There is no single climate in Peru - the deserts, jungles, mountain villages and coastal cities are each under the influence of different natural forces. And while there is no perfect time to see them all, February and March are fairly tolerable everywhere. The rainy season (a misnomer, really - it rarely rains) is June-September in Lima (humidity can be as high as 98% during this time) and November-March in the mountains. North and east highlands are subject to heavy rain from October-April. Along the Amazon, it's always hot and humid (it is a jungle, after all).
Be sure to take a sweater (or something heavier) if you're going to Cuzco and Machu Picchu. The greatest number of foreign tourists visit Peru July-September - which is also when Peruvians take their vacations. It's best to avoid this time, as prices are high and hotels are crowded.
Peru's peak tourist season is from June to August, which is the dry season in the highlands, and this is the best time to go if you're interested in hiking. Travelers do visit the highlands year-round, though the wettest months, January to April, make trekking a muddy proposition. Many of the major fiestas occur in the wettest months and continue undiminished in spite of heavy rain.
On the coast, Peruvians visit the beaches during the sunny months from late December through March, although few beaches are particularly enticing. The rest of the year, the coast is clothed in mist. In the eastern rainforests, it naturally rains a lot. The wettest months are December through April, though travelers visit year-round since it rarely rains for more than a few hours and there's still plenty of sunshine to enjoy.
By its location near the ecuator line, Peru should have a very hot tropical weather, but the reality is that the weather is defined by a big mountain chain, The Andes, which starts a couple of hundreds of kilometers in the south of Peru and ends also few kilometers in the north of Peru. This chain of mountains divides the country in three geographical regions, The Coastm next to the ocean, where the capital Lima is located, the High Lands or Andes where the old capital Cusco is located and the Amazon jungle, which occupies more than a half of all the peruvian territory. |
