When I first started planning my trip to Peru, I was excited but slightly overwhelmed. I have never been to Central America and I wasn’t sure how things work. Middle East is quite easy with Uber, Asia is all about the mopeds and Europe is all about the metro. There were so many things that I wanted to see so I initially looked into taking day tours from Lima. During my research, a lot of travel blogs mentioned that they took Peru Hop to get from A to B and that they were the most comfortable and reliable buses. It works like a hop on hop bus company.  We ended up going with them and I was so impressed with the company that I had to write about my experience with them.

Our itinerary was as follows: Lima – Paracas – Huacachina – Nazca – Arequipa – Cusco. We used Peru Hop from Lima – Nazca and then used Cruz del Sur buses from Nazca to Cusco. This wasn’t really out of choice because we went to Peru in May 2023 and things were only slowly opening up, which affected our itinerary. At the time, tourism was hugely affected and Peru Hop was only going up to Nazca.

We chose the ‘2 Day Tour Inc. Nazca Flight (night in Huacachina)’ option – it’s quite a simple idea in the sense that you buy a ticket from Lima to Nazca (or wherever you want to end up in), and you stop at Paracas, Huacachina and Nazca. For £200 pp, the ticket includes pick up from the hotel in Lima, bus to Paracas and Huacachina and then a private shuttle to Nazca.  It also includes 3 incredible activities which are a boat tour to Ballestas Islands – Peru’s very own mini-Galapagos in Paracas, an extended 2-hour dunebuggy and sandboarding in Huacachina and the Nazca Lines flight.

We did this in 2 days as we were on a tight time schedule, but you can hop off at each stop and stay as long as you want, before hopping on the next bus. They are flexible but you just need to tell them if there is a change of plan within 12 hours. With a ticket valid for one year, you can really take as long as you want! Below is a detailed itinerary of what we did in each stop.

Day 1: Lima – Paracas – Huacachina

We arrived in Lima the day before, so getting up bright and early wasn’t really difficult. Peru Hop picked us up from our hostel in Miraflores (Waikiki hostel) at 5.30am. They will tell you exactly what your pick-up time in your booking confirmation as this may differ depending on where you are staying. We met a girl travelling from Canada and she was waiting outside at the hostel at the same time. Even though we had different itineraries and time schedules, we kept bumping into each other throughout our trip!

The bus was very comfortable and the tour guide gave us a brief history about Lima. It was 3.5-hour journey to Paracas but we slept throughout most of it. We finally arrived to Paracas and it was all a bit hectic in terms of getting onto the right queue. Eventually, we got onto the boat and had the 2-hour boat tour of the islands. Quick tip – make sure you sit on the LEFT-hand side of the boat! We were able to see sea-lions, penguins, lots of birds in their natural habitat as well as a few dolphins.

At 12pm, we got back to the mainland and the guide was waiting for us to gather before taking us to a restaurant which had a beautiful sea-view. We ordered a ceviche, it was delicious!

At 1.30pm, we got back on the bus and headed to Huacachina, a small natural oasis located in the Ica desert. It was only a short 1.5 hours journey so I had a chance to have a quick nap and get some energy. The guide gave us a brief personal tour of Huacachina and recommended the best bars and restaurants.

As soon as we arrived, we had a half an hour wait to check-in to the hotel (we chose Olive Tree Hostel), get our sandboarding equipment for Khaled and we chose to make the treacherous climb to the top of a dune to take some shots. We just about made it in time. Have a look at these shots:

At 4pm, we walked to the place where the dune buggies were kept. What’s good with PeruHop is that included in the price, you can have an extended 2-hour buggy tour, whereas all other companies operate just a 1-hour tour. It was sooo much fun and definitely a highlight of my entire trip. We also met 3 guys from New York which we later met at the Wild Rover Hostel bar.

Once we got back at 6.30pm, we retuned the sandboarding equipment, removed the sand from our shoes outside and then had a shower – trust me you’ll need it by the end of the day. We had the BEST pizza at Olive Tree, before making our way to the Wild Oliver Bar – make sure you get there before 9.30pm for free entry!

Khaled was still chatting to the 3 guys before I called it a night. I made my own way back to the hostel, packed for the next day and then slept.

