My name is Sofia. I am Peruvian, living in Switzerland.
Every time someone finds out where I am from, the questions start. Is Machu Picchu really worth it? What is Peruvian food actually like? Is ceviche really that good? What is Pachamama? Are there really more than three thousand types of potato?
The honest answer is: completely, yes, something you have to experience to understand, and yes — and that last one is worth an entire blog post on its own.
This blog is my way of answering those questions properly. Not with a list of restaurants or a packing checklist, but with the stories, context, and knowledge that makes Peru make sense — the kind of thing I tell friends when they ask, not the kind of thing you find in a guidebook.
Why food and soul
Food is the most honest way into a country. When you sit down in a market in Cusco at six in the morning and eat a bowl of caldo de gallina surrounded by people who have come down from the mountains before dawn, you understand something about Peru that no guidebook can give you.
The soul part is harder to explain. Peru is one of the few places where the spiritual and the practical are genuinely inseparable, where altitude is not just a number but a presence. This blog tries to hold both things: the dish and what it means.
A note on this project
Discover Peru is an academic project. Though the stories are ones I would tell you anyway if we were sitting at the same table.
I hope you find something here that changes how you think about the country — or at least how you think about a potato.
“Some images on this blog were generated using AI tools, and selected and edited by the author. Personal photographs are credited individually.”