We landed in Calgary. Checked into the Westin airport hotel and then headed over to our friend Manny and Kate’s house for dinner. It was a lovely evening and we got to meet their little guy Ollie and their dog Pepe.

It was a good day! Tomorrow will be a big travel day, so we’re heading for an early bedtime and can’t wait to have a delightful sleep in the comfy Westin bed!

We flew from Calgary to Montreal where we had a bit of a layover. Landing in Montreal was beautiful with all the fall colors. \240We spent our layover in the maple leaf lounge. It was definitely the best lounge I’ve been in to date! Good food and an excellent bar.

The views from the plane as we flew over Peru were incredible. Stunning mountains, beautiful coast lines and loads of boats in the water.

Our flight to Lima departed at 7:30am. It was a 3 hour flight on Avianca. They had new snacks to try… sort of dusty tasting cheese biscuits lol.

Landed in Lima at 10:30am. Cruised through customs and were picked up by Jose who transferred us to our hotel. The driving in Lima is pretty wild, but we made it safe and sound!

Exploring Barranco

We walked through the neighborhood and it was really lovely! It felt very safe, clean and had a cool bohemian vibe.

After getting showered up and changed, we headed out to walk along the sea walk to enjoy the sunset. It seemed to be a popular idea because locals and tourists alike were all out soaking it in. Great views all around. We walked to the border of Mira Flores and then headed back to the hotel.

After we finished lunch we took the scenic route back to the hotel. Once again just really enjoyed wandering the streets of barranco. When we got back to our hotel our room was ready and we were so excited! Such a beautiful room but even better - after two days on a plane, we were both pretty excited for a shower!!!

Street view of our hotel

Front of our hotel

Barranco ocean walkway

More Election Day mocktails 🤣

After dinner, we were both pretty excited to hit the hay. We are so tired after our journey to get here. The bed is comfy … and way more comfy than an airplane seat lol.

Looking forward to a nice chill day of exploring tomorrow.

First order of business was to find some coffee. Turns out there is an excellent coffee shop right across the street from the hotel! It had the cutest courtyard so we got our coffee to stay and enjoyed the vibe. The coffee was great too.

Mocktails all around because no alcohol allowed on Election Day

We ended up stopping at Awicha which was the cutest little Peruvian restaurant. The service was fantastic and the food was absolutely unreal! We enjoyed some ceviche and some amazing prawns. The seafood was so fresh and all the flavors were on point.

We had dinner and more mocktails at the hotel. It was delicious! I had empanadas and some kind of chilli pepper chicken stew. It was soooo good, but way too much food! The portions in Peru are massive!!

We came back to the hotel, showered, did some laundry and then we got ready to head out for the evening. We hit up our hotels rooftop bar for a couple cocktails! It’s a beautiful place to enjoy a drink or two!

Views from miraflores were stunning! And we got such a beautiful day today. It was hot!

Touching the South Pacific Ocean!

Overall it was a fantastic day. Heading to bed to unwind and get ready for tomorrows adventures!

Sadly I didn’t wear enough sunscreen today and got a mega sun burn. It’s pretty sore and very bright red. Looks like tomorrow will be a sun shirt day lol.

We couldn’t resist stopping at a local convenience store and trying out some of the local Inca Cola and some chips. The store was packed with locals so we were excited to try it out! The Inca cola is super sweet - and tastes like bubble gum 🤣

Street art

Selfie with more street art

Singular cafe

Midway through our walking tour we stopped in at singular cafe and enjoyed a cup of delicious coffee. It was such a cute coffee shop!

After our walking tour we headed back to the hotel to cool down, apply some much needed sunscreen and rehydrate a bit! Then we headed out to walk over to Miraflores a nearby neighborhood. Our main purpose was to exchange some usd for the local currency - soles.

Along the way we stopped in at Nina for lunch. We of course had to have the fish ceviche, and then we also tried the lomo Saltado. Both were delicious!

