Peru was great. Machu Picchu was a spectacular site to behold and Cusco and the Sacred Valley were both beautiful locations. The people were all very friendly
The Inkaterra Hotel was everything I expected it to be. The hotel was set among cloud forest and the grounds had beautiful granite paths with lush vegetation and flowing water from the mountain running throughout in narrow stone gutters along the sides of the paths. The restaurant was set in a valley and perched on a cliff overlooking the powerful Urubamba river. The view was incredible.
I would highly recommend this hotel to anyone going to peru. Aside from the last day when I got sick and vomitted about once an hour for 12 hours straight, it was incredibly relaxing. The food was very good and was definitely the best I had during my trip. I ate 3 courses for lunch and dinner every day and I felt stuffed all the time.
Lastly, the service was outstanding. We were supposed to be there for NY's but our plans got screwed up and pushed back a day. Upon our arrival at the hotel we mentioned this to the assistant that was assigned to us and on our second night she arranged for free champagne and some extra appetizers that were off the menu and specially prepared for us by the chef. It was a nice surprise.
The guided tour of Machu Picchu was also very well done and it was worth getting a private guide because I stopped to take pictures a lot, which wouldn't have really been possible in a group. It was raining the whole time I was in Machu Picchu and unfortunately some of my pics were ruined by water on the lens, but the upside was that I got some nice atmospheric shots and I was able to hide my tripod under a poncho without looking like a marsupial. I didn't know before going (our guide told me) but you're not allowed to bring tripods into the citadel because a beer commercial crew broke something with one a few years back. I was very careful with mine.
Aside from the Machu Picchu tour there are other tours you can take that are run by the hotel. A short trek out to see the spectacled bear was on my list of things to do, as were the orchid reserves containing 400 species, but my illness on the last day thwarted these plans so I didn't get to see them. Sorry RJ, I know you were looking forward to the bear pics.
Machu Picchu and the luxury accomodations of the Inkaterra were great but the highlight of the trip was definitely the rainforest. Everyone that knows me thinks that is funny because I'm normally so fussy about everything and I hate bugs. To get there we flew in to Puerto Maldonado and took a motorized canoe to a mud trail. We had rubber boots and spent the next hour and a half slogging through deep mud. At the other end, we took a canoe through a canal in the forest and then crossed Sandoval Lake to the lodge. It took about 3 hours total. The lodge was set within the Tambopata National Reserve.
We had to get up at 5am every morning and it rained every day. We got caught in a couple rainstorms out on hikes and out on the lake, but it added to the experience. We stayed at a lodge run by Inkanatura, whom I can highly recommend. Everything was well organized, from pick-up and drop-off at the airport to the programmed excursions. Our guide was fantastic. He was a native from the area and spent his whole life living in Puerto Maldonado, the nearest town. He was very knowledgable about everything in the jungle having spent his life there, a couple years in the army, the last 4 years guiding, and through a lot of reading on jungle ecology and wildlife. He takes his job seriously and had good answers for all my questions. He also speaks german, which I found surprising.
We arrived with 2 other pairs of people and spent the first two days with them doing the normal stuff. After they left our guide took us off the paths into the unadultered jungle. This was the highlight for me but my gf opted to stay back by the path. You have to be very aware of your surroundings when walking through the jungle. It is very dense and hides a lot of nasty things. If you're not careful, you might go to grab a branch for balance and then find it covered with army ants, a bullit ant (about an inch long and will make you cry for 24 hours), or any number of other nasty things. On the ground there are snakes, tarantulas, other spiders, more ants, etc. Most of the time they are hidden during the day, but if you disturb them you can get into trouble.
Apparently, they call the jungle the green hell. It's very beautiful, but if you were ever to get lost and not know what you were doing, it would not be fun. Even if you do know what you are doing, living in the jungle can be very rough because food and water are scarce. You would think that food would be abundant, but it's an illusion. The plants are mostly toxic and the animals high in the canopy and far more acclimated to survival than we are and everything is well camouflaged. Moving through the forest it is very difficult. You have to deal with fallen trees, swamps, ravines, and all manner of other obstacles. Still, I had a blast.
The forest comes alive at night. I've never seen so many bugs and nasty things. We took an excursion by boat along the lake to see black caimens (like alligators). They're easy to find but it's hard to get good pictures of them. They like to stay hidden in the reeds at the edge of the water, so often times all you can see are the reflections of their retina as you scan with your flashlight.
I learned the appeal of wildlife photography. It's like hunting, except you shoot with a camera instead of a gun. You have to be careful, patient, and quiet. There weren't any clay licks where we were so we had to find parrots and macaws on our own and then try and sneak up on them to get good pictures because they don't seem to like people. It was a lot of fun.
I took a lot of pictures but I have yet to go through them. Once I've selected the best, done some work on them (i shoot raw), and converted them to jpeg, I'll put them up in this thread. I got a lot of experience with my camera on this trip. One thing I learned is that I need better lenses if I'm gonna continue my interest in wildlife photography. To get reasonably sharp pictures of animals in the canopy I had to shoot at 1/320. Since it was early morning, the light was not very bright and I had to take most of my pics at 800 ISO. I had a GN36 flash but the recycle time was 7-10 seconds depending on the battery charge which is much too slow. I found myself frustrated with my equipment and I'll probably upgrade the camera, lenses, and flash before my next trip and relegate my existing gear to backup status. I'll definitely go back to the rainforest, but I think an African safari is next. The jungle is too dense and jaguars too uncommon. I want to shoot some big cats in the wild on my next trip. As an aside, there's a famous Amazonia poster featuring a photo of a jaguar. It took the photographer a year to get that shot because sitings are so rare and it's illegal to track them.
