Peru has a way of sneaking up on you. One moment you’re scraping the last of the lomo saltado off a communal plate in Lima; four days later you’re swimming in piranha-adjacent water and somehow feeling perfectly fine (he wrote without the slightest of a nervous twitch).
I was already falling in love with Peru after an afternoon with new friends of strolling Lima’s culinary haven of a neighborhood, Barranco, where I flitted between multiple servings of osso bucco and that lomo saltado — the popular stir-fried dish of steak, onions, peppers, soy sauce, French fries, and rice — at raved-about restaurant Isolina and learned the proper way to make a pisco sour at Hotel B, Lima’s only Relais & Châteaux property.
Sprinkle in pork sandwiches at Juanito Barranco, a City of the Kings bohemian socializing staple once frequented by Allen Ginsberg, and a chocolate tasting at Ciclo’s Café, and it was enough to fall hard for this city after just a few hours — and maybe express self-gratitude for being forward-thinking enough to slip a Tums packet into my wallet.
What makes Lima’s food scene so captivating is how many hands shaped it. Indigenous Peruvian traditions, Spanish colonial influence, and waves of Japanese, Chinese, Italian, and African immigration converged here over centuries, producing a cuisine that practically marineras across the taste buds — fitting for a country that made a folk dance its national symbol. Case in point: Lima’s significant Japanese population helped refine the city’s beloved ceviche, applying Nikkei techniques to preserve the fish’s texture and elevating a dish that was already beloved into something transcendent.
Alas, this was only the amuse-bouche to Peru as part of Abercrombie & Kent’s new Pure Amazon, an A&K Sanctuary. The center stage part of the voyage was a four-night river cruise sailing from the Peruvian port city of Nauta on the Marañón River. Guests fly two hours from Lima to Iquitos before a two-hour bus transfer to Nauta. This was both my introduction to river cruising and to the Amazon itself, and A&K — as a shock to nobody, I’d imagine — set the bar extraordinarily high.
We boarded Pure Amazon on our first night to joyful dancing and cocktails before being shown to our suites. As a first-time river cruiser, I didn’t have much to compare it to, but as a self-professed hotel snob, I was more than impressed: a king-sized bed, a seating area, floor-to-ceiling windows (perfect for catching river dolphins leaping from the waters at sunrise), ceilings covered with Amazonian reeds, a spacious bathroom with a walk-in rainfall shower, and ample storage greeted me alongside a minibar replenished daily. It did not feel like roughing it.
While the journey falls under the Pure Amazon moniker, I learned the backstory to some geographic labeling: The Marañón and Ucayali rivers merge to form the Amazon, which flows east toward the Brazilian border. Once across, Brazilians call it the Solimões until it reaches Manaus and the dark waters of the Rio Negro (known as the “meeting of the waters”), at which point the name reverts to the Amazon all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Throughout the voyage, we got a sense of the power of the Amazon and how its seasonal retreat felt during our visit eventually gives way to flooding that covers much of the trails we walked.
Our four-night journey was a cathartic reprieve from bustling city life and much about simply paying attention to nature. Lectures from expert guides gave shape to what we were seeing, whether that was the staggering variety of bird species, the villages along the riverbanks, or the fish lurking beneath the coffee-brown water. Speaking of which: We caught piranhas one afternoon (they latch onto red meat bait as quickly as you might expect!) and threw them back, something a guide told us isn’t as traumatic for them due to short memory — reminding me of the “be a goldfish” lesson taught in “Ted Lasso.”Â
Not long after, our guide led us into a natural lake formed off the river to swim — assuring us, with admirable confidence, that piranhas prefer shallow water. I still have 10 toes and 10 fingers, so he appears to have been right.
The intimacy of the vessel, which can host 22 guests at most, meant befriending fellow travelers and crew came easily. The food and beverage program punched well above its weight: five-course dinners with wine pairings, generous buffets for breakfast and lunch, and a cocktail bar in the lounge that poured a very respectable martini.
The rhythm of days was yours to set, though the unofficial encouragement among those-in-the-know was to rise for the sunrise nature outings and beat the punishing midday heat. Afternoons were best spent with a book in the upper-deck library or soaking in the whirlpool tub as the sun melted into the treescape. A&K’s partnership with Leica added a pleasing layer of geekery: High-quality binoculars for the wildlife outings and a telescope for stargazing once the river went dark and the stars came out.
During the nature outings, pink river dolphins surfaced in the waters alongside their grey-hued cousins; three-toed sloths hung with indifference from the trees (and were more easily spotted thanks to the Leica-partnered binoculars and helpful A&K guides with eyesight my bespectacled self is still marveling at). Of course, there was also the option to kayak the river or simply walk into the jungle with a guide as more tranquil ways to pass a day.
Growth in experiential Amazon travel has accelerated in recent years, driven by travelers seeking something more substantive than a beach chair and a cocktail menu. Tourism on the Brazilian side of the Amazon has become a booming industry — with reports last year showing international tourism in the state of Amazonas up 40 percent in just the first 10 months of 2025, per the state’s tourism agency. But the Peruvian Amazon isn’t as overrun by tourists, as evidenced by us rarely seeing anyone else on the river save for small fishing boats and the occasional local barge — a competitive advantage, if you ask me.
Soon enough, it was time to disembark, and it felt like saying farewell to friends made at summer camp instead of some kind of over-the-top getaway. What distinguished this journey was also getting to see A&K’s investment in the region beyond the voyage itself. Among the initiatives supported through A&K Philanthropy is Formabiap, a school that trains teachers in the region’s Indigenous languages, formalizing language education and helping preserve the linguistic heritage of communities that have called this corner of the Amazon home for generations.
It was a parting reminder that the best travel doesn’t just pass through a place but instead tries to leave it a little better than the way we found it.
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