Chile, Bolivia and Peru

Santiago

You are met on arrival and transferred to your hotel in the city for the next 3 nights.

An introduction to Santiago, with a morning’s guided tour. You stroll the lanes to Santa Lucia Hill, visit the Plaza de Armas, and the lively university district. You return to your hotel with the rest of the day free to visit more city sights.

After a free morning you are picked up at your hotel to visit a winery by the city’s edge for their tour to find out about growing grapes and making wine, with a tasting session at the end. Return, educated, to your hotel.

Atacama

You are taken to the airport and fly to Calama, where you are met and driven to your lodge in San Pedro for 3 nights. In the afternoon you visit the Moon Valley, Death Valley, and Kari viewpoint in time for sunset. A quick dinner at your lodge, then if the skies are right join a group to visit the SPACE astronomy centre.

A tour of the Andes, first towards the Domeyko range, the ‘Yerbas Buenas’ rock art and the village of Matancilla. Visit Rainbow Valley in muted reds, greens and purples, and the adobe village of Rio Grande. After lunch drive to Toconao, with its little church, cactus wood bell tower and market. On the Atacama salt flat flamingos feed at a lagoon, and you imbibe the sunset.

Free day. You might stay around San Pedro, explore village lanes or rent a bike to visit the Pukará de Quitor fort or other local sites. There is a good range of guided trips and hikes further afield that we can arrange in advance for you at reasonable extra cost.

Bolivian deserts

Acclimatised by your time in San Pedro you travel across the border into the extreme landscapes of the Bolivian deserts, a stunning drive past volcanoes and altiplanic lagoons. You stop at the Green Lagoon, the ‘Dali rocks’ and the ‘stone tree’ en route to your desert lodge at Ojo de Perdiz.

An early start for the Sol de Mañana geysers, at their best in the cold dawn air, and continue to Laguna Colorada, then begin a road trip through some of the world’s most breathtaking landscapes. You pass below Volcano Ollague, through the Valley of Rocks, and cross the vast Gran Pampa Pelada, roamed by vicuña and ñandu with just a few scattered villages. Towards the end of the day you arrive at the mining town of Uyuni beside the immense salt flats. Once a railway junction and Bolivia’s gateway to the world, its trains stand rusting and abandoned in their graveyard, which you visit. Overnight at Uyuni or upgrade to a ‘salt hotel’.

Uyuni Salt Flats

A full day tour of the Uyuni Salt Flats, the ‘Salar de Uyuni’, the largest in the world. At the tiny hamlet of Colchani the local people bring salt dug from the salt flat–arranged in small pillars to dry, bagged for sale for cooking, or in piles of cut blocks for building. In the dry season, usually late March-late November, you drive out on the salt flats to one of the small islands with astonishing views across the whiteness. Giant cacti grow here and viscachas scamper away as you approach. At other times the salt flats flood and form a mirror that reflects the sky from horizon to horizon. Driving on the salt flat is not permitted at this time.

La Paz

Fly to La Paz this morning, and take the cable car with spectacular views of La Paz and the Cordillera Real mountain range as you descend to the city. Your local guide takes you to explore this world of magic, fresh scenes unfolding around each corner. You visit some of the key landmarks: the Church of San Francisco, the infamous ‘witches market’, past grand government buildings and the imposing cathedral, and wander narrow cobbled streets to La Paz’s best museums on Jaén Street with colourful colonial facades, and some of the more upmarket residential areas. You drive out to the extreme landscape of the Valley of the Moon, where spires of clay reach to the sky, and return to your hotel in the late afternoon.

Day free to explore La Paz, or we can arrange a guided excursion for you.

Lake Titicaca

Journey into Peru by tourist bus (there is a private option) to Puno on the shore of Lake Titicaca for 2 nights.

A full day boat trip on Lake Titicaca. You first visit the floating reed islands of the Uros community, where you walk on the reeds and learn about their extraordinary way of life. Sailing onwards you reach the rocky island of Taquile, home to people of different descent who are masters of textiles and proudly wear colourful traditional clothes. It is a steep puff up a well paved slope to their village at the top of the island where a traditional lunch is served with a panoramic view of Lake Titicaca. Sail back to Puno.

Cusco

You are taken to the bus station for a 200 mile journey across the altiplano to Cusco (also possible by train). Your tour bus stops at Pucara, which produces the pottery bulls that bring luck to every roof in the Andes, at Racchi for the impressive temple of Wiracocha, and a beautiful chapel at Andahuaylillas. Ending a memorable day you are taken to your hotel in Cusco for 2 nights.

Your guide meets you at your hotel for a private tour of important Incan sites around Cusco. At the great temple fortress of Saqsawaman you walk among massive Incan walls at the jaguar’s head of Incan Cusco, with wonderful views across the city and beyond. At Qenko you enter passages carved in a sacred rock to a revered divining stone. You visit Incan baths at Tambo Machay, a mountain spring cascading from a channel at just the right height for a (rather short) Inca to enjoy. At Puca-pucara you see a lovely example of a classic Inca ‘tambo’ of the kind that marked each day’s journey on roads throughout their empire. In the afternoon you stop by the church of San Cristobal for a panorama of Cusco, and visit the bustling St Peters Market–its stalls laden with Andean produce. You visit Qoricancha, the most important Incan temple, its temple walls once lined with gold. In the oldest part of Cusco you walk down a lane beside the palace of Inca Roca, a magnificent example of intricate Incan ‘pillow’ stonework, emerging at the Plaza de Armas where your guide shows you around the Cathedral.

The Sacred Valley of the Incas

On your drive into the Sacred Valley, you stop at a weaving co-operative where wool from llamas, alpacas, vicuñas and guanacos is spun, dyed and woven into traditional textiles. You visit the Incan fortress overlooking the little town of Pisac, and browse the market before continuing to your hotel for the night.

This morning your guide shows you other sites around the Sacred Valley including the magnificent Incan fort of Ollantaytambo, with temples, observatories and fine stonework, Incan terrace circles at Moray high on a plateau with spectacular Andes views, and salt pans above Maras stepped into the hill. You board a late afternoon train to Machu Picchu Pueblo below the Incan citadel, and are helped from the station to your hotel.

Machu Picchu

First thing this morning, or later if you wish, you take the bus up to the ruins of Machu Picchu for your private guided tour of the ‘lost city of the Incas’. Catching a bus back down the mountain you board the train back to the Sacred Valley, where you are met and driven to your hotel in downtown Cusco.

Lima

A leisurely start in Cusco with free time before you are driven to the airport to fly to the capital Lima on the Pacific coast.

You are collected for a private tour visiting the ‘Love Park’ atop an ocean cliff, the pre-Incan adobe pyramid of Huaca Pucllana, Plaza de Armas with the government palace and city hall. You visit the cathedral and Santo Domingo convent with your guide. Later you are driven to the airport for your flight to the UK.