These expert Peru travel tips were given by our Peruvian Expedition Leader,

1. When visiting Cusco, Peru, find free time to stroll through the streets of the San Blas District. This is where the artisans have made their homes, which have mostly been turned into workshops, classrooms and shops. Here, the older generation of artists share their knowledge and teach their children and grandchildren the handicrafts of Cusco in order to keep the traditions of their art alive. Treasures abound and one can always find that special handicraft that will truly remind them of their magical journey through the land of the Inca.
2. Don’t Miss: T’anta Restaurant in Lima, Peru. Located in the San Isidro district, T’anta is one of Peruvian culinary star Gaston Acurio’s moderately priced, café offerings. With delicious, freshly juiced drinks and inventive soups, pastas and a variety of options from a New Andean cooking style, Tanta’s sidewalk cafe is a great lunch spot in this trendy Lima neighborhood. (Editor’s Note: I recommend sticking to the appetizers so you can leave plenty of room for dessert!)
3. Lima is recognized as the culinary capital of South America and is full of really great restaurants. Add a few days in Lima to your next visit to enjoy some of them. Don’t miss ceviche at La Mar Restaurant, a chita a la sal at Costanera 700 Restaurant and a pulpo a la oliva in any seafood restaurants. For dinners you can’t go wrong with Rafael, Central, Fusion and Astrid y Gaston.
4. When visiting Peru is almost mandatory to enjoy a Pisco Sour, the national cocktail made with pisco, a local brandy. One of the best experiences while in Lima is to enjoy one at La Huaca Restaurant located right in front of a pre-Inca temple. Enjoy a 45-minute tour of the archeological remain and crown it with the local beverage at the restaurant overlooking the remains just when it is illuminated after sunset. (Get traditional Pisco Sour recipe here.)
5. Shopping in Peru is very good and the main products to look for include alpaca, pima cotton, Andean textiles, silver, pottery, music, coffee and chocolates. While in Lima, there are two places where you can find these products. Both are located in the Miraflores district. The first is the handicraft or Indian Market, an outdoor market with vendors from the whole country. The prices are fair and the offer is wide, but double-check the quality as it is variable. Bargaining is expected here and credit cards are not widely accepted. The second is Larco Mar, a mall that overlooking the bay of Lima, with good restaurants and cafes. Here you will find top-quality stores, all of which accept the main credit cards and where bargaining is not expected but superb quality is guaranteed. As a note, Larco Mar is the second most visited destination in the country, after Machu Picchu.

And one last tip from Kim Guth, our Peru Custom Travel Planner.

1. A bit of France in Machu Picchu — who knew! Indio Feliz Bistro in Aguas Calientes came recommended to me as the best restaurant in town… although from the outside it seemed just like another basic place with bland food. Talk about not judging a book by its cover: this place was amazing!  Each of the eight tables downstairs was immaculately set with crisp linens, attractive dinnerware and a vase of lilies, hibiscus and other beautiful flowers.  In one corner was a working fireplace. Everything I sampled would not be out of place in a fine Paris restaurant — minus the prices and attitude.  The meal was a dream. The fresh bread and red wine from Chile rounded out the experience.

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The small village we will be visiting looks pretty ragged.  According to Victor, it has a population of 200 and there is a school there. We boarded the skiff, sailed around to the other side of the La Amatista, pulled up to a muddy bank and disembarked onto a partially grassy soccer field. Directly in front of us is our first stop — a one-room school house.

Inside the school, already seated in small chairs (there were no desks), were 21 village children ages four to 11 in kindergarten through sixth grade. They were all as cute as a button and well behaved. George, our resident raconteur, music rapper, naturalist speaker and gifted teacher, spoke to the kids, all the while moving his arms up and down and racing about the room making them laugh.

They sang a song, counted to 10 in English and we, in turn, sang to them, also in English (there are no linguists in the group). George had us introduce ourselves and the kids then repeated our names. Then George introduced the kids and we said their names. The kids then stood and sang the Peru National Anthem (a very long song, by the way). Hernando then gave our group school supplies to pass out to the kids and the anxiously awaiting adults. The adults may have been more excited than the kids to receive a pen. I was at once very happy and very sad.

In the village, a well constructed sidewalk runs perpendicular to the river. I’m guessing it is about 500 yards long. Along the length of the sidewalk were power lines. All the homes have electrical power.  The crops they grow here also ran the length of the sidewalk — cucumber and yucca where they harvest the manioc or tapioca root. One of the local men demonstrated the harvesting of the manioc. First, he cut down the tree with a machete. He then grabbed the trunk, gave a hardy pull and the tubers (roots) came out of the ground. Each plant has four to six large tubers each the size of a sweet potato.