Day 2: Huacachina – Nazca

We got up early to meet the Peru hop guide in front of Wild Rover Hostel. We took the 3-hour minibus/ private transfer directly to Nazca airport. The bus took almost 3 hours, through a monotone sepia landscape of seemingly endless desert plains.

The Nazca Lines are thousands of lines and geoglyphs depicting animals, plants and humans that are drawn across the Nazca desert. The formation and the creation of the Nazca lines still remain a mystery and we are only left to decipher their origins. Its quite rare in this day and age and in this over-informed society, where things still remain a mystery. What we do know for sure is that the lines were made by the Nazca people (old pre-Inca civilisation) and are approximately 2000 years old. They created the lines by scraping off the top later by removing the oxidized dark layer to reveal a yellow and lighter subsoil underneath – the coloured floor lies only 10 – 15cm below the top later, but it is enough for it to be clearly visible.

Nazca people hadn’t left any writing records about their actions so we are only left with guesses. Some theories say Nazca people drew lines with astronomical and cosmological purpose, some say they show direction where water is, or that people at that time walked along the lines as part of the religious rites. Some guess that aliens did them. Thankfully, thanks to its position, constant hot climate and lack to rain – these lines have been naturally preserved until today but climate change is the biggest threat.

The 30 mins flight will take you to around 12 of the most famous geoglyphs.  This is quite an expensive tour if you were to purchase tickets separately – around £80 (we had it included in the PeruHop ticket) but it is definitely a once in a lifetime opporuntiy.

Once we arrived to the tiny airport, we all showed our passported and checked in. We then all got weighed before the flight as we were assigned seats for weight distribution – this meant I saw directly behind Khaled, instead of beside him.

As we missed the 11am flight that we were originally meant to be on, we had to wait an hour in the airport before the next available flight. Make sure you don’t eat anything beforehand as it’s a nauseating flight. We just had a coffee, but we regretted having even that. We eventually got on the plane – the smallest plane I’ve ever been on as it only had 6 passenger seats! We put on the huge, noise-cancelling headphones so that the co-pilot, who led the tour could speak to us. She pointed out the various markings and explained what they were believed to depict. What makes your stomach fall through the floor of the plane is that the plane goes left and then right for each drawing so that we could each see out of our windows. I don’t usually get motion sickness, but the twists and turns were pretty intense. Despite this, we had an incredible time. My favourite was the ‘astronaut’.

We then had a minibus waiting to pick us up outside the airport to take us to ‘Mama’s café’, the central meeting point for PeruHop.  We had a delicious Oreo milkshake and then we went to the 1.30pm-2.30pm Aqueducts de Cantalloc tour. This is an optional extra in which you can pay an additional £10 for. We decided to do this as our next overnight bus to Arequipa was at 10.30pm and there really isn’t much to do in Nazca, so basically this tour was meant to just kill time. I ended up being pleasantly surprised as the tour was really interesting. The tour guide explained how this ancient water aqueducts is considered one of the oldest irrigational systems in the world as they were built over 2000 years ago. They enabled the Nazca civilization to bring water from the Andes mountains to the Nazca Village via underground channels. This was the only way to survive in such hot and dry conditions.

The spiralled wells have a design that makes getting to the water at the bottom even more accessible. We could actually see these when we took the flight above the Nazca lines, just before we landed. One thing to remember is to bring mosquito spray as we got bitten all over!

Once we got back to Mama’s café, we chilled at Casa Andina Standard Nasca Hotel before eating the best Peruvian grilled chicken! It was very popular with the locals – just remembers the portions here are huge.

The standard route for the 2-day trip is that you take the private transfer back to Hucacaina from 3pm – 5.30pm before catching the bus back to Lima at 7pm. However, we left Peruhop here and took a Cruz del Sur bus from Nazca to Arequipa. This 10-hour bus journey only cost £32 pp. There are cheaper options but we chose the most expensive option to make sure we get a good night sleep and the chairs recline fully.

Overall, I highly recommend PeruHop for anyone travelling to Peru. Even though it works out a little more expensive than the DIY route taking local buses, the extra perks and discount means you get a lot for your money. We were also on a very tight schedule and so sometimes you have to pay a little extra for convenience and reliable services (they were always on time!). Their customer service is also brilliant as we they would respond my emails straight away and were flexible with our itinerary. You also meet great people on the way!