Then we headed to Isolina for dinner. It is a Peruvian tavern serving up comfort food. We enjoyed our dinner, but the portions were massive. We ate and ate and ate and felt like we hardly made a dent in our food. Very enjoyable dinner, but felt like we needed to roll home we were so full lol.

We decided to cool down with some gelato from a little place Monterosso that Diego from Awicha recommended to us. It was sooooo good! I had no idea what flavors I ordered but they were both epic!

After breakfast we headed out on a self guided walking tour around Barranco. There was so much to see! Beautiful old buildings, narrow walkways, amazing street art, the bridge of sighs, Barranco Beach and lots of cute little parks.

Street art

Old church

Library

More fruit!

The market had all kinds of goodies - fruit, veggies, snacks, health remedies, fish, chicken, cheese, and more! It was very cool to walk around and see everything.

Dessert

After our cooking class was done, we walked back to our hotel and took a little siesta before our city tour started.

We were picked up from our hotel by Jose and Claudia and we headed out on our half day city tour. The traffic was really bad near downtown because there was some sort of protest going on. Lots of policia were present and ready for escalation, but it seemed that all proceeded peacefully.

Coffee tasting

At the end of the coffee tasting we went upstairs to the chocolate store and purchased some Peruvian chocolate. It might not make it home 🤣

After the coffee tasting, we walked back to hotel B where we had a pisco sour making class with their bartender. It was a very enjoyable time and it was the best pisco sour we’ve had so far!!

Market tour

There were sooo many kinds of potatoes! Peru has over 3000 potato varieties, way more than we have at home. Kind of hard to fathom having that many choices!

Coffee tasting at Ciclos

We learned to stir the espresso before drinking! It redistributes the crema which makes it taste better.

Pisco sour class

After the cocktail class, we headed to the rooftop patio for our fruit tasting and our cooking class.

Fruit on market tour

There are soooo many kinds of fruit. Most of them we were totally unfamiliar with. It was so fun to learn some new fruits though it was really hard to remember their Spanish names 🤣

Fruit tasting

Fruit tasting

Fruit tasting

The first course of the cooking class we made classic fish ceviche. It was soooooo good! The sweet potato cream was a bit of a twist from what we have tried so far and it was absolutely delicious! It really made the dish!

Fish including Bonito

Lomo Saltado made by Tylor

Veggies on the market tour

After the market tour, we headed to Ciclos and Cocaotal where we did a coffee and chocolate tasting. We learned all about coffee making and chocolate making and it was so enjoyable. The coffee was some of the best I’ve ever tasted in my life. So so so good!

Me enjoying every minute of cooking class

Lastly we made dessert. We broke up one of the fruits we got at the market and made a dulce de leche, pisco and orange juice sauce to go on it. Then we topped with crumbled pecan meringue and garnished with edible flower petals.

Ceviche made by me!

Next course was lomo saltado- made in a wok! Tylor was brave and even lit his on fire (traditional way) but I was too scared lol. We served it with corn and rice, fries and a fried quails egg. It was very enjoyable!

It was fascinating to have a guided tour through the museum with Claudia. She did a great job explaining the history and nuances to us.

Larco museum gardens

More Larco museum gardens

We ended up getting back too late to make our dinner reservation, so we ended up going to Reiwa Izakaya (Japanese) for dinner. It was super close to the hotel and had excellent ratings on Google! Our server didn’t speak much English, but we got by just fine!

Mansion in old town Lima

Inside the old post office

Monastery

Riot action in one of the city squares

We arrived at old town Lima and walked around as it was pedestrian access only in this area. The buildings were stunning with some incredible history. The city of Lima has done a great job preserving and maintaining these historical buildings.

It was a super busy day! And we are very tired! But it was such a good day and we fit in so much awesome stuff. Tomorrow morning will come early - we have a 5am wake up call for our flight to Cusco.

Old post office

Video of historic square

Inside beautiful cathedral

Mayor of Lima’s home

After the tour of old town concluded we drove to the Larco Museum which was so incredible! It’s an archeological museum with items dating more than 5000 years old. From all different civilizations and ages.

