Located on the cliff tops above the Costa Verde, the Park of Love provides a grand view of the Lima coastline. It’s one of the best known parks in Lima’s upscale Miraflores district and was a great place to hang out and relax after arriving in Lima. The views were a little hazy, but the ornately decorated wall that lined the cliff side of the park created a beautiful contrast with the gray horizon. Every few minutes a paraglider would drift by overhead, riding the updraft from the coastal breeze.

Almost every evening, the Parque de la Reserva comes alive with a beautifully lit water fountain display. Several of the displays are composed of numerous streams of water shooting directly out of the pavement and people, especially children, enjoy standing, running, and playing in them. For me, it became an excellent place to get some fun and interesting photos.

The Ballestas Islands, located just off the coast of the Paracas peninsula, are a mecca for seabirds and sea lions. Almost every inch of these small islands is inhabited by marine wildlife. A morning boat tour around the islands gave me an opportunity to get some good shots of Humboldt Penguins, sea lions, pelicans, Peruvian boobies, and Guanay cormorants. In addition to seeing the Ballestas Islands, the boat tour passed by El Candelabro, a very large geoglyph of a trident shape located on the northern face of the peninsula.

After spending another night in Lima, I hopped on a short flight to Juliaca, in route to Puno and Lake Titicaca. Flying over the Andes early in the morning was a beautiful sight as the low angle of the sun accentuated the mountain tops and cast shadows in the valleys. For most of the flight, the mountainous terrain stretched out for as far as I could see, but as we approached Juliaca, the terrain flattened out into the high altitude plains of the Altiplano.

Predating the time of the Incas, a tribe of people known as Uros, started a civilization on Lake Titicaca by building a network of floating reed islands. Living on floating islands that could be moved around the lake kept the Uros protected from enemies and, although they were conquered by the Incans, their lake civilization has remained intact. Today many of these floating islands still exist and are one of the major tourist attractions of the lake. In the evening of my arrival in Puno, I joined a tour and went out on the lake to see these floating islands and get a more intimate view of the lake itself.

In early evening the bus tour arrived in the historical city of Cusco. Cusco was the capital city of the ancient Inca Empire until it was taken over by Spain in the 1500s. Today, Cusco is the capital city of the Cuzco Province and contains a wealth of both Incan and Spanish historical sites. Although I didn’t have time to explore much of the city, the hostel I was staying in was located on a hill, providing a great view of the city at night.

Hoping for a beautiful early morning shot of the Machu Picchu ruins, I got up at 4:00 am and joined a crowd of people at the Aguas Calientes bus stop. A never ending line of buses filled with tourists and headed up the mountain one by one. Although I was nowhere near the front of the line, I was eventually packed into one of the buses and taken up to join the rest of the crowd gathering at the park entrance at the top of the hill. When the park gates opened at 6:00 am, the crowd pushed and shoved through the entrance as tourists made a mad dash for the best position on the viewing platform, however the extra effort was unrewarded as the entire site was shrouded by fog. I joined the crowd on the viewing platform and waited for the fog to lift.

Seeing an aerial view of the Andes on the flight back to Lima brought a nice conclusion to the trip. The massive mountain range, stretching all the way to the tip of the continent, beckons for future adventures amongst its awe-inspiring peaks. I hope to return in the near future to photograph more of this incredible landscape.