You may have wondered what it’s like to visit a jungle lodge in the Amazon. Well, it depends a lot on the lodge, and the people who run it. I went with Otorongo Lodge, run by Anthony Giardenelli and his Peruvian wife, Ivy.

Built from scratch over seven years, Otorongo is set back from the Amazon on the banks of the Oran river, two hours by speedboat and a world away from the city. If Iquitos is the edge of the frontier, Otorongo is a way to explore lies beyond it-- a forward operating base for close encounters with all kinds of wildlife.

And tuning into the wildlife is what Otorongo is all about. Anthony’s knowledge of the plants and animals of the Amazon is encyclopedic (birds and fish are particular specialties). He puts a premium on a dynamic, interactive experience between his guests and the jungle, employing a rotating staff of bilingual guides available night and day for excursions.

There’s a feeling that you get in the jungle, that you just don’t get anywhere else. It’s tranquil, but never quiet. Life happens ravenously, insistently--the jungle is absolutely riddled with living things. A curtain of green foliage extends just to the perimeter of Anthony’s lodge, and then suddenly civilization takes over.

The grass is cut and there are orderly gardens and fruit trees, macaws in the trees and hot coffee waiting in a thermos night and day.

At Otorongo, Anthony has two eagles that he is rehabilitating. A self-proclaimed bird psychologist, he explained how keeping them caged was the only humane option.

“Normally you would train birds like eagles with hunger, but one of these eagles has mental problems, the result of mistreatment, so training with hunger is not fair. Even when I release live food into his cage, he stands on his perch looking at it. You can see him thinking, “should I go, or not go?’ He can’t make up his mind. Everyone has to get out of the way for him to finally go after it.”

From time to time, locals will bring captured birds to Anthony’s lodge, hoping he will buy them, and often he does. And sometimes they stick around. He bought and released a screech owl once, but it didn’t go far. It sits and sings over his room all night long.

After dark at Otrorongo, many guests go out with guides in canoes to view the nightlife. Anthony showed up with rubber boots and a headlamp, and asked me if I wanted to go out and do some night fishing. Definitely!

But not in a canoe, it turned out. We followed a trail behind the lodge, revealing highways of ants working the night shift, termites, lizards and chameleons skittering up and down trees, and spiders—everywhere, spiders. One of them, a hairy, scary variety the size of my hand, skated off on the surface of the water.

“Wandering wolf spider,” he said.

“Great name.”

Anthony was shining his light along the water’s edge, scouting for cyclids. These fish nestle against the waterline, where they are safer from predators. Anthony saw one, slowly enclosed his hands around it, and plucked it right out of the water. “This one is called bujurqui rojo,” he said. “Not much meat on these little guys, but they make a pretty tasty soup.”

We went on along through flooded forest and dense undergrowth. Anthony saw another fish, a shuyo rojo, and cut it neatly in two with a single flick of his machete. “This species eats other fish, so I don’t mind killing them,” he explained.

Our fishing trip was a success—Anthony did indeed catch fish, with only a machete and his bare hands!

Anthony after a fishing trip

Further on, he stopped and pointed at what looked like a large, submerged leaf. I looked closer and saw that it was in fact a frog, the strangest looking frog I have ever seen.

“Suriname toad,” Anthony said. “Pretty cool to see those in the wild. It’s a male, and see, its carrying eggs on its back. Otherwise I’d try to catch it.”

A Suriname toad (Stan Shebs/Wikimedia Commons)

We continued off-trail, with Anthony aiming his light up in the trees. He was looking for snakes. He stopped and pointed to some snake scales stuck to a leaf at eye level. The imprint was perfect, a whole section of multi-colored scales stuck there like some kind of conceptual art project.

“That’s a rainbow boa,” Anthony said. “And it’s fresh. You see how it rubbed against the leaves to shed its skin. It might still be close by.”

A rainstorm cut our venture short, but it was enough to get a taste for the sublime attractions of the jungle. More people who live in cities should experience the Amazon like this, at close range. It can really shift your perspective, because nothing about it is man-made; it happened all on its own.

Spend any time at all in the jungle, and it’s soon obvious that there’s a whole other reality out there, a biological treasure-trove of astounding variety and creative expression, and all of it engaged with itself in a constant struggle for survival.

To spend even an hour out there, at night, among the hunters and the prey, can expand your horizons in a dramatic way. My hat is off to Anthony and everyone at Otorongo for their fine work out there among the wild things.
 