Dan volunteered to harvest one as a demonstration of our groups’ capabilities. They handed him the machete and he handled it like a pro — chop, chop, chop, the tree was down, a manly yank and the manioc was out. We all cheered. He then became a folk hero to the local folks.

A tidbit:  George explained that a kid in the village can only continue his education past elementary school if he has friends or relatives in Requena who will provide room and board;  otherwise they are doomed to the rough life of their parents. It broke my heart.

Our next launch is at 4:15 to visit another village and meet their medicine man. Here again, the ride from our boat by skiff took 30 seconds to mud steps carved into a steep bank. The village was built perpendicular to the river. The current school building which lies about 200 feet from the river was one mile from the river just a few years ago. It is currently being dismantled and moved further inland. Can you imagine?

The main street is dirt — now mud from the rain. The houses are shabby huts on stilts with thatched roofs that look badly in need of repair. The town has a water tower and water purification system for drinking water and cooking. Prior to the system being installed several years ago, dysentery was a major health issue for the children of the village.

The town had a nice soccer field and a number of the locals were playing a game against some of the crew from our boat.  Three, four and five year old kids were running around playing and laughing and just being kids. They were all adorable.

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The captain started the engines at 6:15. It is overcast and extremely humid. Yesterday felt long — I am hoping for more diversity today, and the early group returned and indicated they saw a large number of parrots, macaws and parakeets.

The water current is very swift. The shallow banks of the rivers are being constantly eroded by the current, causing the trees and vegetation to collapse into the water. We see examples of it every day — trees leaning precariously over the water.

We leave at 9:30 and will be taking a shortcut along a different body of water. How our skiff drivers navigate this place is amazing since it all looks alike in every direction — brown water and thick, impenetrable jungle.

The service on the ship is first rate. Everyone is very helpful, always polite, always smiling.  We are always greeted by name and everything is spic and span.

Our pilot left the main river and turned into a narrow tributary.  As soon as we turned into the tributary, we saw more pink dolphins. We continued up the waterway and it felt like I was truly in the real Amazon for the first time — the thick, tall jungle surrounds you here and it is strangely quiet except for the birds and the occasional monkey. The water is crystal clear and is called “black water” since it is deep and clear and appears black as you look into the water from the boat. The surface is like a mirror. As we continued, we came to an area of dense vegetation covering the water’s surface and it went on acre after acre. The vegetation is water hyacinth in full bloom with large purple flowers standing erect above the greenery. Also part of this dense collection is water lettuce, a non-edible, small smooth leafy plant. These enormous masses float on the surface and are not anchored by roots to the bottom which is 20 feet down this time of year. Our pilot pushed against the mass with the bow of the skiff until a large section would start to move. He would reverse the engines to pull back and clear the props of vines and then push forward once again until he cleared a channel. It was a tedious procedure of slow, incremental progress, but amazing to see.

We saw a large number of bird species, several types of monkeys, tree sloths and frogs. The air was very still with temperature and humidity off the charts. Whew! Our guide handed us a chilled washcloth to cool off and freshen up. It was heaven.

Another tidbit: Each evening on the observation deck, e have a band made up of our guides, Victor and George, the expedition leader — Hernando, the chef — Pepe, and two cabin boys who play the keyboard, guitar and wooden flute. They play well, but are greater entertainers. The guides have an encyclopedic knowledge of anything that grows or lives in the rainforest. It is truly uncanny since there are 1,600 bird species alone. Their stories and insights about the people, their culture and the land are fascinating. Both George and Victor were born in the rainforest and grew up there until moving to Iquitos for their education. While both guides have accents (Victor heavier than George), both have a rich English and scientific vocabulary.

A small glimpse of American culture: Hernando was whistling the theme song from Sesame Street yesterday. I laughed since I recognized it immediately, but wasn’t sure I could have come up with the melody on my own.

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The vegetable area is starting another season, and the beds have been replanted with a variety of vegetables — cucumbers, sweet peppers, cilantro. We also have some experimental plots dedicated to growing horseradish with different amounts of natural fertilizer (chicken droppings), plus peppers planted using two different methods of ground cover which protect the surrounding soil from serious rainwater leaching.  Implementation and evaluation of these experiments are being made by the students. Our papaya trees, only just recently planted, are quickly bearing fruit and our passion fruit plants are thriving.

