South America Natural Adventures

Custom Itinerary prepared for the Singh Family

PERU

Machu Picchu, Sacred Valley, Cusco and the Nazca Lines with the Ballestas Islands

Fly to Peru for a 9 day exploration of the wildlife and Incan culture of southern Peru. We have crafted this tour to have a surprisingly diverse experience in Peru in a short visit, one aimed at whetting the travel tastebuds for more. We spend days exploring the Amazon River and the Pacaya-Samiria Reserve, one of Peru's richest wildlife area, a day at Machu Picchu, explore the spectacular and intricate ruins at Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley, as well as the ancient city of Cusco. Lastly we visit several islands, home to a variety of wildlife including penguins and Sealions, and overfly the amazing Nazca Lines, whose origin and meaning are still debated.

Day 1 - Wednesday: Home City / Lima
Fly from your home city to Lima, arriving between 9.30 and 11.30pm. You are met and transferred to your hotel in Miraflores, the Pacific Ocean suburb of Lima.       (*D)

Day 2 - Thursday: Lima
Spend today exploring Lima. Your guide will take you to the Plaza de Armas, the main square, with its palace and cathedral. At the small Convent of St Francisco you’ll go down into the catacombs, where the bones of monks are preserved in ossuary, often in geometric patterns. In Miraflores explore Huaca Pucllana, a 1500 year old cultural and religious site for the Lima culture. In the Quechua language Huaca Pucllana means Place of Entertainment. The Ichma were the last group here; the Wari were before them. The pyramids and other buildings were constructed of mud bricks, and their bookcase construction style (layers of upright bricks with spaces between) was earthquake resistant. They had no kilns—the bricks were air-dried. Archaeologists found offerings to the gods on the top—fruit, cotton, seashells, sharks, etc. The Plaza of the Women’s Sacrifice was named following the discovery of a group of women’s skeletons in a circle.          (B,L)

Day 3 – Friday: Lima/Iquitos/Amazon River
Fly across the Andes, arriving in the middle of the Amazon rainforest in the port town of Iquitos, the Peruvian Amazon's largest city with about 350,000 people in the city and immediate area. Iquitos lies on the bank of the Amazon, yet is over 2000 miles from the river's mouth (and about 1100 miles from its source about 100 miles from Lake Titicaca). While not a particularly attractive town, it does boast a metal building designed by Eiffel and built for the Paris Exhibition. Afterwards it was dismantled and shipped to Iquitos, where it was rebuilt by Iquitos rubber barons - rubber was the original source of the city's wealth. You are met on arrival and driven northwest to Nauta, about 1.5hours away, where you board the Delfin. Once on board and settled into our cabins everyone gathers for a welcome Pisco Sour, Peru’s national drink. After getting to meet the crew and fellow guests dinner, featuring Peruvian cuisine, increasingly recognized world-wide as the best in Latin America, is served. By now the boat has pulled away, and is heading deeper into the Amazon rainforest. From the glow of the boat’s lights the river and rainforest can be seen gliding by as we dine. After dinner, on the top observation deck, the guides will use charts and short videos to conduct a brief orientation, outlining details of your journey, including the places we visit, the wildlife seen, as well as a summary of the history and geography of the Amazon basin. Finally, under the beauty of an Amazonian night filled with hundreds of stars or perhaps a full moon, and wafted by the gentle breeze of the rainforest, our multitalented staff will briefly entertains with a little live music, while we enjoy an after dinner drink. So begins our Amazon adventure.           (B,L,D)

Day 4 – Saturday: Yanallpa/Pacaya Samiria National Reserve
As dawn and dusk are ideal times for nature observation, an early rise is made each morning, with breakfast ready. Generally we depart on the first expedition of the day about 8am, but there is always something to be seen from the boat itself once light breaks. We are now in Pacaya Samiria National Reserve.Aboard the skiffs, we explore this black water stream and start learning about the rainforest. From the skiff we can easily spot parrots, macaws and monkeys, such as the Monk Saki monkey with its gray and black body, naked face and long shaggy tail. We might also see the saddle back tamarin, a tiny monkey, whose high chirping notes can easily be confused with those of a flock of birds. This is commonly seen, or more often heard, right at the edge of the streams and rivers. It’s also a good area to see the beautiful morpho butterfly that flaps lazily along open corridors through forest or along river edges of lowland forest on sunny days. Different species of hawks will also be found and if we are lucky we’ll see the noisy “laughing falcon,” named after its loud falsetto call while sitting solitary in secondary forest and plantations. We return to our boat about 11am, and continue upstream towards our next destination. Lunch is served at 12.30, and then there is down time to make notes, relax, and enjoy the passing scenery. At 3.30 we reboard our skiffs to head to the Dorado River, where we experience an unforgettable encounter with gray and pink river dolphins; there is even a unique opportunity to swim among the dolphins. On the river we experience nature in all its exuberance while we search for the Amazon River’s transitional forest specialties such as snail kites, festive parrots, endangered scarlet macaws, olive spotted hummingbirds, Amazonian parrotlets, woodcreepers, among the many possibilities. Prehistoric looking iguanas laze in the sun while we travel along the shoreline searching for whatever the jungle has to offer us. Squirrel Monkeys are very active at this time of the day, when they move in large noisy troops at mid- to upper-levels of primary and secondary lowland forest. We return to our boat about 6.30pm, and continue sailing up the Ucayali River towards the Puinahua River. The evening is started with the daily Happy Hour, followed by dinner. After dinner staff will be available to answer any questions, and the night sky may blaze with the southern constellations.          (B,L,D)

Day 5 - Sunday: Atun Poza Lake – Rio Pacaya
As usual the dining room and kitchen staff are ready; fresh ground coffee grown in the highlands of the Amazon and local fruits await as we continue our jungle experience. This morning we cruise in our skiffs along a lake, Atun Poza, where we should surprise several species of egrets, herons, hawks, neotropical cormorants fishing for their dinner, and unusual and loud horned screamers. We will also have a chance to explore other black water lagoons linked to this huge lake, where wattled jacanas search along the grassy edges and walk on the lily pads of freshwater swamps and stream edge We will have an excellent opportunity of seeing social spiders and how their webs embrace huge parts of a tree. Returning to the vessel at about 11am we continue up the Puinahua River towards the Pacaya River, our destination at the very heart of the Pacaya Samiria Reserve, for further exploration of the largest wetland reserve in the world, reaching our goal about 4pm., The Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve is Peru’s largest protected area and by far the largest protected wetland reserve in the world. Filled with lakes, palm swamps and streams, the reserve becomes a flooded forest in the rainy season and is one of the most beautiful places one can ever visit. Aboard our comfortable skiffs we experience this spectacular rainforest wilderness, all the while searching for wildlife, such as small family groups of red howler monkeys, the largest in the Amazon basin, with its bright rust-colored fur and long prehensile tail. At sunset we are amazed by the beautiful colors of the sky and the reflection of the jungle in the black water of the Pacaya River, which is why it has been called the forest of reflections: it’s hard to know where the jungle begins and the water ends. Once it is dark we hear the second installment of the jungle symphony, quite different to the dawn chorus. We have a pre-dinner presentation tonight, when our guides review all that we have seen and learned, with the help of videos and a slide show. This will give us the chance to see up close the birds, monkeys, reptiles etc that we have encountered during our voyage; it may help to identify some observations. As this is our last night aboard we have a special Farewell Dinner, and the talented staff will delight us with some live music before we retire.          (B,L,D)

your Peru journey continues >>>