what's up guys this is lindsay and i'm alex and today we're going over some of the best places
to see in peru we have a lot of them we spent about six or seven months in peru we saw a decent
amount of things we didn't see everything but we found some hidden gems among other places that
you probably know so most of the things on this list we have actually seen and loved them and then
there's other ones we didn't get to that we heard were incredible so we added them to this list as
well all right let's get started the first one is visit a rainbow mountain so there are at least
three well-known rainbow mountains in peru right now the main one is vinicunka and then
there's palgoyo and there's a third one they just discovered but make sure you see one of these they
are beautiful we went to vinacooka so vinikunka is probably the one that you have all heard about
it's been pretty famous for the last five years since it was discovered and it looks
like it has seven colors but it actually only has three so it's a mountain with tons of colors
the name says it all but it's gorgeous make sure when you visit the rainbow mountains that
you are well acclimated to the altitude otherwise you may not feel the greatest
all right the next one is the mars salt mines that's a good one this was one of our favorite
places really beautiful you'll never see a place quite like this so there are thousands
of salt pans you'll see that they look like little bathtubs filled with like a white
murky water sometimes they're even different colors like a pink ish color and this is where
you'll get the famous mara salt sometimes the salt is pink sometimes it's a little more white
but it's it's famous salt and has numerous health benefits and but that's just the salt we mostly
came there for the view so depending on the time of the year the salt pans will be different colors
sometimes it'll be more pink like alex said but during certain months it's more of a white color
the interesting thing about this place is that a lot of the salt pans are actually owned by
families so it's not just one establishment they mine their own salt and they sell it
so if you want some amazing pictures amazing views definitely check out mario's salt mines and you'll
love it and that leads us to morai runes a lot of people do the salt mines and the morai runes
in the same day so the morai runes are these circular terraces these runes and it's amazing
inca terraces yes alex knows a lot more about the history i have a bad map
but whoa don't put that pressure on so you'll see these circular amphitheater-like terraces that's
actually much bigger in person and just amazing it's hard to believe that the inca made these
but what's cool about them is it was kind of like an inca agricultural experiment or
so they think so there is a 15 degree difference between the top and the bottom of these terraces
which meant that they could cultivate different crops and plants at different levels to varying
degrees so that they could get different kinds of foods out of them pretty cool because that
must have been 500 years ago so you're gonna see runes and terraces all over peru but these are
very unique because like i said they're circular so we didn't see any other terraces like that
so the next one is keswatchakta bridge that is a quechua word queswachaka bridge is an
inca bridge it's a rope bridge and it's kind of what seems like in the middle of nowhere
and this is the only inca rope bridge that's still standing today because the town around
it or multiple towns and community members around the area every year they go in and they continue
to keep the tradition going so they maintained the bridge using the same technique they used a long
time ago just with this grass so when they weave the grass together it actually becomes very strong
and that's what they use to keep this bridge going so that's pretty cool because there is no place
like this it's one of a kind and if you get the chance you should see this when you get to peru
next is wakachina this is a desert oasis there are the sand dunes and then in the middle of
the sand dunes there's this little town and it's really fun because you can take these
dune buggies through the sand dunes and it's pretty much like a roller coaster ride these
guys go super fast up and down the hills and you get to do some sand boarding so you go on this
board that looks like a snowboard and you go down these sand dunes and you go pretty fast
so this place is pretty unique just looking at it look at this drone shot you just have a
desert of dunes for miles and miles and then this little town in the middle of nowhere that
surrounds a tiny little lake and so it looks like a mirage that you just came upon in the desert
yeah it's beautiful make sure if you go that you stay for sunset and run down the sand dune at the
end that's what we did pretty fun okay the next one is sky lodge adventure suites so this is a
unique hotel that is put on the side of a cliff these pods that are on the side of a mountain
so what you do is you climb to get to these so you get a little bit of rock climbing in there
you get to sleep in these overnight and you're just hanging on the side of a cliff there are four
pods up there so usually you'll go up with other people and you get to have dinner in this little
