Peru

Cusco — breathe and slow down at three thousand meters in the Andes. The hands of old Quechua women at Pisac's colored market stalls, the terraced agriculture of the Sacred Valley, the illusion of finding the world's best-known lost city on the misty footpaths of Machu Picchu, Lima's smoke-colored evenings facing the Pacific. One trip, but an unforgettable feeling of altitude — both in the mountains and culturally. The Inca past is on every corner, but a living past, not a museum.