Inside beautiful cathedral

Andean river trout, delicious potatoes topped with golden berry sauce

2nd course - three sisters soup - squash and corn topped with bean and fried sweet potato garnish

Quinoa puffs were the snack on the plane!

We were met at the airport by our guide and our driver and we headed out right away. Boy they had quite the day planned for us!

Our first stop was the Silva textile museum. Here they employ the traditional methods of using alpaca fur, dying it, turning it into wool and thread and then hand making all the items - from tapestries, to pillow cases, table runners, clothing, hats etc. it was really quite incredible. They use all natural ingredients to dye the wool including these white beetles that turn bright purple when you squish them. So amazing!

Part of the road to Pisaq

Our guide took us on an incredible tour of the Pisaq site.

Us with our guide

Part of the courtyard and the owners house

Obligatory Peru lama pic 🤣

Beautiful table setting

Once we reached Pisac we went to Hacienda Saram Pampa. This is a family farm that has been growing giant white corn for three generations - since the 1930’s. They employ traditional methods of growing and do not use typical pesticides or weed control like our producers at home use. They make a repellant made from pink peppercorn, mint, and ash to coat the corn seeds before planting which is very effective. They also employ the three sisters method of planting crops together to form symbiotic relationships! We learned about this on our tour of the property with the farm owner.

They also had guinea pigs on the property. They were very cute! And way bigger than the guinea pigs were used to seeing.

First course - vegetarian ceviche.

3500m of elevation at the top of the Inca village

Mint, pink peppercorn panna cotta

Stuffed pepper with three types of quinoa and Parmesan cheese.

The male lamas get dressed up

Next we embarked on a pretty wild ride to the town of Pisac. The roads are very rough and extremely windy. They are true mountain roads and not for the faint of heart lol.

After the tour of Pisaq we headed back down to the town of Pisac where we checked out the city square quickly. It had a lovely vibe and there was a group of young boys playing soccer together in the square. Very cute to watch!

Views of the town of pisac and the sacred valley

After this we embarked on the 1h10m drive to Urambamba where our hotel Sol y Luna was a welcome and calm contrast to the busy day. The drive was extremely rough and included some pretty wild passing lol. But we arrived in one piece. We are staying in casita 28 for the next two nights. The casita is beautiful and pics just don’t do it justice!

Beautiful snow capped mountains from the plane window

All the small holes in the mountainside are burial chambers - over 2000 of them

After our tour we were brought to the owners house where we sat in his beautiful courtyard for a gourmet, farm to table 7 course dining experience.

Corn ice cream served with tree tomato fruit

The lunch was such an incredible experience! It really told a story about the sacred valley and the farm. The staff were just incredible and lovely! We felt so lucky to have an experience like this.

After our lunch we headed up to the Pisaq archeological site - a series of four ancient Inca villages. The road to get there was soooo windy and steep.

Steak topped with Peruvian chimmichurri, preserved potatoes and Andean mushrooms

It was a good but very long day. We were so full from lunch that we skipped dinner lol. We got prepped for our bike tour tomorrow and then crawled into bed. And boy was it comfy!

Hotel grounds in the daylight

We booked the cava dinner which was in the wine cellar at our hotel. It was a multi course dinner with wine pairings. What a lot of food and wine! We honestly found it to be a bit too much for us. But the quality was amazing and the wines were delicious.

Views of our casita in the daylight

Today we got up early, had breakfast at the hotel and then headed out on a full day e-mountain bike excursion! It ended up just being us and the guide and it was a lot of fun! Beautiful scenery as we biked through the highlands above the sacred valley. The bikes were nice full suspension Scott ebikes that worked so well! They were so much fun to ride. We rode around 40km.

We made it back to the hotel and were pretty tired! We had a quick nap before our dinner.

After this we enjoyed some lunch with a view! The hotel packed our lunches and they were lovely. Now it was time to bike down the big hill back to the sacred valley. I’ve never done a descent that long, steep and switchbacked. It was a lot of fun. Hands were sore by the bottom lol.