The medicinal area of the garden is smaller by comparison but is showing strong growth as we’ve planted the most commonly used medicinal plants in the area — achiote, hierba luisa, hausai and rosa sisa.

The ornamental flower area is starting to get more attention.  This is a great asset to the garden as it brings together many examples of rainforest flowers all in one place for students and guests to enjoy.  Rarely does one see a broad range of rainforest flowers together in the wild.  We’ve been nurturing a number of new marigold plants and we’re buying seeds to plant more.  Marigolds are a great deterrent for ants which continue to be a challenge to control in the garden since we’re using only natural methods. We recently made the purchase of almost 100 bougainvillea flowering plants to run along our fence line.

About Las Malvinas: Housed at a public school, the Las Malvinas urban garden project is the centerpiece of an IE-funded environmental education program. Teachers use this outdoor classroom to teach environmental awareness, biology and language arts to the school’s 1,000 students. The Garden is home to a vegetable garden, medicinal plant garden and two ponds.

Learn more about the Las Malvinas Garden and how you can support the project at Traveler’s Philanthropy.

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While nest have been relocated individually, relocation at this scale has never been attempted anywhere in the world.

Most of the nests designated for removal are those of the loggerhead turtle, the world’s largest hard-shelled turtle, growing to an average adult weight of 250 pounds. The loggerhead is the most prevalent of five species of threatened or endangered sea turtles that inhabit the U.S. Gulf Coast, others include Kemp’s ridley, leatherback and green turtles.

Teams will dig up eggs from the nests, placing them in special containers covered with sand and shipping them by truck to the Atlantic coast of central Florida.

Read the complete story at www.reuters.com.

For updates on how the Gulf oil spill is impacting wildlife, please visit the National Wildlife Federation.

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In villages like San Cristobal, the indigenous Achuar people believe their maladies are caused by exposure to oil. They suffer fainting spells, vomiting, chronic diarrhea, headaches and skin infections.

According to locals, “There’s a stream where we always go to fish, and it’s always had oil on top. We catch fish there and eat them. We catch fish there and eat them. The fish drink the water, and since we eat them, the oil must get into us that way.”

“This riverside village of open-air, wood-and-thatch homes is remote, and medical research is seldom carried out here. But government doctor Alan Castro thinks health problems in San Cristobal can almost all be explained by malnutrition.

“But a Peruvian government study published in 2006 found that most indigenous people along this river had unhealthy levels of lead in their blood and 95 percent exceeded the healthy limit for cadmium. Lead and cadmium are associated with oil spills.

“Whether the cause of these health problems is oil spills, other changes brought by outsiders, or a combination of the two, the Achuars’ quality of life has worsened since oil companies arrived in the Amazon rain forest and little is being done to help them.”

Read the full story on NPR.org.

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This is the second installment in a series by Wayne Zanardelli, an IE Guest who was kind enough to pass along observations about his latest Amazon adventure. Read Part I here.

We landed in Lima at 5:00 AM, cleared passport control and customs and were met outside for our ride to the Swissôtel. The hotel is beautiful; too bad all we have time for is a shower and a change of clothes. We placed our bags outside our rooms at 8:30 and were downstairs to meet the rest of the group, a group with a lot of “birders.” We’ll have lunch at 12:00 and leave for the airport for our flight to Iquitos at 1:30. I am whipped.

Lima is very, very big geographically with a gazillion buses, give or take, of all shapes, sizes and conditions. We boarded a large, modern bus and drove to our first stop, the oldest home in Lima located in the center of the town. It was built in the 16th century and has been in the same family for 16 generations. We entered from a side street through an inconspicuous door that led to the only parking spot on this street behind the walls of the home. The home was deceptively cavernous because of the front access. It was filled with priceless antiques from over 500 years and intricately carved wooden furniture, moldings and picture frames. It was a bit much for my taste, but beautiful nonetheless. Every wall was adorned with a huge picture complete with large ornate wooden or brass frames. The center of the home was an open two-story skylight with a three-tier fountain on the ground floor and a huge old tree pushing toward the sky past the roofline. It was elegant old-world.

We next walked to the oldest cathedral in Lima founded by Fransisco Pizzaro and logically called the Lima Cathedral. It was another example of over-the-top wood carving on every wall with cedar being the wood of choice.

Next up, a church and then a monastery where the bones of 20,000 dead are on display in the catacombs, neatly arranged in bins by type of bone, i.e. femurs, tibias, ulnas, clavicles, skulls, etc. It’s a tad ghoulish, in my opinion. Thankfully, the practice of burying someone below the monastery is no longer allowed.