restaurant which is also a pod that's just hanging on the side of the cliff so it might be one of the
only times that you get the chance to say you stayed in a hotel that's actually hanging mm-hmm
and then you can zipline down the next morning to get to the bottom of the cliff so if you like
adventure if you like unique experiences this would definitely be for you it is in the town of
tambo and really quick we just wanted to say that any of these things that you're seeing right here
we have videos about all of these so if you go to our channel go to the peru videos you can find the
full version of for example sky lodge the whole experience or morai ruins or any of these places
we have a ton of videos from peru so check out the playlist after this all right so the next one is
parakas parakas is a national reserve so kind of like a national park some say that it's like
the galapagos islands but it's a budget-friendly alternative so you can see wildlife if you take
the tour you'll go around on a boat you'll take a bus and you'll see some beaches you'll see sea
lions penguins possibly all types of bird life and parakas is a coastal little beach town you'll
be situated with amazing food and great views of the ocean all right the next one is cuzco
is just a city i'm sure you've heard of it but we grew to love cusco it's one of the most beautiful
cities in the world we spent a lot of time there and there's a lot to do just around cuzco
cusco is kind of the center of the sacred valley where some of our favorite experiences were
so that whole area of peru we suggest you spend some time because there's so much to do there
but cusco has a city beautiful surrounded by mountains the architecture is gorgeous inca walls
so a lot of these things that we are mentioning in this video are day trips from cusco or at
least closer to cusco so definitely go there um there's a lot of great restaurants like alex said
a lot of inca walls original ankle walls there are some incan sights it's a beautiful city to just
walk around because it's just so good looking just the cobblestone streets the small alleyways
inca walls everywhere it's a very old city extremely old and that's why we put on this list
another great place you're going to want to check out is asangate so it is this huge glacier there's
a lot of glacial lakes around there and hot springs a lot of people do around a five-day trek
through asangate we personally did not get to go to austin gate but that was one of the top things
on our list we just didn't make it but it is beautiful okay the next one is machu picchu
of course you've heard about this one it's one of the seven wonders of the world unfortunately
we weren't able to go we were in peru during covid and it was closed the whole time that we were
there so we didn't get to go but we had to put it on this list it should be number one on any list
probably and you know the rest another great place you're going to want to check out is kinsakocha
lakes this is a great day trip from pisac so kitsakocha has a few different lakes and you're
going to be able to see a ton of alpaca llamas these lakes that are kind of situated up in the
mountain and there's really not a lot of people there at least when we went there were not any
people it was just us on this little trek around looking for these lakes one of these lakes is a
bright blue like turquoise and it's kind of hidden in the back so you go up a mountain and it's just
a mountain lake that's just hidden back there it's beautiful yeah and i think if we could do it again
what we would have done is brought like a picnic or something because it's not the easiest hike
up there and not a lot of people are able to make it up so if you do spend a little bit of
time there enjoy the scenery since you did all the work to get up there we thought it was gorgeous
so if you stay in p-sac this is definitely one of the top things to do another great day trip
that you can take from pisac are the laras hot springs again something we didn't get a chance
to do but we heard a lot of amazing things who doesn't love hot springs with amazing views
you can take a collective to get there or i believe there's a way you can actually hike
there as well so do some research figure out what works best for you but sounds amazing the next one
is so these are sculptures that are cut out of a mountainside just outside of cuzco it might
even still be within cusco but you have to take a taxi or go on a hike for a little while to get
outside of the city to get to these and so these are modern sculptures a lot of the things in cusco
are very old they're a lot of the sites are inca sites or prince that you're gonna see this is
something that is modern day and the artist is actually currently still working on them
but they're amazing to see up close we actually got to meet the artists while
we were there because we were the only ones there and he came to work and so we talked to
him a little bit about it and he showed us how he actually like hand carves and chisels out
the stone to make these figures so a lot of the figures are animals they're huge and amazing
okay so the next one is the 12 angled stone this one is also in cuzco but actually in the center of
the historic district pretty much so it's easy to find it's by asunta which is our favorite
