Peru

Starting Price:	$2,757.00
Trip Length:	8 days

Mummies of the Chachapoyas

The Fortress of Kuelap

Ruins at Cajamarca

Complete Chachapoyas and Cajamarca

Description Pricing Itinerary

This tour-expedition takes us to the Central Highland of Peru, a largely unvisited area of Peru: Chachapoyas and the impressive ruins of Kuelap, belonging to the pre-Inca civilization of the Chachapoyans. We will also observe the Mummies of the “Cloud Forest People” overlooking the Lake of the Condors, as featured in a documentary by the Discovery Channel.

This tour will also take us to the beautiful city of Cajamarca, which played a very important role in the Spanish conquest of the Incas, to the world-famous Inca baths, where the last Inca was bathing when the Spaniards arrived, the “Ventanillas de Otuzco”, a pre-Inca necropolis, and the quaint and pleasant town of Celendin. The whole region is surrounded by beautiful countryside.

Go Back To Chachapoyas Mummies and Cajamarca

Day 1

Chachapoyas
Flight from Lima to Chachapoyas. Airport or bus station pick-up. Lunch and visit Sonche Canon with spectacular waterfalls and Huancas, an Inca Mitima village featuring ceramics. Huancas, a Mitima Inca village (the residents were transplants from Huanuco in the Inca heartland, to pacify the rebellious Cloud people). Huancas’ main business has been pottery-making since ancient times. A five-minute walk takes us to a gorge deeper than the Grand Canyon. Gigantic waterfalls cascade into a virgin river, which hasn’t yet been run by white-water rafters. Night in Chachapoyas.

Day 2

Levanto
Visit ruins of Yalape in Levanto (one hour from Chachapoyas). Levanto was the most significant city of the zone at the time of the Inca invasion and also in the Spanish colonial era. We will see a colonial church five years older than Lima with its high carved altar. This is one of Peru’s oldest cities not far from where the Inca was captured. We will go to the fortified ruins of Yalape overlooking the city, and also see the 22-kilometer Inca Canal, which brought water to Levanto. Nearby is Colla Cruz (“Colla” for the loyal Inca residents who transferred here from the Colca Canyon area, and “Cruz” for cross roads). This was a major crossroads of the empire’s roads with more than 2,000 miles of major roads going north to Ecuador and Colombia, south to Huanuco and Cuzco, and east to Cajamarca (where the Inca king Atahualpa was captured) to the central Andes highway system and on to the coastal highway system. We will see where the Inca military garrison guarded this intersection. This is the zone’s first restoration, which revealed a major defeat of the Incas by the Cloud people in the revolution against the Spanish. Night in Chachapoyas, 3-star colonial hacienda.

Day 3

Karajia Sarcophagus
We will see the spectacular 8-foot-high funeral sarcophagus of Karajia, on steep cliffs. From there, we will go and see more sarcophagi higher on a sheer cliff than any building you have ever seen and an ancient colonial mill. Night in a local hostel.

Day 4

World Class Cave
Visit the latest discoveries in this unfolding zone where gigantic and fantastic caves raised the bar for world-class caverns. Night in Chachapoyas, 3-star hostel Colonial Mansion.

Day 5

Leymebamba
Visit the Museum Centro Mallqui where 219 mummies were relocated. They were featured in October 1998 on the Discovery Channel documentary “Lost Warriors of the Clouds.” These were located in the gigantic zone south of here which 50 years ago was 15,000 square kilometers of unexplored Andes, with no road except the ancient Inca road to Cuzco. Ancient shamans got more medical plants from these mystic zones than from the lower rainforest. Night in local hostel.

Day 6

La Jalca
Today, we visit La Jalca Grande, the most traditional village of the zone and the ruins of Ollape. There is an ancient stone church built before 1540 AD with a Chachapoyan zigzag snake design along its walls. After dinner, soak in the Jacuzzi at the Choctamal Mountain Lodge.

Cajamarca was a major center of the Inca Empire. It is most famous for being the place of first contact between Pizarro and the Inca army, which he defeated in a one-sided battle shortly thereafter, capturing Atahuallpa, the last of the independent Inca monarchs. Although the Inca city was razed to the ground, Cajamarca boasts many beautiful colonial buildings, as well as the Inca-era “Ransom Room,” where Atahuallpa was kept as a prisoner of the Spanish before being garroted.

Day 7

Fortress Kuelap
We will spend the day at Fortress Kuelap, known as the “Machu Picchu of the North.” Kuelap has more than 400 buildings inside five levels of walls and is the largest stone structure in all of South America. Orchids and bromeliads cover the walls and trees inside this fortress, which is estimated to have 3 times more volume of materials than Egypt’s largest pyramid. On the way to Chachapoyas, we will observe the burial Tower of Macro located on a cliff overlooking the Utcubamba River. Overnight at Colonial Mansion, a 3-star hostel.

Day 8

Transfer to the airport to take the flight to Lima. Optional extension to Trujillo (please enquire).

Occupancy Type	Standard Occupancy
Double	$2757
Single	$3210

Name:
E-mail:
Phone: