Machu Picchu and Amazon Tour: 7 Days Overland Across Peru

Your Machu Picchu Amazon tour begins with the local team meeting you at Puerto Maldonado airport, followed by a 10-minute drive to its base. Pack what you need for two nights into a light duffel bag and leave the rest of your luggage in storage so the boats travel light.

From the Tambopata port, a motorboat takes you about 2.5 hours upriver into the rainforest to your jungle lodge. After some rest, a late-afternoon walk introduces you to the forest. Once it gets dark, a guided night walk looks for nocturnal life.

Meals included: Lunch / Dinner

At 4 AM, a 2-hour boat ride up the Tambopata River offers birdwatching en route to the Chuncho clay lick. Guests wait as three macaw species and various parrots gather to feed. Breakfast is served on board, with frequent sightings of capybaras and caimans along the riverbanks.

After lunch at the lodge, visit one of two oxbow lakes nearby—Condenado 2 or Sachavacayoc, depending on the weather and the time. These lakes hold monkeys, caimans, hoatzins, and a family of giant otters, with macaws flying over on their way to roost. On the boat ride back, the guide scans the banks for caimans.

Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

After breakfast, a 2-hour boat ride takes you back downriver to Puerto Maldonado. From there, the Interoceanic Highway heads west through lowland forest to Mazuko, the last town before the Andean foothills. The road then crosses the Iñambari River and climbs along the Araza River.

Stop for the night at Kuporo, a cabin lodge 5 km past the village of Quincemil, at 800 m (2,625 ft). In the afternoon, an interpretive trail shows how this cloud forest differs from the lowland forest of the first two days. Your cabin sits close to the rapids of the Araza River.

Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

This is the day that sets this Amazon and Machu Picchu trip apart. The road leaves the cloud forest and climbs into dry inter-Andean valleys. At about 3,700 m, the trees stop, and open grassland begins, with snow peaks on the horizon. At the Pirhuayani Pass, the main range of the Cordillera Vilcanota stands right in front of you.

The road then drops past the villages of Ocongate and Cattca into the Vilcanota Valley south of Cusco. After Urcos, enter the Sacred Valley at Huambutio and visit the market of Pisac—and its ruins if time allows. Stops on the way depend on the weather and the time of day.

Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

The day starts in Ollantaytambo, 80 km from Cusco. Climb the stone terraces of the fortress, where the Incas beat a Spanish force in 1537, and walk the lanes beside ancient water channels. A local family opens its home, including the room where it raises guinea pigs (cuy).

Lunch is at a local restaurant. In the afternoon, the train takes you down the valley to Machu Picchu village (Aguas Calientes). Dinner tonight is on your own.

Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch

An early bus takes you up to Machu Picchu (2,470 m), so you reach the citadel before most day visitors. The guide leads a 3-hour tour of the temples, houses, terraces, and central square that the Inca Pachacutec had built in fitted stone.

Eat lunch at the ruins or in the village below, then take the bus down and have free time in Machu Picchu village before taking the train back toward Cusco, where you spend the night.

Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch

On the last day of this 7-day Peru tour, a vehicle takes you to the Inca ruins around Cusco. Back in town, walk the cobbled streets, where colonial churches and mansions stand on Inca stone walls.

After lunch, the transfer takes you to Cusco airport for an afternoon flight to Lima and your onward connections.

Meals included: Breakfast / Lunch