Visiting Peru was an 11-day family adventure. After taking a three-night cruise on the Amazon River and embarking on jungle walks, we flew from Iquitos to Lima to Cuzco, to reach the Sacred Valley, where we visited the World Heritage site of Machu Picchu and much more.
We made our farewells to the attentive and talented staff on our river cruise, who had put on a musical show and had us all dancing on the Ava River Cruise Boat “living room” to celebrate our last night with them.
We took our last motorboat ride across the Amazon to catch a van for the 12 of us to begin our daylong flights to the Sacred Valley.
Our journey there took us on two planes — I was terrified because we were all on the planes together and I usually have our family separated for safety — and then arrived to a three-hour-long drive down winding roads in the dark of the night to finally reach the Aranwa Sacred Valley Hotel and Wellness Spa, which would be our five-night home. It was from where we visited the World Heritage site of Machu Picchu, the historic city of Cuzco and had a day of water rafting and ATV adventures.
We all slept well on the night of our arrival and were so tired that we skipped the 9 a.m. weaving demonstration the next morning. At noon, we had an extraordinary lakeside lunch with a Shaman, native dancers and musicians.
We were celebrating my grandson Hudson’s Bar Mitzvah and granddaughter Addy’s Bat Mitzvah, so the idea was to have a spiritual experience — but we never anticipated how powerful it would be. The Shaman blessed us all and performed an ancient ceremony that the Incas have done for centuries and our Shaman’s grandfather had passed the powerful, meaningful tradition to him.
We all felt the energy coming from him to us.
After the “ceremony,” we had the most delicious meal that was beautifully presented after being cooked on grills as we sat under a lakeside tent.
A unique and unexpected experience!
The next morning, we were off to the Seminario Cusco Gallery for a hands-on pottery-making class. The studio and shops are filled with the studio’s creations owned by Seminario and his wife. After a brief conversation with him, I texted my Peruvian friend Antoinette Bertello, who owns the Baker House in East Hampton and runs Peruvian fairs, and surprisingly learned that she had bought all her dishes at the hotel from Seminario’s gallery.
We made a plan for he and his wife to revisit the Hamptons!
The next day, we were all excited to visit the World Heritage site and to ride the Vista Dome Observatory Train that has glass windows and ceiling to take in the remarkable scenery on the way to our destination.
As we arrived, Addy’s first impression of the site was, ”Oh, it’s so small,” but as we got closer, we were all impressed with the intricate stone work that was built into the 15,000-foot-high Andean Mountain hillside before the invention of the wheel, tools or draft animals. Stones came from local quarries, carried by hand up the mountainous terrain. The engineers even understood the power of earthquakes and built the rock formation walls to accommodate such a disaster.
Interestingly, it’s believed the site was an Imperial estate for the Emperor and its construction and completion was a sign of his power.
Centuries later, power is still assigned to “real estate” and size of holdings. Fascinating how history repeats itself.
We did thousands of steps as recorded by my kids’ “step count app.”
I planted myself on a ledge and enjoyed the spectacular views with clear blue skies. The perfect weather enhanced our visit.
We headed back to our train and made our way back to our hotel to enjoy another superb Peruvian meal. This night’s dinner was a pizza-making treat.
The kids’ faces lit up when we walked into the restaurant with its big wood-burning fireplace and prepared dough offering multiple choices for toppings. It was our “home away from home” meal.
A joyous New Year’s Eve meal after exploring historic Cuzco capped our magical, celebratory week in which all 12 of us loved each other and the time spent together — especially me!
Thank you, Stephanie Steen, for planning our family adventure.
