I have seen some interest in Peru lately on this site and wanted to share our ten day trip report. My husband and I moved to Lima with our dog in June (we are international teachers), and December-February is our summer break. My sister flew out to Lima and we traveled together for about 10 days. Most of our trip planning was done online and from advice of co-workers who have been in Lima longer than us. For context, we’re all in our 40s/ early 50s. This was our first "big" trip in Peru, going to multiple destinations.
After Lima- Tambopata Rainforest
After a few days in Lima, we flew to Puerto Maldonado, which is in the Amazon near the Bolivian and Brazilian borders. We chose this location because it is the rainy season in the Amazon (and much of Peru) now and travel to the resort is by river, not by land. My sister also felt this offered us the most opportunities to see wildlife. We stayed at the Hacienda Concepcion Lodge for 4 nights. It’s a beautiful facility and the food was very good. Everything was all-inclusive, including the excursions. We had the same guide for the 4 days we were there and he did a fantastic job; we were in a group of 10 total for most of it. After taking the boat to the resort and checking in, we had some downtime. Late afternoon, we took a guided walk through the rainforest for about 2 hours. We saw several species of monkeys (red howler and spider monkeys), bats sleeping in a hollowed out tree, and lots of smaller critters. After dinner, we went on a nighttime boat ride on the river and spotted several Caiman, which are related to alligators but smaller.
The next day, we did a morning canoe on a small tributary and saw more monkeys and caiman. After lunch, a different rainforest walk. Day three was our favorite, although we had terrible weather- in the morning we got up very early (5am breakfast) and took a boat then hike (about 3 kilometers) to Lake Sandoval. We were on a canoe for about 2 hours and after some careful searching, were lucky enough to spot three Giant River Otters, which are endangered but often spotted at the lake. They were freaking adorable. We then walked 3 kilometers back to the boat and had downtime and lunch. After lunch, we took a boat to Inkaterra’s other property, Inktaterra Reserva (very fancy and expensive) for the canopy walk. Even though it was pouring the whole time, it was really cool to get up high on the canopy towers and then take the 6 bridges to see the forest from the tree tops. This was easily our favorite day and best excursions.
The next day, we had two excursions- one making chocolate and another rainforest hike. We really liked the resort and thought the excursions were all very good, although we got very heavy rain for a lot of the time until the day we left, which was sunny. If we were to do it again, three nights would have been perfect.
From Puerto Maldonado- fly to Cusco
After 4 nights in the Amazon, we flew to Cusco (about a one hour flight). The Puerto Maldonado airport is super tiny, two gates. We were pleasantly surprised to find a very good pizza restaurant in the airport, better than some of the pizza I’ve had in Lima. Once we landed in Cusco, we had hired a driver to pick us up and take us immediately to Ollantaytambo. The reason for this is Cusco is at 12,000 feet and it’s better to start in lower elevations in the Sacred Valley and acclimate. We were very glad we did this. We had hired a driver through Taxidatum which I actually found on Reddit- this worked out very well and was quite reasonable (120 soles for the 90-120 minute drive). They also accept USD which surprised me. We stayed in Ollantaytambo for three nights, which I think was the right amount. Two also would have been OK but we definitely were feeling the altitude (about 9,000 feet) and moving slower.
Continued....