Time travelers bother !! Here is the country that can show a fantastic history with exciting elements from the indigenous people whose traditions still have a strong foothold. The proud places of the Inca Empire and the modern (16th century) cities of the Europeans from the time when they conquered all of South America, also known Latin America defined by countryaah. Fly over the Andes, take a cruise along the Amazon River and hike among high peaks and deep ravines. Peru is abbreviated as PER by abbreviationfinder.
Peru – 21 days
Day 1 Departure from Sweden
Departure for Peru. On arrival in Lima you will be met by our local guide for further transport to your hotel.
Day 2 Lima – Iquitos
In the morning you do a guided city tour in the central colonial parts of Lima. Here you will find the Presidential Palace and the cathedral from the 16th century. In the Anthropological and Archaeological Museum, you will learn more about Peru’s early history through art and everyday objects from the country’s various Native American cultures. After lunch, your transfer to the airport will depart for further travel to Peru’s rainforest capital, Iquitos. Upon arrival, you will be met by representatives from your ship for transfer to the marina for boarding. When you have made your home on board for the next seven days, M / V Aqua departs towards the Yanayacu River in the heart of the Amazon. In the coming days, you will cruise along two of the largest tributaries of the Amazon, Ucayali and Marañon, as well as on the Amazon. After leaving the city noise and admiring the sunset, a welcome dinner is served.
Accommodation: Aria Amazon (breakfast, dinner)
Day 3 Amazonas – Tahuayo – Charo Lake
Even before breakfast, it is possible to accompany your guides on an excursion at sunrise with one of M / V Aqua’s small motorboats that gives you the opportunity to see the rainforest when it is at its most beautiful. Back on board, a rich breakfast is served before it is time for the day’s first longer excursion. With the smaller boats you take you quietly along some of the countless small tributaries to the Amazon over to the Tahuaya River which with its black water gives a completely different impression than the Amazon River. As you glide down the river, it is important to have binoculars and cameras on hand when you keep an eye out for birds, monkeys and with a good portion of luck larger mammals. Once at Lake Charo, you take out rods and bait to fish for a while for the notorious piranhas found in the surrounding waters. Back on board your ship you have lunch while the journey continues up along the Amazon. The afternoon excursion takes place at the Yacapana Islands, also called the Iguana Islands due to the large numbers of the small dinosaur-like lizards that rest on the ground and in the trees. When it starts to get dark, you return from the islands and along the way you will hopefully experience encounters with both gray and pink freshwater dolphins.
Accommodation: Aria Amazon (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
Day 4 Marañon River – Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve
After an early breakfast, your guides will take you on a walking tour through the rainforest. During the first hours of the morning, your guides will tell you about some of the various projects that are going on in the Amazon to preserve the fragile nature while giving the locals opportunities to develop and support themselves. Among other things, you will visit one of these projects where villagers have started replanting palm trees to extract vegetable oil. After lunch and siesta in the shade on board, you make a late afternoon trip with your boats to look for howler monkeys, capuchin monkeys and spider monkeys and of course lots of different bird species. Here too, it is worth watching for dolphins in the waters while you glide along the shoreline. When the sun has gone down, you bring out the headlights that light up the eyes of the caimans,
Accommodation: Aria Amazon (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
Day 5 Lake Yucuruche – Puerto Prado – Nauta
Today you wake up early to take your small boats further along the Ucayali River to Lake Yucuruche where after a short walk through the forest you will find the world’s largest aquatic plant, the huge water lilies Victoria Regias. These bloom when the water is low in the Amazon and hopefully the rain has been with you so you can see them when they are at their most beautiful. After breakfast, you will arrive at the Pacaya-Samiria Nature Reserve, a 2 million hectare nature reserve in the depths of the Amazon Basin. Here the rivers Ucayali and Marañon meet to form the world’s largest watercourses. In your boats you glide slowly along the river bank until you reach the village of Puerto Prado where the locals belong to the Indian tribe Cocama. Take the opportunity to walk around the village, talk to both young and old to get a little insight into their everyday life and what it is like to live under these isolated conditions. In the afternoon you will continue to the city of Nauta, the only place during your trip that has contact by land with Iquitos. This is an important hub for the settlements along the rivers as this is where they come to sell their own products.
Accommodation: Aria Amazon (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
Day 6 Ucayali River – Magdalena – Puinhau Canal
During the first hours of the morning, take you along the banks of the Ucayali River to try to see the strange but charming slopes that are usually found high up in the treetops. Of course, the journey is lined with iguanas, hornbills and lots of other birds. After breakfast you will walk to the village of Magdalena, a small community with only ten families. After visiting the families, including lots of lively children, your guides will take you to a nice little lake with giant water lilies. The afternoon is spent on board as you navigate up the Ucayali River. Along the way, you will probably meet fishermen at work and get to know how they catch their livelihood, which also includes the “armored” catfish. Hopefully you will also see parrots, woodpeckers and toucans circulating over your ship.
Accommodation: Aria Amazon (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
Day 7 Puinhauafloden- Hatum Posasjön – Pacayafloden
After breakfast you set off on foot with your guides towards the village of Hatum Posa. The villagers show how they grow their crops to sell on the market and earn their livelihood. Your guides also point out some of the medicinal plants found in many of our modern medicines. Late in the afternoon you go on an expedition along the Pacaya River to Ranger Station No.1. From here you continue towards Yanayacusjn where you can admire the abundant life that is hidden deep in the rainforest. When the sun goes down, the background noises change markedly when the howler monkeys mark their territories and the nocturnal animals make their entrance. In the light of the headlights, you slowly return to M / V Aqua and hopefully you will see really big caimans along the way.
