Amazon River Cruise & Rain Forest (2012)

Depart the U.S. for Lima, Peru.

You arrive in Lima early in the morning and have some time to rest. Meet your Trip Leader for a briefing just after noon, then enjoy lunch at a local restaurant.

After lunch, we embark on a Lima city tour beginning with the Cathedral, San Francisco Church, and the city’s main plaza, Jiron de la Union. Founded by the conquistadors in 1535, Lima became Spain’s largest and wealthiest New World city, and today its historic center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We continue to the famous Archaeological Museum, where we can view the eras of Peru’s history through art from pre-Inca turquoise figurines to Inca textiles and Spanish paintings. Then we’ll take in some of Lima’s modern culture in the popular Miraflores District, a neighborhood of theaters, galleries, shops, and restaurants near the Pacific shore.

This evening, we gather for a Welcome Dinner at a local restaurant.

Today you can join us for an optional excursion that begins at the Pachacamac archaeological site, where pre-Inca ruins have been excavated. We then continue to the nearby Villa El Salvador district, where once-impoverished refugees have created a thriving community. It began in 1971 when people displaced from their Andean homeland were forced to resettle in a spot near Lima that, though located on the seacoast, consisted of desert terrain. Over time, the residents organized themselves and worked with the Peruvian government to create a functioning society, complete with schools, clinics, water and electricity, parks, and paved roads. In 1983, the town was declared an official district of Lima, and in 1986, it was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for its community-building efforts. We’ll meet some of Villa El Salvador’s forward-thinking residents, and afterwards there will be time for independent exploration and lunch on your own in Larcomar, a modern Lima shopping and dining spot with beautiful views of Miraflores Bay.

Or you can spend the day in Lima at leisure. Your Trip Leader will be happy to offer suggestions on how to spend your day. Perhaps you'll visit Barranco, a charming artists' warren of restored colonial and 19th-century residences. Dinner is on your own this evening.

Today we rise before dawn for breakfast and to catch our early morning flight to Iquitos. This is Peru’s main river port, established in 1864 in the heart of rubber country on the Amazon’s deep waters. Like any port, it has a hustle-bustle feel, yet it is not without its places of quiet and shaded retreats.

When we arrive, we’ll check in to our hotel and enjoy an included lunch. Then we’ll explore the city with our Trip Leader. Much of the architecture we see is a 19th-century vestige of the era when European commercial barons held sway over life and culture here. And while Iquitos has seen many fortunes rise and fall, its isolation has remained constant: Access to the city is by air or river only.

Dinner is on your own tonight.

After breakfast, we’ll embark our Amazon River ship—our privately chartered home for the next week. Once aboard, you can just relax and let the wild rain forest surround you. Step out on deck to watch the riverbanks go by—but keep your eyes peeled for wildlife such as gray and pink dolphins.

Our ship casts off and winds its way to the confluence of the Marañon and Ucayali rivers, considered to be the point where the main stem of the mighty Amazon begins. For this first part of our cruise, we are truly traveling on the waters of the Amazon River itself, not just its tributaries.

The Amazon Basin is a fragile environment, constantly under threat from industrial development and population growth. Some 60 miles south of Iquitos, however, the Peruvian government has established the Pacaya-Samiria Reserve, encompassing five million acres and accessible only by water. Here, we’ll explore the park in a special launch piloted by an expert guide. Watch for a phenomenal range of wild species in Peru’s largest national park.

Later this afternoon, after our siesta, we’ll have a special orientation discussion about the geography of the area we’re going to explore. We have dinner on board this evening.

This morning, we board excursion boats for our first look at the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve. Started in 1940, this reserve now has an area of 7,700 square miles and is the largest protected area in Peru. The reserve harbors 539 species of birds, 101 mammal species, 256 kinds of fish, and 22 species of orchids.

This morning’s small-boat excursion gives us an in-depth look at one portion of this vast reserve as we navigate from the Pucate River to the Rio Yanacu, Japan Gorge, Capronillo River, and Yanaquillo Creek. Along the way, we’ll try our hand at fishing for piranha—the notorious predatory fish, which turns out to be a staple of the local diet since they’re quite tasty. We rejoin our ship on the Marañon River in time for lunch onboard.

Later, we’ll meet a local shaman and learn how he communicates with the spirits of the forest as he prepares remedies with rain forest plants long known to the spiritual healers of the Amazon. We have dinner on board again this evening.

We have a full and rewarding day of discovery today that immerses us deeply in the nature and local culture of the Amazon Basin. Early this morning, we’ll make another excursion by small boat into the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, exploring more of this vast tropical wonderland. We’ll have a picnic breakfast en route and return to our ship by mid-morning.

After a bit of time to rest, we travel by skiff to the village of Las Palmas to share A Day in the Life of this Amazon Basin community. As we walk through the village, the ribereños (river people) who live here will introduce us to their way of life, which relies on the resources of the rain forest and the crops that they cultivate. We’ll visit the Las Palmas School, supported by Grand Circle Foundation as part of the World Classroom initiative, meeting the young students, and then be the guests of a local family for a Home-Hosted Lunch. Later, we’ll return to our ship, where some local residents come on board so we can continue to discuss their culture. Please note: Due to weather or river conditions, we sometimes make this village visit on Day 8, and we can’t visit the school when it’s not in session—January through mid-April and the last two weeks of July.

Later in the afternoon, we’ll ride in traditional dugout canoes with local people from the riverside village of San Regis. After dinner onboard this evening, we’ll board small boats for a nocturnal excursion to the Lost Gorge of the Marañon River, watching for wildlife that’s most active after dark.

Today we cruise further up the Marañon, watching for tropical birds as we go. We board excursion boats this afternoon to explore more of the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, reaching our furthest point upstream along the Samiria River. In this ecosystem, swarming lianas, arums, and philodendrons wrap themselves around tree trunks and branches, becoming highways for ants, caterpillars, and arboreal mammals. And towering teak, mahogany, ficus, and kapok trees poke out above the canopy layer. We rejoin our river ship on the Marañon River in time for dinner onboard. In the evening, we’ll board a skiff again for a nocturnal excursion to look for caiman and other wildlife that is most active after dark.

Today we’ll make an all-day excursion by small boat into another section of the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, exploring more of this vast tropical wonderland. We’ll explore a seasonally flooded section of the tropical forest near one of the reserve’s ranger stations. After we return to the ship, we cruise toward the village of St. Regis.

Today, as we cruise back toward Iquitos, we stop for the morning at the town of Nauta. We’ll stroll through its local market, where ribereños like the people we’ve met during our cruise sell their crops. Here we’ll also visit the Sapisapi River to look for charapas—a species of turtle that grows up to three feet long—and other turtles of Amazonian waters. We have lunch on board, and then in the afternoon, we’ll have time to relax and a discussion about the past, present, and future of the Amazon. This evening, we’ll bid goodbye to our captain and crew at a Farewell Dinner aboard ship.

After breakfast, we bid farewell to our Peruvian Trip Leader. We disembark our ship very early this morning in Iquitos and board our flight to Lima. We've arranged a day room at a city hotel in Lima for our entire small group. Stretch out and relax, catch up on your travel journal and postcards, or go into Lima to explore a bit more. We fly home just after midnight tonight. Dinner is on your own, after which main trip travelers transfer to the airport for an overnight flight to the U.S. If you are taking the optional post-trip extension to Machu Picchu & Cuzco, Peru, you remain overnight in Lima and fly to Cuzco tomorrow morning.