Hotel grounds in the daylight

Old Spanish church we biked by

We biked to the Mara’s salt mines and then went in and took the tour with our guide. It was really interesting and impressive to see the scale they produce this salt 100% by hand.

We continued biking and made it to moray which is an archaeological site from Inca times. It was a farming laboratory where they grew experimental crops. It was amazing to see and learn about their methods.

Views along the train ride

They served a three course lunch on the train and it was absolutely incredible!!! Beautiful and delicious and very fresh food. The service was impeccable too.

Trapezoid doorway - adds stability in earthquakes

First glimpses of the area

Wayna Picchu looming behind the complex - we will hike it tomorrow!

Women’s temple in foreground. University above.

Temple for burying the dead and making offerings

That iconic Machu Picchu view

Looking back at the agricultural area

So excited to be here selfie!!!

Tylor at our table with our welcome drinks

Views from the train

Stairs

Bedroom area

After getting settled in our room, we went to the restaurant for a quick dinner and then we went to bed early. We were exhausted (in a good way lol)!

Sun temple and kings area

Dessert on the train

After approximately 2 hours train ride we arrived in the town of Aguas Calientes. A very small town that serves as a staging area for accessing Machu Picchu. We were escorted to the bus stop where we boarded a coach bus that took us on a 25 minute ride up a steep and narrow mountain road - it had around 13 very tight switchbacks.

We caught a few glimpses of Machu Picchu from the bus and we felt so excited to get in!!! We arrived and our guide whisked us away in a small group (4 of us total) to do circuit 3 of the archeological site. Here are a bunch of pics from our tour. It was absolutely incredible. Awe inspiring.

Photo of the main dining area of the train

Train arriving at Pachar station

The train was incredible! What I imagine train travel was like in another time.

Cool view of wyna picchu

Walking across the bridge to our hotel

When we checked in we received a complimentary upgrade to a junior suite. It was sooooo lovely! Complete with wood fireplace and decanter full of pisco to sample. They also left us lovely tins of tea to take home with us.

Sitting area of our room

Waynapicchu looming over Machu Picchu

Time to board the train!

Had to crawl thru a cave on the way down

Agua Calientes town

View of bus road to the left. Machu Picchu to right. We are at the very peak of the mtn!!! Made it!

Agricultural area behind us

Beautiful bathroom

We were exhausted from a super busy and physical day. So we got showered up and headed straight to bed. The bed was soooo comfy!

Views of the river valley as we started hiking

Beautiful deep tub

Looking down at the river valley. Almost at the top!

Made it back down, time to walk through Machu Picchu to the exit

13 switchbacks in the bus road

Waynapicchu is the tallest mtn in this pic

One last view of Waynapicchu. Can’t believe we hiked all the way to the top! It was so steep.

Us with sun temple in background

Temple of three windows on left and sun dial on the right

Lamas chillin at matchu picchu. They mow the grass around the archeological site

Amazing Inca structures all over the top of the mtn.

Us at start of Waynapicchu hike. It’s the big mtn behind us.

Cute dog curled up by Tylor’s feet while we waited for the bus

We waited about 1 hour to get on the bus. Then it was a 25 minute bus ride up the mountain to the entrance.

Sun temple

Original fountain built by the Incas. Still works!

Almost at the peak!

Tylor coming out of the cave

Part of the bus line up

Our table in the dining car

We made it back to Pachar station around 8pm and we were greeted by Lenny our driver and Tatiana one of our guides. It was about a 20 min drive back to our hotel. Checkin was very quick and they whisked us off to our amazing upgraded casita!

Sooo many narrow, uneven stairs to go down.

Sacred rock behind us. Carved to match the mountain silhouette behind it (in the clouds today)

Look up!

Bedroom and sitting rolm

Lots of steep cliffs beside the trail

Dinner menu on the train

Walking through hotel grounds to breakfast

We had a delicious breakfast at the hotel, checked out, arranged storage for our luggage for the day and headed out early to figure out how to take the bus up to Machu Picchu. Us and about 2000 other people. 🤣 it was wild!

