I recognize that I am a restaurant repeater. When I’m on vacation and I find some food I am super excited about, I will absolutely go back to the same restaurant instead of trying something new, and often even order the same dish. I’ve doubled up on tacos in Playa Del Carmen, frequented the same pastry shop a few times a week in Palaiseau when I studied abroad in France, and eaten a wild number of garbanzo burgers from a specific restaurant in La Serena. 

Cusco was no different – my mom and I found two restaurants that we were super excited about and went back to each of them twice in three days. One of them was called Avocado and everything on the menu included some form of avocado, from avocado fries to fish tacos to avocado smoothies. I’m a well-known avocado fiend and everything was incredibly tasty but even for me that was a lot of avocado at once. The plushies were adorable though.

The highlight of our time in Cusco was a day trip to Palccoyo Mountain. The normal day trip is to Rainbow Mountain, also known as the Montaña de Siete Colores, which is famous for the layers of different colors that can be seen in the mountain. Palccoyo Mountain is the less crowded version, and involves a bit less of a hike, which was nice as we were just getting used to the high altitude.

The mountain was a bit of a trek from Cusco (3-hour drive) and involved a 4 am wakeup but I thought it was very stunning and very worth it. The hike itself wasn’t too long but we made it to almost 5000 meters altitude (they really could have just rounded up on the sign) which was the highest point of the trip for us. We also saw a bunch of alpacas and walked through a “stone forest” which was a cool geographical feature of giant slanted pointy stones jutting out of the top of the mountain.

I also just loved the vibe of the downtown area of Cusco. Small cobblestone streets, colorful flowers and paintings, tasty food, interesting local museums, and cool shops made it a fun place to just wander around. We did a chocolate-making class and browsed most of the museums and the big local market but with more time I would have loved to do a cooking class as well, and maybe a pisco tasting. 

Because of the high altitude, it took us a day or so to get our energy back once we arrived (Cusco is just over 11,000 ft). But in general I was stoked by how little my mom and I were affected by the altitude compared to what I had anticipated. Sure, we got a little more winded walking around town, but never felt sick or anything. The Andean mint tea (muña) definitely helped. So did the coca leaf tea which everyone swears by but I didn’t think it was particularly tasty and also chewing the straight-up leaves was kind of gross. But traditions are traditions for a reason and it’s worth a try if you ever go.