Peru Golden Sampler: Machu Picchu, The Sacred Valley, Amazon Jungle & The Floating Islands

Welcome to Perú!

Upon arrival at the Lima Airport, you will be received by a service person and transfer to the hotel located in Miraflores.

Lima was founded in 1535 and in a short period of time became the most important city in the Americas. Today, there are more than eight million inhabitants, and the city shelters immigrants from all corners of the globe, which has transformed it into a mixed city par excellence. In the historic center, placed by UNESCO on the World Cultural Heritage List.

Later, in the morning our guide will pick you up to start your visit the Historical Center of Lima, where you will appreciate more than fifty monuments and Colonial edifications, such as the Paseo de la República, the San Martín Square, the Main Square, the Government Palace, the Archbishop’s Palace, the Cathedral Basilica, and the City Council Palace amongst others. We will visit the “Museum of the Banco Central de Reserva*, where we will admire the “Treasures of Perú” collection, a fine selection of objects made of gold, ceramics, and textiles from different pre-Columbian cultures. We will visit the monumental San Francisco Convent, which displays the largest collection of religious art in America. Our highlight will be the visit to the underground vaults, known as “Catacumbas” or Catacombs.

Transfer to the airport to take the national flight to Arequipa, arrival, reception, and transfer to the selected hotel. (Check-In 15:00)

City Tour, here you will visit the city, including the Santa Catalina Convent that was founded on the second of October in 1580 and has an extension of 20000 square meters and was constructed in the second half of the XVIth Century. The Convent, in which there are still nuns living in cloisters, is a walled small city with narrow streets, passages, staircases, and small squares. Then we will visit the Plaza de Armas the Jesuit Church of La Compañía a and its beautifully painted Chapel, the Church of San Francisco, the San Lazaro District, Selva Alegre, and the typical Districts of Cayma and Yanahuara for a magnificent view of the Misti Volcano.

08:30 you will be taken on an incredible four-hour journey to Chivay. Have your camera ready, as you will stop at various stunning viewpoints including the Pampa Cañahuas Reserve, which is home to many exotic Andean animals including vicuñas, alpacas, llamas, flamingos, ibis, and the Andean eagle.

You will see astonishing landscapes as you drive past lakes, glaciers, and some magnificent volcanoes, such as Ampato, Sabancaya, Huallca, and Misti. During the journey, we will reach the highest point of 4800m (15,000ft). Afterward, we head down the canyon to Chivay and transfer you to the hotel.

06:00 after breakfast, and very early we will go to the Cruz Del Condor (41 Km of Chivay) place since where you can appreciate one of the most beautiful sides of the Canyon and since where you can also appreciate the beautiful Condors when they are flying.

We will come back visiting small towns like Pinchollo, Maca, Yanque, and The Viewing points of Antahuilque, to see the Andenes (Platforms), made by the Incas, we will also visit Choquetico.

After that, we will start our travel to Puno, by the same way that we use the first day, but we will turn in Patahuasi, on the way we will see different Andean landscapes, as stones forests, huge lakes with a great variety of birds, we will also go through the small towns of Imata, Santa Lucia and the city of Juliaca. After 6 hours, we will be arriving in Puno.

06:40 Early in the morning, we take a motorboat excursion on the waters of Lake Titicaca to the unique Floating “Islands” of the Uros. These ancient inhabitants of the lake, known as the Water Tribe, have built their own “islands” by periodically adding new layers of a type of reed unique to the area called “Totora”. Their homes and boats are also made from this material.

Continue to Taquile Island, where you will have amazing views of the lake and also will enjoy a delicious lunch. Return to Puno. Overnight.

Around 06:15 transfer to the Bus station to start your drive to Cusco on the way you will have some stops to visit the most interesting and attractive sites, including Pukara, Raqchi, and Andahuaylillas. Lunch included at a local restaurant. Arrival in Cusco and transfer to the hotel.

The city of Cusco, the ancient capital of the Incan Empire, was placed on the World Cultural Heritage List by UNESCO in 1983 and is without a doubt one of the most important destinations in Peru.

There are Incan buildings waiting for you to discover them among its cobble-stoned streets.

Full-day excursion to the “Sacred Valley of the Incas”, by the Vilcanota River. We will have the opportunity to share closely the peasants’ customs and bargain with vendors at the typical Indian market of Pisac.

Lunch in a local countryside restaurant. After lunch, passing through the Towns of Calca and Urubamba, we visit the Inca Fortress and Citadel of Ollantaytambo, built to guard the entrance to this part of the Valley, and protect it from possible invasion from the tribes in the Lower jungle. The Fortress consists of a series of stepped carved stone terraces accessed by long staircases.