The city has a number of beautiful and interesting town squares that were very attractive. They help brighten up the rather gloomy surroundings.

We left for the airport and all flights were on time. We landed in Iquitos at 6:00 after a 90-minute flight. It was a very cloudy day which obscured any view we may have had of the Andes Mountains. It was 88 degrees when we landed. There is only one road through the jungle from Iquitos to Nauta, our destination. Nauta is a jungle town of 16,000 located in the middle of nowhere. The trip is a 90-minute drive along a narrow two-lane asphalt road that took 30 years to construct by cutting through the jungle. It is from there we will board skiffs to cross the river to our boat, La Amatista.

Along the road we passed a number of small settlements along with squatters that migrated to this area from other parts of the rainforest. Electricity in Nauta is supplied by diesel generators. Everything in this part of the world is brought in by river barge — cars, buses, machinery, building supplies, food, fuel and clothing and you name it.

It is very dark — jungle dark — and the southern sky is alive, sparkling with millions of bright stars. What a sight.

We had dinner on board at 9:15. I am exhausted. The captain pulled over and tied up to a tree at 10:30. He won’t start the engines again until 5:00 AM giving everyone the ability to sleep without the loud engines running. That is the procedure every day. Oh, and anchors don’t work here — the bottom is heavy with silt and the current too swift. How the captain manages to navigate at night in this ever changing, unmarked waterway is a mystery to me.

Breakfast was at 7:30 in the dining room. It was very good and the dining room is very nice with floor to ceiling windows all around enabling everyone to watch the luscious scenery drift by as we enjoy our meals.  hey manually ring a large brass bell for meals here. It may sound like a corny idea, but it is actually kind of nice.

The river is huge and we are only in one of the many tributaries. Along the river bank there are small villages here and there usually comprised of four to 10 poorly constructed wooden shacks on stilts with thatched roofs and we see kids, lots of kids waving as we go by. These small settlements do not have electricity, as you may have guessed, and no pure drinking water, but worse, no easy access to anything except the river.

Our first outing started at 9:00 AM. Boarding was easy even though La Amatista and the skiff were moving quickly through the water. We passed a number of solitary, poorly constructed shacks built on stilts near the river bank. They live on a parcel of land that will soon be claimed by the water, so they move and move and move to higher ground and rebuild their huts and clear the land (slash and burn) and plant their meager crops. There were many of these isolated houses, but all were separated by long distances.

Along the way we passed by a small village where the banks of the river were lined with grapefruit trees all heavy with fruit.  Grapefruit grows wild here, but these were planted by the villagers.

I am living out another of my fantasies. I consider the Amazon River and rainforest a natural wonder of the world and the last great untamed frontier for man with the potential to change the world in many ways.

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This Amazon trip with International Expeditions (my second with them – the first was Botswana and Namibia in April 2008) begins in Lima, Peru on February 12 and ends in Lima on February 20. The trip is a 600 mile cruise down the Amazon River, stopping at remote villages along the way and using smaller craft to go through some of the many tributaries that thread their way through the Amazon rainforest. We fly north from Lima over the Andes (average height 13,000 feet, with Aconcogua at 22,841 feet the highest peak) to the city of Iquitos, Peru located at the headwaters of the river. It is from there we depart for our trip aboard the river boat, La Amatista, a three deck, flat bottom boat, 127 feet long with a 28 foot beam. It carries a crew of 13 and a total of 28 passengers. Each cabin has A/C, en suite facilities, and large windows for panoramic views of the tropical forests as we sail down river.

The river itself is a staggering natural wonder. It is the largest river system in the world.  An unbelievable two thirds of the unfrozen fresh water in the world is found in the Amazon Basin. At 4,000 miles long, it is the second longest in the world after the Nile (this is an ongoing dispute, however). It was discovered in 1500 by the Spanish navigator, explorer and conquistador, Vincenté Yanez Pinzon, who hailed from Seville. He first called the river, Maria de la Mar Dulce or sweet sea, referring to the fresh water pushed out into the sea. It was later called, Grande Rio, Mar Dulce. Pinzon was also captain of the Nina when Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492.

The majority of the people who live on the Amazon River are not, as popularly imagined, groups of headhunters and wearers of strange lip ornaments. Headhunters are people of legend and television documentaries. Such people do exist even now, but they are rare and endangered whose future is cause for despair among anthropologists and whose culture won’t survive against the onslaught of the 21^st century. And head-hunting is long gone.

