Peru

Cusco sits at 3,400 metres above sea level. Your first act upon landing — before unpacking, before going anywhere — is to drink coca leaf tea. The same plant chewed by Andean people for centuries as a mild stimulant and altitude remedy, brewed into a pale green tea that tastes faintly of grass and works faster than any pharmaceutical alternative. Every hotel, café, and restaurant in Cusco has it. Drink it constantly for the first 24 hours.

Spend Days 1 and 2 in Cusco proper — slowly. The city is extraordinarily beautiful: Inca stone foundations supporting Spanish colonial buildings, narrow cobblestone lanes, and the Plaza de Armas surrounded by cathedral facades that were built on top of Inca temples. Climb to Sacsayhuamán fortress at dawn before the crowds arrive. Wander the San Blas artisans' quarter. Eat as much as you want — the altitude suppresses appetite initially but the Andean food (ceviche, lomo saltado, causa) is exceptional.

The Inca Trail is the world's most famous trek — a 4-day, 43km route through cloud forest, high-altitude passes, and a series of Inca ruins that culminates in the Sun Gate at dawn, where Machu Picchu appears below you in the morning mist. The trail is limited to 500 people per day (including guides and porters) and permits sell out months in advance — sometimes a year ahead for peak season.

The route climbs to 4,215m at Dead Woman's Pass on Day 2 — genuinely hard after two days at 3,400m in Cusco. By Day 4, descending through the cloud forest in the dark with headtorches to reach the Sun Gate as the sun rises over Machu Picchu, the effort is entirely irrelevant. It is one of the great experiences in travel.

Machu Picchu is the 15th-century Inca citadel built at 2,430 metres in the cloud forest of the Andes — rediscovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911 and declared a Wonder of the World in 2007. It sits on a ridge above the Urubamba River, surrounded by cloud forest so dense it kept the citadel hidden from Spanish conquistadors entirely. The precision of the stonework — temples, terraces, and residential quarters fitted without mortar — is more impressive in person than any photograph suggests.

The single most important thing: take the first bus up at 5:30am. The citadel opens at 6am and the first hour — before the tour groups arrive — belongs to the people who got up early. The morning mist is in the valley below. The llamas are out. The light is extraordinary. By 9am the site is crowded; by 11am it feels like an airport. Get there first.

Huayna Picchu is the dramatic peak that rises directly above Machu Picchu — the one you see looming behind the citadel in every photograph. Hiking it requires a separate permit (only 400 per day, sold out months in advance) and about 90 minutes of near-vertical stone steps cut into the cliff face, with a 600-metre drop on the exposed sections and cables to grip on the steepest parts. It is legitimately vertiginous.

At the top — a small Inca temple at 2,720m — you look straight down at Machu Picchu laid out below you, the full geometry of the citadel visible from above for the first time. The Urubamba River curves around the base of the mountain. The cloud forest drops away in every direction. It is one of the finest viewpoints on Earth and completely worth the terror of getting there.

After a full day on the trail and Huayna Picchu, your legs have earned a hot stone massage. Inti Spa in Aguas Calientes is the finest spa in town — a 90-minute Inka massage using volcanic hot stones, Andean herbs, and techniques derived from traditional Quechua healing practices. The treatment includes a coca leaf and eucalyptus steam, followed by a full body massage that specifically addresses the muscle groups wrecked by 600 metres of near-vertical stone steps.

Aguas Calientes itself is a one-street town at the base of the mountain — nothing remarkable about it except that it sits in a pocket of jungle at 2,040m and the hot springs it's named for are genuinely restorative after the altitude of Cusco and the exertion of Machu Picchu.

The Peruvian Amazon in the Madre de Dios region — accessible from Puerto Maldonado — is one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth. The canopy is so dense that the trees generate their own weather: in the afternoon, clouds form from the moisture exhaled by the forest itself. Three nights in a jungle lodge gives you enough time to properly experience what the Amazon actually is rather than just scratching its surface.

Days follow the rhythms of the wildlife. Before dawn, you're in a canoe for the macaw clay lick — hundreds of parrots descending to mineral-rich riverbanks in a riot of colour and noise that is one of the most extraordinary wildlife spectacles on Earth. Morning walks with a guide who knows every sound and track. Canoe trips through flooded forest where giant river otters surface to observe you. Night walks with torches, spotting caimans by their eye-shine on the water. Pink river dolphins surfacing in the main channel. Howler monkeys at 5am that sound like the jungle itself is waking up.