The Inkaterra Hotel was everything I expected it to be. The hotel was set among cloud forest and the grounds had beautiful granite paths with lush vegetation and flowing water from the mountain running throughout in narrow stone gutters along the sides of the paths. The restaurant was set in a valley and perched on a cliff overlooking the powerful Urubamba river. The view was incredible.
I would highly recommend this hotel to anyone going to peru. Aside from the last day when I got sick and vomitted about once an hour for 12 hours straight, it was incredibly relaxing. The food was very good and was definitely the best I had during my trip. I ate 3 courses for lunch and dinner every day and I felt stuffed all the time.
Lastly, the service was outstanding. We were supposed to be there for NY's but our plans got screwed up and pushed back a day. Upon our arrival at the hotel we mentioned this to the assistant that was assigned to us and on our second night she arranged for free champagne and some extra appetizers that were off the menu and specially prepared for us by the chef. It was a nice surprise.
The guided tour of Machu Picchu was also very well done and it was worth getting a private guide because I stopped to take pictures a lot, which wouldn't have really been possible in a group. It was raining the whole time I was in Machu Picchu and unfortunately some of my pics were ruined by water on the lens, but the upside was that I got some nice atmospheric shots and I was able to hide my tripod under a poncho without looking like a marsupial. I didn't know before going (our guide told me) but you're not allowed to bring tripods into the citadel because a beer commercial crew broke something with one a few years back. I was very careful with mine.
Aside from the Machu Picchu tour there are other tours you can take that are run by the hotel. A short trek out to see the spectacled bear was on my list of things to do, as were the orchid reserves containing 400 species, but my illness on the last day thwarted these plans so I didn't get to see them. Sorry RJ, I know you were looking forward to the bear pics.
Machu Picchu and the luxury accomodations of the Inkaterra were great but the highlight of the trip was definitely the rainforest. Everyone that knows me thinks that is funny because I'm normally so fussy about everything and I hate bugs. To get there we flew in to Puerto Maldonado and took a motorized canoe to a mud trail. We had rubber boots and spent the next hour and a half slogging through deep mud. At the other end, we took a canoe through a canal in the forest and then crossed Sandoval Lake to the lodge. It took about 3 hours total. The lodge was set within the Tambopata National Reserve.
We had to get up at 5am every morning and it rained every day. We got caught in a couple rainstorms out on hikes and out on the lake, but it added to the experience. We stayed at a lodge run by Inkanatura, whom I can highly recommend. Everything was well organized, from pick-up and drop-off at the airport to the programmed excursions. Our guide was fantastic. He was a native from the area and spent his whole life living in Puerto Maldonado, the nearest town. He was very knowledgable about everything in the jungle having spent his life there, a couple years in the army, the last 4 years guiding, and through a lot of reading on jungle ecology and wildlife. He takes his job seriously and had good answers for all my questions. He also speaks german, which I found surprising.
We arrived with 2 other pairs of people and spent the first two days with them doing the normal stuff. After they left our guide took us off the paths into the unadultered jungle. This was the highlight for me but my gf opted to stay back by the path. You have to be very aware of your surroundings when walking through the jungle. It is very dense and hides a lot of nasty things. If you're not careful, you might go to grab a branch for balance and then find it covered with army ants, a bullit ant (about an inch long and will make you cry for 24 hours), or any number of other nasty things. On the ground there are snakes, tarantulas, other spiders, more ants, etc. Most of the time they are hidden during the day, but if you disturb them you can get into trouble.
Apparently, they call the jungle the green hell. It's very beautiful, but if you were ever to get lost and not know what you were doing, it would not be fun. Even if you do know what you are doing, living in the jungle can be very rough because food and water are scarce. You would think that food would be abundant, but it's an illusion. The plants are mostly toxic and the animals high in the canopy and far more acclimated to survival than we are and everything is well camouflaged. Moving through the forest it is very difficult. You have to deal with fallen trees, swamps, ravines, and all manner of other obstacles. Still, I had a blast.
The forest comes alive at night. I've never seen so many bugs and nasty things. We took an excursion by boat along the lake to see black caimens (like alligators). They're easy to find but it's hard to get good pictures of them. They like to stay hidden in the reeds at the edge of the water, so often times all you can see are the reflections of their retina as you scan with your flashlight.
I learned the appeal of wildlife photography. It's like hunting, except you shoot with a camera instead of a gun. You have to be careful, patient, and quiet. There weren't any clay licks where we were so we had to find parrots and macaws on our own and then try and sneak up on them to get good pictures because they don't seem to like people. It was a lot of fun.
I took a lot of pictures but I have yet to go through them. Once I've selected the best, done some work on them (i shoot raw), and converted them to jpeg, I'll put them up in this thread. I got a lot of experience with my camera on this trip. One thing I learned is that I need better lenses if I'm gonna continue my interest in wildlife photography. To get reasonably sharp pictures of animals in the canopy I had to shoot at 1/320. Since it was early morning, the light was not very bright and I had to take most of my pics at 800 ISO. I had a GN36 flash but the recycle time was 7-10 seconds depending on the battery charge which is much too slow. I found myself frustrated with my equipment and I'll probably upgrade the camera, lenses, and flash before my next trip and relegate my existing gear to backup status. I'll definitely go back to the rainforest, but I think an African safari is next. The jungle is too dense and jaguars too uncommon. I want to shoot some big cats in the wild on my next trip. As an aside, there's a famous Amazonia poster featuring a photo of a jaguar. It took the photographer a year to get that shot because sitings are so rare and it's illegal to track them.
![boxing[1].gif](https://www.styleforum.net/images/smilies/boxing[1].gif)