souvenir shop there another we should put on the list but the 12 angle stone is exactly that there
are inka walls all over the city of cusco and they're amazing to look at but this particular
stone is famous because it has 12 angles to it and what's amazing about the 12 angled stone is
somehow mysteriously the inca made it so that all the stones fit on all those angles where you can't
even fit a piece of paper in between them they are they fit together like a puzzle perfectly and it's
amazing because the inka we don't know how they did that they didn't have machinery and it remains
a mystery so definitely check that out that leads us to the next one in cusco saksai woman
basically this is an incan fortress and it's full of inca stones that fit together just like
kind of like the 12 angled stone also it provides a great view of cusco the city it's gorgeous
so that one pretty much is in cuzco so if you're in the historic district you can just
walk right up to saksay woman and you have a huge site there then you can walk around
so that's awesome it's one of the most accessible sites that you can see when you're in cuzco okay
next is te tambo so oyente tambo is a town in the sacred valley and it actually became
pretty much our favorite place in peru it's a beautiful town a small town that's just
surrounded by these ruins these inca ruins and sights you can see them from the center
everywhere around you and you can hike up to them and you can see a lot from oyente tambo
so we think this town in general is actually a hidden gem a lot of people use this town as a way
to just get to machu picchu but actually we would recommend spending a good chunk of time there
it's a cute little town and there's actually a lot of sights to see and we fell in love with
it and it's very underrated so you actually might not have a ton of people at these different sites
near there lots of hiking great views and while we're talking about that i wanted
to separate this one and this one is sun gate so sun gate is an inca ruin that is
kind of near oyente tombo but it takes a while to get there we actually took some horses up there
and it took six hours round trip to get there so it's not easily accessible which is part of the
appeal when you get up there there probably won't be anybody else or at least many people up there
and where the inca put this it's just it's just like a doorway these days that's what it
looks like a doorway at the top of a mountain with a huge glacier behind it and you're just
surrounded by mountains and nature it is an epic place you feel the energy when you're there and
that's probably why they placed this doorway there so the views are one of the main appeals
but the hike itself is actually pretty nice as well you are going to get to see some alpaca some
ingan tombs on the way there you're also going to see the quarries now this is going to be a pretty
difficult hike it might not be for everyone if you do this like we'd recommend you leave pretty early
so now we're going to list a few of the places that we didn't get to but we would recommend
because we've heard amazing things so first one is going to be aquitos any kind of amazon jungle
it's going to be gorgeous you're going to get to see animals and it'll be an interesting experience
if you want to see the amazon from the peru perspective then this is one of the places
you can go and we heard so much about iquitos it was on our list unfortunately we couldn't go
due to covid because it was very bad there at the time but that is a place that you will want to go
next is humante lake this is a gorgeous lake a very pretty blue color surrounded by mountains
you're not gonna want to miss it the next one was one of the big ones on my list and that is
lake titicaca so lake titicaca is kind of on the border with bolivia so it's way down there
and you can get a lot of cultural experiences here there are people that live here that are kind of
untouched in a way they live in their own way traditional they don't really have a lot of modern
technology people coming in of course more and more tourists have been going around the area it's
a very interesting way to see how people could live around those lakes another area we didn't
get to that we wish we could have is the nazca lines so the nazca lines kind of remain a mystery
they're one of the highlights of peru and the best way to see them is from a plane up above so that
was one of the main reasons we didn't get to do it was the cost associated with the plane but we
heard it's worth it the next one is arequipa it is a beautiful white colonial city and it's actually
a very important city in peru we didn't know much about it until we actually arrived in peru so it's
somewhere that you should see but make sure you do your research because there's a lot to this place
so going along with arequipa don't miss colca canyon we've heard this is supposed to be
incredible and it's right next to erika so those are just some of our favorite places and places
that we think that you should see in peru but we know that there are a lot more so if you know
more than we missed make sure to leave them in comments down below so that we can talk about them
next time so that we can see them next time that we're in peru and film videos about them for you
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