Accommodation: Aria Amazon (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
Day 8 Pacaya Rivers – Puinhaua
Your last full day on board begins at dawn with a trip to one of the most popular eateries for river dolphins. Surrounded by dolphins, you have a light breakfast in the dawn light. After breakfast, it’s fishing time to see if you can catch more piranhas or some of the other 3,000 species of fish found in the Amazon. Late in the morning you drop anchor and begin the return journey to Iquitos. Along the way, lunch is served and you are also given the opportunity to go ashore in one of the villages that you pass in the afternoon. As the day and your journey draws to a close, a hearty farewell dinner will be served and all staff who have taken care of you along the journey will have the opportunity to present themselves one last time.
Accommodation: Aria Amazon (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
Day 9 Iquito – Urubamba
After breakfast you are given one last chance to go out on the river. Today’s activity is determined by water levels and weather. The closer you get to Iquitos, the livelier the traffic on the water and the larger the communities. After lunch you dock in Iquitos and after mustering out you go on a city tour in this unlikely city that can only be reached by river or plane. In the late afternoon, it’s time for the spectacular flight up the Andes to the Inca capital of Cuzco. Upon arrival, you will be met by your guide and continue by car for about 90 minutes down the Urubamba Valley. You have the evening on your own to enjoy the beautiful surroundings around your hotel.
Day 10 Sacred Valley of the Incas
Together with your guide you travel through what is called “the Sacred Valley of the Incas”. Here you are met by fragrant and colorful Native American markets, where everything from ponchos to live animals are for sale. You visit Awanakancha to see how to care for the Llamas and take care of the valuable wool. In the afternoon you visit the Inca ruins at Pisac, located on a ridge but magnificent views of the valley. In the large complex you will find homes, cultivation terraces and also an astronomical observatory. The ruins of Pisac are even larger than Machu Picchu. In the afternoon you will come to Ollantaytambo, the only original Inca settlement still inhabited.
Day 11 Ollantaytambo, Inkaleden
After breakfast, the train departs on the narrow-gauge railway that winds along the mountain sides of the Andes down to the jungle towards Aguas Calientes. You get off at km 108 where you and your guide start the approximately 3 hour long hike up to Wiñay Wayna. The ruins are smaller than in Machu Pichu but more well preserved. In the afternoon, the hike continues up towards Inti Punku. From here you get a first glimpse of Machu Picchu protected by the surrounding mountains and with the Urubamba River meandering at its foot. In the afternoon you go down to Aguas Calientes for an overnight stay.
Day 12 Machu Picchu
After breakfast, go with your guide up to the mythical holy city of Machu Picchu. The Inca people’s last stronghold and city that for centuries was buried in the tropical jungles of the Andes until the scientist Hiram Bingham found the city in 1911. Together with your guide you walk around and are fascinated by the well-preserved ruin.
Day 13 Machu Picchu – Cusco
The morning is free for your own activities until departure for Cusco. Also feel free to visit the hot springs just outside the village of Aguas Calientes. In the afternoon you take the train back to Cusco, which on the narrow-gauge railway slowly winds its way up along the Andes’ mountain sides.
Day 14 Cusco
In the morning you take a tour of the ancient capital of the Inca Empire and its surroundings. Among other things, you will visit Sacsahuaman, the fortress that guarded Cuzco during the days of the Inca Empire. It’s hard to believe that the impressive fortress was built by hand when you see the enormous proportions of huge stone colossi. Ruins such as Qenko, Puca Pucara and Tambo Machay are lesser known but also very interesting places. The tour ends at the magnificent Cathedral of the Plaza de Armas in Cusco. The afternoon on its own.
Day 15 Cusco – Colca Canyon
Early departure by flight to Arequipa. Upon arrival, you will be met by your local guide for further travel by car along the “El Altiplanos” windswept plains towards Colca Canyon, the world’s deepest ravine, twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. Your journey goes through the less visited parts of this fantastic country and you pass villages where people live according to old traditions while the landscape offers beautiful views of pre-Colombian terraces with wild llamas.
Day 16 and 17 Colca Canyon
For two days you and your guide explore the region around Chivay and Colca Canyon. Of course you will visit the “Cruz del Condor”, one of the best places in the world to see when the mighty condor hovers over the gorge. Colca Canyon is one of the world’s best places to see up close these magnificent birds that have a wingspan of over 3 meters. The birds have their nests along the rock walls and take advantage of the winds in the morning to sail across the ravine in their hunt for food. You can also take a short walk along the ravine to enjoy the beautiful surroundings in peace and quiet. On the way back to your hotel you also have time to make a few short stops in the villages you pass.
Day 18 Colca Canyon – Arequipa
In the morning you return to Arequipa where you arrive in the afternoon. The city is a beautiful oasis in this arid part of the country and is considered to have the best preserved colonial architecture in all of Peru.
Day 19 Arequipa
In the morning you do a guided tour of the “white city”. The strongest memory for many visitors is usually the very beautiful Santa Catalina monastery where 450 nuns live and work with their fantastic gardens, this “city in the city” was not opened to the public until 1970. The afternoon on its own.
Day 20 Return
The morning on its own. Your flight back to Europe, via Lima, departs after lunch.
Day 21 Return to Sweden