Traveling Peru with a baby

We’re wrapping up two great weeks in Peru with a flight out tonight at 1:00 am from Lima. During that timespan, we’ve dined above the Pacific Ocean and enjoyed ancient ruins at Pisac, Machu Picchu, and Huaraz. We’ve seen majestic Andes peaks, pastoral landscapes, jungle habitat bursting with vegetation and very, very friendly Peruvians. For people who’ve trekked the Himalayas, it isn’t easy to impress us, but Peru did exactly that.

A country of extremes

This is a country of extremes…on the same day it is hot and humid in one place and cold and dry in another. It has some of the highest peaks in the Americas yet also owns part of the Amazon Basin. It has wealthy that we met at breakfast in the Lima Westin and poor that we saw nearly everywhere. Parts of the country are very homogenous and descended from the Incas while other parts are a mix you’d find in any international city.

Doing things in new ways

We met and hung out with a great couple a lot like ourselves (OK, younger and without children yet), Maciej and Angela from Australia, and broke our normal rule of going around on our own. We also proved to ourselves that you really can travel with a small child. Not only did Catherine do very well, she learned to crawl in Lima and by the time we returned to the capital city yesterday, climbs on everything she can find. Altitude was no problem for her and I’ve become the queen of washing bottles with a boiler.

What did we learn?

It makes sense to capture our lessons for our next trip, and here they are:

• Bring less clothing (and I didn’t bring a great deal). Laundry services are cheap and everywhere.
• Carry a way to boil water. Chris came down with the local Montezuma’s Revenge (call it Tupac Amaru’s Revenge?), meaning we could have been more careful. Buy bottled water and avoid whole fruit and vegetables you didn’t wash yourself.
• Bring a front-facing child carrier like the Britax or a backpack like the Osprey Poco. Taxis often don’t have seat belts and a car seat would be impractical. At least with the front-facing carrier, I could use the seat belt (if it existed) and attach myself to the seat.
• Strollers aren’t practical. The sidewalks, if they exist, are uneven and full of obstacles like people selling things, dogs and random holes.
• You can buy anything in Lima. Anything. It is a world-class city with the same products as in Los Angeles.
• It really, really helps to speak Spanish. English was in limited supply and Chris often needed to be the translator.