It was about a ten minute walk through Agua Calientes to the bus station. It was easy to find because of the massive line up.

One more pic!

Look up and start to see terraces and various Inca structures.

Great view of Machu Picchu to our left. Built in the shape of the condor bird

It was quite the hike! Took around 2h15minutes round trip. It was a very hot day and the altitude made it very challenging. But we made it! We were both super tired after.

So we waited in the bus line up and headed down the mountain to go back to our hotel. We had lunch at the hotel cafe which was excellent!! Then we chilled out in the hotel lobby in comfy chairs and enjoyed tea time in the late afternoon. At 5pm we headed to the train station to catch the Hiram Bingham train back to Urubamba to return to SOL y Luna for a couple more nights.

The train ride started in the lounge where they checked us in while we waited in big comfy chairs. They passed out cold towels and welcome drinks and played live music to welcome everyone for the train journey.

Pretty much the entire pathway is stairs

Horse show

Ginger beer at lunch

Açaí bowl

Beautiful flowers at hotel grounds

After breakfast we went to the pool and soaked up some sunshine for a couple hours. We had the place to ourselves and it was absolutely amazing.

Mural at the ranch

After we had enough sun, we moved to a nice sitting area in the shade and enjoyed some lemonade.

Ham and cheese platter

Eggs benny

After our pool time, we headed to Wayra ranch which is attached to our hotel. We had a beautiful lunch here and watched a Peruvian horse show. It was such an enjoyable time! 😍

After the horse show, we went back to our room and relaxed for a few hours. I listened to my book, Tylor listened to some podcasts and we did some laundry. It was soooo nice to have a bit of down time after a very busy start to the trip!

We finished the evening with a light dinner back at wayra ranch and then headed to bed early. We are back to our busy schedule tomorrow!

Next we drove back to old town and toured a monestary which had Inca ruins inside the building. The Spanish built right over several very important Inca temples and destroyed many very important things.

Lastly we toured a cathedral. No pics allowed inside, but it was very beautiful with a lot of very impressive locally done artwork. Including a rendition of a Peruvian last supper painting.

We started out visiting Saqsay waman which was an incredible site. We were sad we didn’t have energy to more fulsomely explore and walk around. The size of the rock blocks used for construction were so impressive! Even more impressive - they came from a quarry 4km away. The Inca were incredibly advanced and resourceful people.

Last we went to pukapukara which was another Inca site. It was a fortress to look to the east to watch for invasions from the Amazon people’s.

Next we went to Quen’qo which was a very small site that used the natural rock formation. Inside a naturally occurring cave was a specially carved sacrificial table. It was quite incredible to see. It was a very special place to the Inca.

After the tour we had chicken soup for lunch at the hotel and then we took a nap. We were still pretty exhausted.

We ordered room service pasta for dinner and went to bed really early. We had a 4:30am wake up call scheduled for tomorrow!!

Me on my horse

After the horse ride portion, there were still several switchbacks left to hike up. At this elevation it was so hard to catch our breath. My lips went numb and turned blue. My hands turned blue too. Not from cold, but from elevation. First time I’ve experienced that lol. But we just went slow and we made it up!

There were loads of people at the top! Everyone wanted to take in the view and get their picture taken with the llamas with sunglasses on 🤣🤣🤣

Tylor on his horse

My horse and local leading us up

Look at all those people

Gyoza with a Peruvian twist

After a long day, we were pretty tired! We headed straight to bed and knew the next day would be an earlyish morning too.

Made it to the top!!!

Great views toward the red valley

We hiked back down the mountain (about 3km) with our guide and then hopped in to the van to head back to Cusco. It was a long ride and on the way back, we stopped for lunch at the same place that had the breakfast buffet. This time it was a lunch buffet. Our server for our drinks was a sweet 9 year old boy who was on a break from school and so he was helping wait tables at the family business.

We made it back to Cusco in one piece despite the crazy traffic! Our driver Lenny was such a good driver! We felt like we were in great hands.

