To celebrate our first Christmas as a married couple, we decided to fly to Peru, and eat and drink our way from Cusco to Machu Picchu to Lima. Here’s part one of our oral history of that trip: Christmas in Cusco. Day 1: Views of Peru, Papachos, and Piscos Megan: I slept through most of our flights to Peru. And when I woke up, I got to see breathtaking views of the green AF mountains of Cusco — mountains I’d soon be climbing on our trek to Machu Picchu! Mike: But first, we had three nights to acclimatize in Cusco. It’s over 11k feet, and the altitude takes some getting…
The Dash and Dine’s guide to the best restaurants in Cusco, Peru
For our first “married Christmas” we decided to fly to Peru and take a group trek to Machu Picchu. In doing so, we ended up spending a lot of time in Cusco, Peru — 3 nights to let our bodies adjust to the altitude, and then back again for 2 extra nights after the trek. We absolutely fell in love with the town, and along the way, we found some of our favorite restaurants in Cusco…
From sobremesas to so much cheese: The 12 things I learned about Buenos Aires
Mike traveled to Buenos Aires a little while back. These are excerpts from the journal he kept while there… It’s 9:45 on a Sunday morning in November, and Buenos Aires is a ghost town. Guess this can be expected when everyone stays out until 5 am, which apparently is the norm on a Saturday night. I’m sitting a cafe right out of what I imagined Buenos Aires to be… and when the friendly waitress walks over, I’m reminded for the fifth time in five straight encounters: I don’t speak Spanish. (It’s as if 15 minutes of Rosetta Stone for a single month isn’t enough to master a language!) I order…
The awesome hotels and best restaurants in Cartagena (that we discovered by accident)
We took a last-minute trip to Cartagena when we found out we couldn’t fly from Bogota to Costa Rica without a yellow fever vaccine. No worries, we re-routed ourselves to the gorgeous town of Cartagena, Colombia and found some amazing places to stay, and sampled from some of the best restaurants in Cartagena! Keep reading if you want to know more about where to stay and where to eat…
What to pack for Bogota with tips from someone who lives there
We were heading for Colombia in December, and my huge question was: what to pack for Bogota? Fortunately, we have friends who’ve been living and working in Colombia for a couple years (shout out to Narcos!). So we reached out to them to get some tips on what to pack for Bogota in December. Although most of these tips will work for any time of year! Here are the super-helpful tips from our friend and fabulous Colombian chica Shelly…
The “bacano” bites and best restaurants of Bogota
Bogota is an amazing foodie destination — one could even say it’s “bacano” — but it’s really underrated. It’s feels like New York with a South American flair. We were visiting friends who live in Colombia, and they took us to some of the best restaurants in Bogota. Where to stay if you want to walk to restaurants… We stayed at the Embassy Suites in Bogota. It’s a fairly nondescript business hotel, unremarkable, except for its fantastic location — Zona G. The G in “Zona G” is for “gastronomy,” and with good reason — it’s basically three square blocks of great restaurants! Here are the best restaurants in Bogota…