To read more of Caleb Whitaker\'s articles about life in Iquitos, check out his blog, Jungle Love.

This weekend, the New York Times set its sights on the famed Peruvian pilgrimage to Qoyllurity.

Writer Paula Sadok joined in the pilgrimage because she had been told that “the festival has the power to restore order to chaos, both in the outside world and within.”

For Sadok, one highlight of the trip was the Albacitas market, where charms representing the pilgrims’ aspirations could be purchased, only to later be buried on the mountain. She was most awestruck, however, by the traditional dancing, with different nations dressing in elaborate costumes and dancing to music played on flutes and drums.

Sadok was impressed by the ability of the native indigenous villagers to scamper over a mountain slope at 15,000 feet as if it was a sidewalk, and especially by the ukukus, the half-man/half-bears who have to travel to the glacier to perform ceremonial rites. She also marveled at the way a small city can be constructed for the pilgrims overnight.

It seems that Sadok found what she was looking for; at the end of the ceremony, she wrote, “Everything would return to its rightful place, flowing as smoothly as water melting from a mountaintop glacier, finding its way to the river below.”

Read the full article here.
 

Due to its characteristic sunshine and wide range of historical, cultural and culinary offerings, travel to Lambayeque is always an enjoyable and unique experience. It is one of those regions in which you always find something new to be discovered. This time, we are diving into Chaparrí (two hours from Chiclayo), where there is an ecp-lodge from which you can take a walk to appreciate a wide variety of birds and a number of endemic animals, most notably the spectacled bear, fox and white-winged turkey.

Another point of our journey was to visit Los Horcones, which is located just a few meters from the towering pyramids of Tucume, which was the bastion of the Sicán culture between 1000 and 1370 AD

Chapparí: A lodge with natural charm
To reach Chaparrí from Chiclayo, take the road to Chongoyape and turn left at Km. 65 (no road signs). From this point, follow a dirt road to ascend to the lodge, from which you can appreciate the full extent of the impressive Chaparrí mountain, which was considered sacred by the Mochica and continues to be considered as such by local shamans.

The reserve, considered the first private conservation area in Peru, has protected 34,000 hectares of dry forest, where you will find the lodg, composed of twelve cabins (each named after an endemic species) and built in the Moche tradition, with adobe bricks and stone.

The manager of this important project was the renowned photographer Heinz Plenge, who, along with the rural community of Santa Catalina, decided to maintain the natural character of the area and promote ecotourism starting in 2001.

Thanks to the work of Plenge, Chaparrí now features on the map of the favorite destinations of the world’s birdwatchers, who come to spot their favorite birds, and the site has been published in prestigious international journals such as "National Geographic".

Chaparrí offers tours with specialized guides for those who want the adventure of spotting the popular spectacled bears, coastal foxes, Andean condors, Peruvian thick-knees, peccaries and 46 species of endemic birds, all in their native habitat. During this tour, you will also have opportunity to visit Cuto, a charismatic spectacled bear held in captivity after being rescued from a circus, and their colleagues Cholita and Pierre, who are soon to be released into the wild.

In the reptile center, you will meet a variety of poisonous snakes like the coral snake and sancarranca, as well as some amphibians and reptiles that inhabit the area.

Along the way, you will also have opportunity to learn about the properties of the dry forest trees, such as the chaquirón, whose seeds are used to make earrings and necklaces, the sapodilla, which is used to manufacture crafts, or palo verde, which produces rubber.

The route also includes a stop at a replica of a shaman\'s house, where all of the characteristic ritual objects are displayed.

To maintain equilibrium with the environment, the lodge is supplied with power via solar panels, and has an artisanal water purification system using reeds.

For the convenience of guests, the lodge features a swimming pool, and there are hammocks on each of the terraces, as well as rooms with jacuzzis.

Los Horcones de Túcume: Up close with history
Los Horcones de Túcume is a rural hotel that maintains the essence of the ancient civilizations that dominated the northern Lambayeque Valley, with a construction made of adobe and carob.

Los Horcones de Túcume (Omar Carbajal/PromPerú)

While the site offers comfortable rooms, swimming pool, horseback riding and the possibility of homemade bread fresh from clay ovens, the great appeal of the hotel is to be the neighbor of one of the largest architectural complex of America: the pyramids of Túcume.
 