After a little down time, we headed to dinner at Belmond Monasterio. The food was absolutely delicious, but the service was so terrible. We were pretty disappointed in this experience as it was supposed to be one of the premier dining experiences in Cusco.

First glimpses of rainbow mountain

Tempura trout with yellow pepper sauce

We opted just for a selfie lol

Glaciers on the Andes mountains

View from room in Cusco

We went to the atm to get some more cash and then we were picked up by our driver to go to the airport for our flight.

Omg the Cusco airport is not for the faint of heart. It’s absolute chaos lol. It was soooo hot inside and there were so many people - no where to sit. Almost nowhere to stand. And it seemed to be common practice to listen to music/ videos on full blast with no headphones. Needless to say, we were relieved when it was finally time to board our flight.

It was a really quick flight - about 1 hr. We landed in the rain at the tiny puerto Maldonado airport. Collected our bags and were whisked away to the inkaterra bus to head to the docks.

Snacks on the plane

When we arrived at the dock (about around 15 min drive), they loaded all our luggage into a narrow, long boat. And we boarded along with around 10 other people. We took a 45 min boat ride on the Amazon river to our eco lodge where we will spend the next three nights.

After a bit of time to get settled, we had to meet in the eco building to be oriented on the program and resort. We went a bit early to enjoy tea time! Yummy iced tea and cookies.

After our briefing, we took the twilight river cruise at 7pm. It’s totally dark and we looked for animals and birds on the river banks.

We went out for about an hour and saw some really cool birds, some baby caymans and a juvenile cayman. Overall it was a successful river cruise!

We got back to the lodge just after 8pm and headed straight for dinner.

Tylor enjoyed some local trout cooked in a banana leaf. And I enjoyed some pasta. We also had carrot soup with ginger. All of it was delicious!!

After a long and busy day, we got showered up and crawled into bed… tomorrow is going to be another very early start.

View from our room in Cusco - those are Inca ruins in the court yard

Even have hammocks!

Excited for this part of the adventure!

We had a delicious lunch while the hotel completed the check in process for us. We enjoyed the most delicious frozen lemonades which tasted amazing because it was 33 degrees and insanely humid. Basically we just felt instantly sticky as soon as we arrived lol.

We went to check out our river front cabana and it was lovely!!

The eco lodge has no cell service and no wifi. It’s a chance to totally disconnect. It also only has power during select hours of the day. Otherwise it’s oil lamps, tiki torches and flashlights. It’s pretty cool to see them light up the property for the evening.

After a bit of time to get settled, we had to meet in the eco building to be oriented on the program and resort. We went a bit early to enjoy tea time! Yummy iced tea and cookies.

After our briefing, we took the twilight river cruise at 7pm. It’s totally dark and we looked for animals and birds on the river banks.

We went out for about an hour and saw some really cool birds, some baby caymans and a juvenile cayman. Overall it was a successful river cruise!

We got back to the lodge just after 8pm and headed straight for dinner.

Tylor enjoyed some local trout cooked in a banana leaf. And I enjoyed some pasta. We also had carrot soup with ginger. All of it was delicious!!

After a long and busy day, we got showered up and crawled into bed… tomorrow is going to be another very early start.

Then we climbed back down some of the stairs until we were among the tree branches and we crossed a series of 6 suspension bridges. It was nerve wracking but a very cool experience! We saw so many amazing birds and a whole group of red howler monkeys.

After this we headed back to the resort by boat.

We were pretty tired after both the excursions. So when we got back around 4:30 we went and took another little nap before heading to happy hour and dinner around 6.

Dinner was so delicious! We had green banana soup with cassava bread, olives stuffed with Brazil nuts and our main course was charred cauliflower steak with carrots and Brazil nut cream sauce. It was sooooo good! Nice and light which was needed after a heavy lunch.

After dinner we headed back to our cabana to a little surprise. There was a frog in the washroom 🤣 we chased it around the cabana until Tylor managed to catch it and put it back outside. It would have been quite the sight to see.

After the excitement, we headed to bed as we have another early morning scheduled for tomorrow.

