The Spaniards' first assumptions about Peru, when they sailed down its coast in 1528, involved barren beaches and man-eating savages. It was not until they began their now-legendary journey to the interior 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 - were alive and thriving in this supposedly desolate country.

In Cusco, the capital of the Inca empire, the Spaniards found miniature figurines, four-inch-thick temple walls, shields and vases and even hand plows - all made of gold. Even before reaching Cusco, the Spaniards had shipped home such a quantity of gold that current value would equal $30-50 million.

Despite the conquistadors' toll, Peru's people and their connection to the land have remained remarkably intact and traditional over the centuries. Travelers who stumble off the beaten path in Peru's altiplano, or high plans, 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 grater: 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 travel destination. People come to wander the cobblestone streets, marvel at the Spanish cathedral and monasteries built atop massive Inca walls, eat alpaca steaks and sweet corn, and party until dawn at the city's nightclubs. Nearby and accessible only by train, a multiday bus ride, or a four-day trek 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 surf and heaping bowls of ceviche to eat in the northern beach towns; snow-covered mountains to climb; freeze-dried-potato soup to eat in a stone hut with a Quechuan family; and miles of Amazon to float with nothing more than a hammock and a bunch of bananas.

Of special interest is Peru's desert coast. A series of advanced, though poorly understood, cultures 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.

Farther 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 farther south are the Nasca Lines, a perplexing dialect of hummingbirds, monkeys, and mystical beings etched for miles into the timeless sands of the desert. The best way to see the images these lines form is from an airplane, an enigma that modern experts have been unable to explain.

But perhaps the most impressive Peru moments are those when the country's rich history collides with its living reality. In these moments, when the present and the past are so undeniably interlocked, it is impossible not to perceive the depth of Peruvian culture. A culture which bent to the Incas, succumbed to the Spanish, and now eats fast food hamburgers as commonly as ceviche. Tied to the land, the Peruvian people are reflections of the jungle waters they swim, the solid Andean mountains they climb, and the dry costal sun they absorb.