Exploring the Amazon and Machu Picchu

Lunahuana  is a small, remote town in Peru. It is about 5 hours by bus from Lima. We flew into Lima and took a bus that dropped us off sort of randomly near Lunahuana because we had to walk and find the farm we were staying at. I found the farm, Tierra Langla, through a website called HelpX which connects you to organic farms all over the world where you can volunteer at. We had to bring our own tents and slept by the river. Everyday we divided up the chores between the 10 of us; gardening, weeding, building homes using bio construction techniques or cooking. They served 2 vegan meals a day. On the weekend we went hiking and white water rafting which was guided by locals in town. It was really awesome !

Cusco was a great experience. We were able to walk around the whole city and explored different historical cites before heading to Machu Picchu for a day. We ate lots of local food, took a tour around the city and hiked to the top of the city where we could see beautiful views for the entire city. Getting to Machu Picchu was challenging because there were strikes from the train workers so we had to take an overnight bus for 7 hours and then walk for 3 more hours to get there. It’s usually not that difficult so shouldn’t be a problem if you want to go there. Machu Picchu was so beautiful and so worth it!

Iquitos was incredible. You have to fly there as I don’t think you can reach it any other way. We arranged to have a guide and met him in Iquitos. He took us and 2 other people on a boat and we rode for about an hour to our lodging. We stayed in the middle of the jungle at a lodge where they provided all of our meals. Everyday the guide would take us some where new to explore. We went to an open air animal sanctuary, went fishing, and hiking through the Amazon. Our guide knew everything about all the types of plants and animals! We saw sloths, snakes, tarantulas, crocodiles, chickens, monkeys and more. It was fascinating!