On the hike - which was on a rickety board walk, we enjoyed learning about nature and birds from our guide Pedro. We saw animal tracks, termite nests, parrots, monkeys, and many other cool things.

At the end of the board walk hike, we arrived at a canal and boarded a canoe, paddled down the canal and arrived at a very beautiful oxbow lake. We paddled slowly around the lake and watched many birds, giant river otters, black cayman, baby black cayman etc along the way. It was a very cool experience. Tylor had to help the guide paddle at one point when it got windy and everyone on the boat loved that the Canadians of course know how to canoe 🤣

After exploring the lake, we headed back the same way we came - hiked 3km out on the boardwalk and were picked up by our boat and taken back to the hotel.

We went and had a siesta - or rather Tylor napped and I caught up on my journaling lol.

Next up we went for lunch around 12:30 and had a delicious and fresh lunch. The food has been very enjoyable here, though there is way too much of it.

At 2pm we met Pedro and our group and headed out on our next excursion. It was a hike through the forest around the resort property where we learned about more plants and animals. Then we got to a massive tower with around 225 stairs - we climbed all the stairs to be above the tree canopy and were rewarded with beautiful forest and river views.

Snake tree

Cicada

We enjoyed laying in our hammocks for a bit before lunch time.

After lunch we left for our next adventure! A boat ride to a neighboring hotel property where we canoed through a lagoon and enjoyed some more bird and animal watching.

We saw loads of cool birds, a black cayman up super close, saw some Taipir tracks, amazing colorful butterflies etc. it was a very enjoyable time!

After the canoe ride, we boated back to our hotel property. We enjoyed some more hammock time before dinner.

We went a bit early and got some happy hour frozen lemonades and snacks and it was a great way to cool down a little - it was soooo hot today! After that we met up with Gil and Sarah from our group for a Pisco Sour to celebrate the end of both of our trips. They live in New York but Gil is from Spain and they are very nice people. We enjoyed getting to know them a bit.

After drinks, we went for a late dinner. I had banana gnocchi for a starter with a Brazil nut sauce and it was sooooo good! We had quinoa chicken salad for our main course with passion fruit dressing.

After dinner, we headed back to our room and got ready for bed. We were pretty tired after a couple busy days!

Dragon fruit

After the canoe ride, we boated back to our hotel property. We enjoyed some more hammock time before dinner.

We went a bit early and got some happy hour frozen lemonades and snacks and it was a great way to cool down a little - it was soooo hot today! After that we met up with Gil and Sarah from our group for a Pisco Sour to celebrate the end of both of our trips. They live in New York but Gil is from Spain and they are very nice people. We enjoyed getting to know them a bit.

After drinks, we went for a late dinner. I had banana gnocchi for a starter with a Brazil nut sauce and it was sooooo good! We had quinoa chicken salad for our main course with passion fruit dressing.

Red howler monkeys

In the canoe with Gil and Sarah

Black cayman

Dragon blood tree

We enjoyed laying in our hammocks for a bit before lunch time.

After lunch we left for our next adventure! A boat ride to a neighboring hotel property where we canoed through a lagoon and enjoyed some more bird and animal watching.

We saw loads of cool birds, a black cayman up super close, saw some Taipir tracks, amazing colorful butterflies etc. it was a very enjoyable time!

Old steam ship

Bumps on the tree are bats

After dinner, we headed back to our room and got ready for bed. We were pretty tired after a couple busy days!

It was about a 1.5 hour flight from puerto Maldonado to Lima. Then we had an 11 hour layover before our flight to bogota, so we rented a sleep pod and spent our layover napping, journaling and doing a bit of repacking.

It felt like a very long journey home. We flew from Lima — bogota — Toronto —Calgary. Overnight in Calgary and then flew home to terrace the next morning.

We almost missed our connection in Toronto due to massive security lineup after going through customs. We arrived at our gate just as they were boarding our plane. It was pretty stressful, but we made it!!!

Overall it was a wonderful trip! We were glad to get home to Canada though. Being away makes one appreciate all the things that make us so lucky to live where we live!