It’s interesting to note that the area known as the Sacred Valley of the Incas is home to a number of spiritual activities today. It is a place that attracts practitioners of many different modalities such as yoga, energy healing, plant medicine, sweat lodges and much more.

Places where you can make a spiritual retreat or just take advantage of some of these activities are abundant all over, but are most concentrated around Pisac and Urubamba. Both areas have what you might call a spiritual community, particularly in Pisac.

Portal Azul at El Molle in Pisac, for example, is a place where you can go for weekend or week long retreats. There you can take part in a sweat lodge, also called a temescal, take yoga classes, get sessions in a variety of healing therapies and much more.

Paz y Luz has a conference center, lodging and a healing center where there are also many therapies and classes offered. If you are staying in Pisac and want to find out what´s available around town, go to Ulricke’s Café where you are sure to get the latest news.

On the way between Pisac and Urubamba, there is the Sacred Valley Retreat in Yucay. They offer daily wellness programs with massage, yoga, guided hikes with meditation, essential oil baths, healthy food and much more. There is indoor accommodation or you can choose to camp outside. Weekly or monthly rates are available.

In Urubamba, there are also several spiritual centers as well as a number of practitioners of various arts and therapies that work on their own. One such center is Tribu Holistica in the Rumichaca sector of Urubamba. Here you can practice yoga and meditation, take a number of workshops such as in music, receive different types of therapies and take part in shamanic ceremonies such as offerings to the Mother Earth.

To find out who is offering what and when, stop by El Arte Sano Language School or on the 3rd floor of the marketplace at lunch time, between 1 and 3, where you will always find residents gathered.

One of the activities that people want to experience when in Peru is the native plant medicine. Ceremonies are typically centered around either San Pedro or Ayahuasca. There are many places offering these types of ceremonies but some, unfortunately, are more motivated by money than coming from the right place spiritually.

Plant medicine, particularly Ayahuasca, can be quite strong so be sure to do your research to find a reputable place to take part in this, such as Melissa/Ayahuasca Wasi in Pisac.

For full details on all the activities and adventures in and around the Sacred Valley and Cusco, including a full range of Machu Picchu trips, contact a specialist in Peru tours.
 

With its temples made of precise Inca stonework and its fresh mountain air, you could easily mistake Vilcas Huamán for one of those classic tourist destinations near Cusco: Sacsayhuamán, Pisac, Ollantaytambo.

Peel your eyes away from the ruins, however and you notice the differences; there are no hordes of Israeli backpackers, no pushy touts, no restaurants serving molecular, French-Peruvian-Japanese fusion cuisine. There is just a traditional, simple Andean town, one of the friendliest places I have been in Peru.

Vilcas Huamán (or Vilcashuamán; spelling is flexible in this part of the world) owes its relative anonymity to its geographical isolation.

The rural landscape around Vilcas Huamán

To get there, you first must head to Ayacucho, which despite its artistic, musical and culinary traditions and colonial architecture, receives few visitors itself.

From Ayacucho, the trip to Vilcas Huamán takes 3 hours or so, most of it on a dirt road that swoops along river valleys, creeks through mountain passes and hugs plateau ledges. There are buses every day, and battle-hardened drivers could theoretically manage it in private vehicles, though a four-wheel-drive vehicle would make the trip easier and more comfortable.

Along the way, there are a handful of Quechua-speaking villages, as well as the Titankayoq forest, which houses thousands of Raimondi pines, trees that are native to the Andean highlands, but look like they belong in a sci-fi movie.

When you arrive to Vilcas Huamán, you can shake some dust off in the central plaza, which centers on a statue of the Inca emperor Pachacútec. He founded the Inca city here after defeating the Chankas, who were living on the site previously. Vilcas Huamán became an important administrative and religious center in the Inca world, occupying a strategic location between Cusco and the northern realms of the empire.

The Vilcas Huamán skyline

That Inca legacy can be seen along one side of the plaza, where the Temples of the Sun and Moon unfold over three stone terraces, with niches for religious ornaments built into them and small aqueducts running along the platforms.

It must have been a powerful center for traditional religious worship, because the Spanish conquerors, upon their arrival, decided to build their church on top of it. That church is still there, atop the Inca temples, the perfect embodiment of the efforts to convert to native population.

The church sits atop the old Inca temple

Scattered in front of the temple are remainders of the Inca empire; an old stone throne from a temple, and another stone used for human sacrifices. The Spanish, perhaps wheezing in the thin mountain air, chose not to remove these religious objects.

