In August 1999, I traveled to Peru with Wilderness Travel.  The first few days were spent exploring Cusco and the surrounding ruins:  Sacsahuaman, Qenko, Chinchero, and the circular Inca terracing outside Moray.  Later, we did a warm up hike through the salt flats outside Maras to the Urubamba Valley -- the "Sacred Valley of the Incas".  During our exploring we could see the beautiful Mount Veronica in the distance.

We started our trek through the Cordillera Vilcambamba at Mollepata.  Our first campsite had Humantay (6,271 m) as a backdrop.  The six day trek followed an old remote Inca trail.  We saw very few people (maybe one or two locals per day), and the scenery was breathtaking.  The second night's camp site was at 14,000 feet, with both Sulkantay (20,574 ft ) and Humantay (19,239 ft) in front of us.  As we crossed the pass between the two mountains (15,300 ft), we were treated to the sight of the rare Andean Condor.

After the highlands, we descended through various ecosystems and even had a bath in hot springs.  One campsite was on a mountainside with a view of Macchu Piccu on the next peak.  It is a view few other humans have enjoyed; since the trail is very remote.  Eventually,  we reached the river valley near Machu Picchu.  

After two very precarious river crossings, we arrived at the town of Santa Teresa.  To our dismay, we were greeted with the news that there was a National railroad strike.  This meant that we were forced to trek the remaining distance to Machu Piccu on the railroad tracks (instead of riding the train).  Local villagers were hired to carry our provisions.

The railroad strike turned out to be a blessing in disguise -- we had Machu Piccu almost to ourselves.  We overnighted at a hotel adjacent to the ruins.  We were able to explore Machu Piccu for a day and a half, before being transported by helicopter back to Cusco.

Back in Cusco, we took a side trip to Pisac and sampled guinea pig for dinner.  The next day we flew to Lima and explored the Gold Museum.  I then left the Wilderness Travel group and headed for the Amazon Rainforest.

Iquitos is the first stop on the journey to the Amazon River.  This city has very few automobiles; they rely on motorcycles and three wheeled taxis.  I boarded a boat, and we cruised down the Amazon for hours until reaching the Explorama Lodge.  This organization has four separate lodging facilities in the jungle; each facility successively more remote.  The accommodations function as both a tourist destination and a research center.  The ACEER Research camp has the world's longest canopy walkway.  

The center provided me with my own private guide.  We went on numerous hikes through the rain forest, and were guaranteed to see spectacular wildlife and plants on each outing.  Monkeys, McCaws, sloth, tapir, iguana,  and river otters were just a few of the wildlife spotted.  I was also treated to a fishing trip for piranha, a boat trip to see the pink dolphins, and a night canoe excursion.

When I migrated from my old website to this new one, the large photos were lost..........so all I have left are these small thumbnails.

Peruvian Highlands Woman and child	Stone wall at Sacsahuaman	Inca terracing outside Moray
First campsite on trek; Humantay in background	Trekking closer to Humantay	Shaman ceremony at our high campsite
Group photo at the high pass	Machu Picchu	Machu Picchu
Llama at Machu PIcchu	Close up of stone work at Machu Picchu	Helicopter to take us from Machu Picchu to Cusco
Ruins at Pisac	Boat going down Napo River	Same boat as at left; we found it sunk the next day.
Amazon Rainforest	Canopy walkway at the ACEER research camp	Fishing for piranha
Typical boat on the Amazon River	Accomodations at the Explorama Lodge	Tapir in rain forest
Local tribe near research camp

I'm trying to find the original digital photos of this trip & redo this web page.  All the large versions of the photos were lost during the recent website crash!