Later you can walk through the quaint streets of the nearby Town, and get a good idea of what this Strategic Military, Religious, and Agricultural Centre was like during the era of the Inca Empire.

The day starts with an early morning rise to transfer to Ollanta Train Station for a train journey to the famous Inca Citadel of Machu Picchu, also known as “The Lost City of the Incas”, one of the best-known examples of surviving Inca architecture. Arrive at Aguas Calientes Station followed by a 30-minute bus drive, climbing 6km of winding road, to the marvelous Citadel. Upon arrival, you will participate in a guided tour of the Citadel, visiting the Main Plaza, the Circular Tower, the sacred sun dial (the most important preserved Intihuatana), the Royal Quarters, the Temple of the Three Windows, and various burial grounds.

After the tour, you will have time to stroll around the Archaeological Site at your leisure.

Return to Aguas Calientes.

Your lunch will be at a local restaurant.

In the afternoon, return to Ollanta, arrival, and transfer to Cusco.

09:00hrs Checkout

At the proper time, transfer to take the regular flight to Puerto Maldonado, Upon arrival from Lima or Cusco, we will welcome you at the airport and drive you ten minutes to our Puerto Maldonado headquarters. While enjoying your first taste of the forest in our gardens we will ask you to pack only the necessary gear for your next few days and leave the rest at our safe deposit. This helps us keep the boats and cargo light. Skirting Puerto Maldonado, we drive 20 kilometers to the Tambopata River Port, entering the Native Community of Infierno. The port is a communal business. The forty-five-minute boat ride from the Tambopata Port to Posada Amazonas will take us into the Community´s Primary Forest Private Reserve.

Orientation

Upon arrival, the lodge manager will welcome you and brief you with important navigation and security tips.

Canopy Tower

A twenty-minute walk from Posada Amazonas leads to the 30-meter scaffolding canopy tower. A banister staircase running through the middle provides safe access to the platforms above. From atop you obtain spectacular views of the vast expanses of standing forest cut by the Tambopata River winding through the middle. Now and then toucans, parrots, or macaws are seen flying against the horizon, or mixed species canopy flocks land in the treetop next to you.

Ecotourism Lecture

A daily presentation on the Infierno ecotourism project is available every night from a staff member

Tres Chimbadas Oxbow Lake

Tres Chimbadas is thirty minutes by boat and forty-five minutes hiking from Posada Amazonas. Once there you will paddle around the lake in a catamaran, searching for the resident family of nine giant river otters (seen by 60% of our lake visitors) and other lakeside wildlife such as caiman, hoatzin, and horned screamers. Otters are most active from dawn to eight or nine AM.

Ethnobotanical Tour

A twenty-minute boat drives downriver leads you to a trail designed by the staff of the Centro Ñape. The Centro Ñape is a communal organization that produces medicines out of forest plants and administers them to patients who choose their little clinic. They have produced a trail, which explains the different medicinal (and other) uses of selected plants.

Night walk

You will have the option of hiking out at night when most of the mammals are active but rarely seen. Much easier to find are frogs with shapes and sounds as bizarre as their natural histories

Parrot Clay Lick

This clay lick is only a twenty-minute walk from Posada Amazonas. From a blind located about twenty meters away, you will see dozens of parrots and parakeets descend on most clear mornings to ingest the clay on a riverbank. Species such as Mealy and Yellow-headed Amazon, Blue-headed Parrot, and Dusky headed Parakeet descend at this clay lick. The clay lick is active at dawn, during the late mornings and mid-afternoons

Ceiba Trail Hike

We leave from the lobby at Posada Amazonas and embark on a two-hour hike crowned by the largest tree in the vicinity: a giant ceiba tree. During the hike, we will focus on the natural history of the rain forest and its principal taxonomic groups

Farm Visit

A thirty-minute boat drives downriver takes us to the most complete farm in the community of Infierno. The owner grows a diverse variety of popular and unknown Amazon crops. In his garden, just about every plant and tree serves a purpose

Brazil Nut Trail and Camp

A few minutes hike from the lodge is a beautiful old growth patch of Brazil Nut forest that has been harvested for decades (if not centuries) where the precarious remains of a camp used two months a year by Brazil Nut gatherers can still be experienced. We will be demonstrating the whole process of the rain forest’s only sustainably harvested product from collection through transportation to drying

Overlook Walk

This 2 km trail will bring us along the Tambopata River. We will be able to clearly separate a Terra Firme Forest from a Secondary Forest after this walk, as the trail crosses both habitats. Resting on the benches we can witness the Tambopata on its unhurried journey across the lowland rainforest.

Transfer to the airport to take the national flight to Lima, arrival, and overnight at the hotel.

Transfer to the airport to take your international flight.