The other highlight in VIlcas Huamán is the ushno, an Inca pyramid. It is apparently the only such example in Peru. Visitors today can pass through the pyramid’s doorway, climb up its staircase, and see the throne for the Inca ruler and his wife up on the roof. Behind the pyramid, there are two small forts built during the 1980s, when Vilcas Huamán was a frequent target for Shining Path attacks.

The Inca ushno in Vilcas Huamán 

The Inca rulers of Vilcas Huamán also had their own retreat, located along a beautiful lake called Pumacocha, in nearby Vischongo. Today, a few buildings have been unearthed, including a a sophisticated baths system.

Despite its sad history, Vilcas Huamán is a remarkably friendly place. Locals are happy to see travelers and will go out of their way to be helpful, generously giving recommendations, suggestions and smiles. The local cuisine is delicious, and represents the region’s indigenous heritage: chicharrón, pachamanca, fresh trout and qapchi.

There is not much of a tourist trade in the area; the majority of visitors come during the Semana Santa celebrations in Ayacucho.

As a result, there are only a handful of simple hostels in town. Many travelers choose to visit Vilcas Huamán as part of a long day tour from Ayacucho; numerous agencies offer the tour for about $20-30.

Right now, PromPerú is promoting special packages to Ayacucho. If you can’t take advantage of the special deals offered right now, another good time to visit Vilcas is for Vilcas Raymi, when the town reenacts the encounter between the Incas and Chankas.
 

Back in 1990, Qoyllurity literally changed my life. I haven’t been back there since, but I’m going back in June to give thanks, and you can join me this time.

The festival of Qoyllurity is one of the most important pilgrimages in the Andes, and is one of the most vibrant examples of traditional Andean culture. Every year since the 18th century, in May or June, the celebration has attracted thousands of native Quechuas and Aymaras to congregate high in the mountains. The purpose of the pilgrimage is to pay tribute at the sanctuary of the Lord of Qoyllurity, some 4,700 meters above sea-level.

The pilgrims cover 30 kilometers on the ascent to the sanctuary, leave offerings on the glaciers and even whip themselves as a display of their religious devotion. One of the most important aspects is the collection of crosses and blocks of ice from the glacier. According to custom, the ice from the glacier becomes holy water once it melts. I remember that as a test of manhood, young men would have to spend all night sitting on the blocks of ice.

The devotees also make plenty of time for fun, however. Each community brings dance and music troupes, each dressed in traditional outfits. The celebrations are a perfect reflection of centuries of Andean tradition.

Only a few people know this story, but Qoyllurity is also where I met my wife, with whom I now have two wonderful boys.

For me, it all started back in 1990, when I visited Peru. After a couple of months in Lima, I went to Cusco to do some trekking. During these trips, one of the local guides told me about Qoyllurity, and after having explored the possibilities of going, I went to the Cross Key’s Bar and asked if anybody wanted to join me.

A couple of hours later, I had 4 interested travelers, so the following day I rented a bus and invited the bus driver (owner) and his family to join us. That was very smart, because they knew everybody and ensured a great experience. There were 20,000 indigenous people participating in the pilgrimage, plus a few of us gringos, a Japanese TV crew, and Jacques Cousteau’s son, who was also documenting the festival.

Back then, it took 8 hours to get to the first meeting point, after which you had to walk about 4 hours to get the staging point. Now, the drive takes about four hours, due to the much-improved infrastructure.

My wife tells me that if I go three times, I’ll have all the luck I need to have to wonderful life. I went once and I already have a wonderful life with her and my family. She also only needed to go once to meet me, so maybe it is more potent than we thought. Anyway, it doesn’t hurt to return, and I have much to be thankful for.

This experience is not for everybody. Just consider that you have to go to 4,700 meters above sea level, which makes it a challenge for some. From personal experience, however, I can say that it a remarkable trip.

Together with our Cusco guide Eric and the rest of the Peru Experience team, we have prepared a great 3days/2 night trip, which costs $250 including transportation from Cusco to Qoyllurity, guide, food, tent, horse and much more, which you can read more about in detail here.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to write me ck(at)livinginperu.com or to call Morten or Caitlin at +51 1 221-9998

This trip changed my life forever. Maybe it’ll change yours, too.

I hope you will be able to join us!