When you step into Peru, you’d want to do so many things. Be an archaeologist and dig deeper in Machu Pichu. Be a surfer and ride Chicama and Pacasmayo, world’s largest ridable waves. Dune bash at Cerro Blanco. Trek to Cotahuasi Canyon, widely believed to be the deepest canyon in the world. Eat 3,000 different kinds of potatoes. Nearly 60 kinds of corn. A better idea is to chuck the usual and do the unusual in Peru.
Larco Museum
In Lima’s Ralph Larco Herrera Museum, the prude will cover his eyes and morality-clingers will run for the exit. A private museum housed in an 18th century vice-royal building built over a 7th century pyramid, the Museum has chronological galleries that provide an overview of 4,000 years of Peruvian pre-Columbian history that includes pottery, textile, jewellery. However, it is most known for one of the world’s largest collection of erotic pottery and ceramics. The sex-themed vessels are functional clay pots, with hollow chambers for holding liquid and a spout, typically in the form of a phallus, for pouring.
Nazca Lines
Picture this. You are flying above the towns of Nazca and Palpa (400 km south of Lima) and peep out of the aircraft window. Whoa! There’s a 440-ft condor, a 150-ft spider, a 310-ft hummingbird. Monkeys, Humans. Trees. Flowers. All etched in the brown desert nearly 2,000 years ago. These are the Nazca Lines, a series of lines and symbols including hundreds of geoglyphs (geometric lines), 70 zoomorphic designs of animals and birds, and a few phytomorphic motifs such as trees and flowers. Scholars are still debating the purpose of these lines. But you do not get into normative speculations. Hop into an aircraft, grab the window seat and peep at the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Paracas
Get up early, rub sleep off your eyes, take a boat to Ballastas Island – a marine reserve, where live countless pelicans, gulls, boobies, terns, penguins and sea lions. Here, you’ll find handsome sea lions lazing in the sun with a harem of doting females. Penguins waddling down the slopes. There are so many cormorants on the island that the mountains turn black with the colour of their feathers. On way to Ballastas, do not miss the gigantic candelabra geoglyph. In the evening, go dune-bashing. Gather courage and sandboard down the dunes. As the moon rises in the brown landscape, enjoy a picnic under the stars.
Rainbow Mountains
If you have a duff pair of lungs, give up the idea of trekking to the Vinicunca Mountain (Rainbow Mountain). It will take at least six days to cross five passes perched between 14,000-17,000 ft above sea level. You’ll beg for oxygen and the knees will creak. But if you manage the trek, it will be a once-in-a-lifetime walk through red mountains and marshy pampas where llamas and alpacas roam freely. At the end lie the magical mountains – painted hills stashed deep in the Andes.
Floating Island of Lake Titicaca
On the world’s highest navigable lake that sits in the shadow of the Andes, there’s a floating reed village. The ancient Uros people live on islands made of reeds that float around Lake Titicaca. Everything is made of reed – house, furniture, boats. Protected within the Bay of Puno, the floating islands house nearly 2,000 Uros who claim to have ‘black blood’, and are hence, immune to cold.