Most of the people in the rainforest are not indigenous, though they have lived there a long time. They are usually descended from both European and Indian ancestors who migrated here to work on rubber plantations or other short-lived booms of the exploited rainforest. They are called Mestizos. In Peru they are called Riberenos. They speak a mix of Spanish and Quechua (a language derived from the Incas) as well as their indigenous languages.

They are a people who live with minimum amounts of cash; they harvest the jungle judiciously; they build their canoes and fish the river; they grow gardens in small plots; they build their houses of wood and plants from the forest and raise their livestock on a bit of pasture supplemented with forest and garden grazing. Making a living is tough. Selling produce or fish or meat is very difficult since the only market is Iquitos and the distances from the villages can be great. Five hundred years ago there were 10 million Indians living in Amazonia — today there are only 200,000 indigenous people. Over 90 tribes have been destroyed since the early 1900s.

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While I’ve already had a wonderful meeting our Expedition Leader Hernando and eating and touring my way around Lima, I know from years at IE that our Amazon tour doesn’t start until we’re on the boat.

Once flying into the frontier city of Iquitos, we boarded a bus bound for the port town of Nauta, where we would embark La Amatista. Driving along the dark road between Iquitos and Nauta is an adventure in itself. Lush swaths of plants and trees are broken only by intermittent settlements — three or four houses clustered together, where on this Saturday night the people are dancing and socializing right on the edge of the road. This drive is also the first opportunity we have to chat with our fellow travelers and guides. I’m sitting next to naturalist George Davila, who brags to me about the writing award his daughter just won for her compilation of Amazonian lore. Our group is an eclectic mix — a college professor, a nurse, a zoo newsletter editor, a retired kindergarten teacher and boisterous world travelers. Traveling in such a small group — 27 guests including my mom and me — it’s amazing how quickly you get to know your fellow travelers.

When at last we arrived on the dock and boarded motorized skiffs to travel across the Rio Maranon to the waiting Amatista, it was like a true beginning to our expedition. Fishing bats dove into the dark waters as we crossed the river and found our cabins. And a tart Pisco sour was the perfect beginning to seven nights of adventure.

Side note: At this point in the Amazon River cruise, I did actually have cell service. While contact with the “real world” is spotty in the remote jungle, Nauta is a large enough town to have its own cell tower. So, once embarking La Amatista, shoot a note to family in the U.S. assuring them you are safe and they won’t be hearing from you until the end of the week.

I am admittedly biased, but I can’t imagine a better way to spend a week on the Amazon than the Amatista. There are “fancier” options for an Amazon cruise, but frankly, I didn’t want a Caribbean cruise through the jungle…I wanted an expedition! On the covered top deck I was able to laze away my siesta time in the afternoon with a frosty Amazonica beer and a good book. While at meals we enjoyed a buffet of home-style Peruvian dishes, fresh fruit and ice cream. And the ice cream isn’t just plain old vanilla! We actually were treated to a Peruvian fruit flavor – Lucuma (everything comes back to food with me!).

Up next: Hawks, villages and pink dolphins (oh my!) on our excursions. Plus! Beatles night in the heart of the jungle.

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We have compiled from many different sources ways you can help contribute to the cleanup and save local wildlife.

• The BP Volunteer Hotline has set up numbers if you need to report injured wildlife or damage related to the spill. You can also request volunteer information at 866-448-5816.
• OilSpillVolunteers.com: You can register to volunteer or assist in the cleanup. www.oilspillvolunteers.com
• The National Audubon Society: Sign up to get trained and volunteer to help local birds. www.audobon.org
• Alabama Wildlife Federation: www.alabamawildlife.org/oilspill
• Alabama Coastal Foundation: www.joinacf.org, 251-990-6002, or info@joinacf.org
• Mobile Bay NEP: www.mobilebaynep.com 251-431-6409
• Mobile Baykeeper: www.mobilebaykeeper.org 251-433-4229 callaway@mobilebaykeeper.org
• Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau: Contact the state-organized volunteer bank by dialing 2-1-1 or 888-421-1266
• Save Our Seabirds: Works with injured and disabled seabirds. www.saveourseabirds.com

Facebook Groups

• Alabama Coastal Foundation
• Mobile Bay NEP (National Estuary Program)
• ‘Let’s Save our Gulf Coast’
• Oiled Wildlife Rescue volunteers
• Mobile Bay NEP: ‘Help Save the Gulf Coast from the Oil Leak’
• AL.com & NOLA.com: ‘Save the Gulf of Mexico’
• Louisiana Shore Clean-up’
• Deepwater Horizon Response

Have a volunteer opportunity you want to share? Let us know in the comments.

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