging out around a campfire. Joe’s story is proof that all you need is a sense of adventure and the right mindset to make it all worthwhile. Here’s to more adventures that keep us curious and connected to the outdoors!