the Aracari Blog

Conde Nast Traveler selected our 11-day Trip to the Amazon and Colonial Peru as one of their “Deals of the Day”- handpicked travel deals for the smart traveler.

Take advantage of this limited time offer (20% discount!) for Spring 2010 travel while it’s still available. You’ll cruise the Amazon and relax in Peru’s plushest country inn. Contact us for more details.

We just came across this link on Youtube and thought you might enjoy James A. Fitzpatrick’s “Traveltalks; The Voice of the Globe: 1937 Glimpses Of Peru.

We can recommend memorable visits that will give you a glimpse of the Peru featured in this video – hidden treasures that bring to light onto those days gone by.

The good news is that you don’t just have to take our word for it…

“Dear Aracari,

A very big thank you for making our trip to Peru so memorable! We had  the most incredible trip to the Galapagos, Tambopata in the Amazon  basin, Trujillo/Colayco for pre-Incan ruins and active archaeological  sites, and finally the highlands of Arequipa and the Colca canyon.

Yahoo travel published an article last week labeling Machu Picchu one of the 5 most overrated tourist destinations in the world.

Coincidentally, this article was published at a time when visiting Machu Picchu is not option since the train tracks to the sacred site have yet to be fully repaired.

Please check out our “Handcrafted Peru” itinerary as featured in the March 2010 edition of Travel + Leisure Magazine.

As T + L kindly put it, our itinerary “revels in the sheer, exuberant abundance of Peru”.

We are offering a special 1 night free on the itinerary to the first 10 T+L readers who book with us! Please contact an Aracari representative at: info@aracari.com for prices and more details.

Keeping our clients abreast of the developments in regards to access to Machu Picchu is fundamental. Since our last update we have continued to gather the latest news from the ground and as of today we can share the following important points:

“Now that we’re back from our Peru visit I wanted to  drop you a line to thank you for the exceptional service Aracari  Travel provided us over the last week. We expected the highlight of our trip to be our visit to the Sacred Valley  ending with our planned hike into Machu Picchu. When we learned of the flooding in the Urubamba River and the likelihood that  we’d be unable to get into Machu Picchu your staff did a remarkable job of rearranging our trip in a manner that, in reflection, was more  fulfilling than our original planned trip would have been. We had no  idea Peru was so rich in culture and ruins, both Incan and pre-Incan beyond Machu Picchu. We are indebted to Aracari for getting us to the  ruins at Pisac, Sacsayhuaman, Puca Pucara, Qenco, Tambomachay,  Chinchero, and the all too brief visit to Ollantaytambo. When added to the visits to the Cathedral, La Compania, the Convent of La Merced, San Blas, the Inca walls of the Convent of Santo Domingo, the  Archaeology Museum, and too many other sites to remember in Cuzco all  I can really say is thank you for an extraordinary experience.”

Dear Friends,
As you may have already heard, we are experiencing major rainstorms, flooding and landslides in the Andes of Peru. As a result, train services to Machu Picchu have been interrupted with many clients stranded both there and in Cusco without having the possibility of visiting the site.

In the spirit of the holidays, Aracari just returned from a gift-giving trip to the village of Patakancha set high in the Sacred Valley that surrounds Cuzco.

Belen giving dolls to the children

There’s no better feeling than giving back to a community that has given us so much over the past 13 years. For anyone who’s ever trekked with Aracari, you have been touched by this community as the porters and cooks we work with all come from Patakancha.

Spotlight on Northern Peru

One of the most overlooked, but arguably beautiful regions of South America is the unspoilt wilderness of Northern Peru. An ornithologist’s delight, this diverse landscape dissected by the mighty Maraňon River, is home to thousands of bird species including the elusive White-Winged Guan which was thought to be extinct for over 100 years. Yet, our feathered friends give only a hint of the extraordinary wealth of wildlife found in this part of the world.