The Spaniards’ first impressions of Peru, when they sailed down its coast for the first time in 1528, were of barren beaches and man-eating savages. It was not until they began their now-legendary journey to the interior, through ochre desert and lush river valleys, up and over snowy passes, and into the sublime, magical realm of the altiplano that they realized what they had stumbled upon: a people every bit as advanced as the ancient Egyptians, with the most intricate stone construction in the history of the world and an abundance of what the Spaniards most wanted: gold. In Cusco, the capital of the Inca empire, the Spaniards found miniature gold figurines in the shape of jungle insects, four-inch-thick temple walls made of gold, shields and vases and even hand plows—all made of gold. Even before reaching Cusco, the Spaniards had shipped home gold that would be worth between $30 million and $50 million today.

Despite the conquistadors’ toll, Peru’s people and their connection to the land have remained remarkably intact over the centuries. Travelers who stumble off the beaten path in Peru’s altiplano, or high plains, will journey back in time to the stone huts, the fields of quinoa, and the brightly clothed Quechuan people first encountered by the Spaniards. On the eastern slope of the Andes, where the mountains cede to the Amazon basin, the time warp is even greater: traveling along any of Peru’s jungle rivers is like watching a movie roll backwards from the 19th century to the Stone Age.

Cusco remains the primary destination for most travelers to Peru, who come to wander the city’s cobblestone streets, marvel at the Spanish cathedral and monasteries built atop massive Inca walls, eat alpaca steaks and fat ears of sweet corn and party until dawn at the city’s nightclubs. Nearby but reachable only by train—or by a multi-day trek through some of the world’s most breathtaking scenery—is the other world of the Incas: Machu Picchu, the mountaintop city on the edge of the Amazon jungle.

Yet Cusco is just the beginning of what Peru offers, a secret that is jealously guarded by Peru’s experienced travelers. There is a well-swept room to visit in Cajamarca that the Inca emperor Atahualpa filled with gold in an (unsuccessful) attempt to free himself from the Spaniards; perfect breaks to be surfed and heaping bowls of cebiche to be eaten in the northern beach towns; snow-covered mountains to be climbed against a backdrop of sparkling jungle rivers; freeze-dried-potato soup to be eaten in a stone hut with a Quechuan family; and miles of Amazon to be floated with nothing more than a hammock and a bunch of bananas.

Of special interest is Peru’s desert coast, which is rubbing shoulders with India and Egypt as a must-see destination for those drawn to the ancient and mysterious. A series of advanced, though poorly understood, cultures including the Nasca, Moche, Chimu, and Sicán flourished here thousands of years before the Incas. They left their mark with huge adobe pyramids, stone carvings, brightly painted murals, and, most important, tombs. In 1987, archaeologists shocked the world by unearthing a series of royal Moche tombs near present-day Chiclayo. The Lords of Sipán exhibit, now back at Chiclayo’s Museo Tumbas Reales after a world tour, includes mummies, elaborate textiles, ceramics, and hundreds of treasures made from gold, silver, and precious stones. Further south in Trujillo, archaeologists are uncovering murals depicting human sacrifice in the uppermost levels of the Moche pyramid known as Huaca de la Luna (“The Pyramid of the Moon”). Even further south are the Nasca Lines, a perplexing dialect of hummingbirds, monkeys, and mythical beings etched for miles into the timeless sands of the desert. The only way to see the images these lines form is from an airplane, an enigma that modern experts have been unable to explain.