trip details for toucans, temples & trails (WQC)

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Ecuador Jungle Trips: We start our three day Amazon adventure holiday at Misahualli. From here we head deep into the Amazon Jungle to our base camp. This is a riverside clearing where we will stay for three days. The next few days will be spent with our excellent guide exploring the secrets of this jungle environment. Canoe trips and jungle walks will open our eyes to a landscape and way of life that is utterly alien to our western ways. We are in a land inhabited by tribal people who live at one with their environment, using the jungle resources for their own survival without damaging the fragile ecosystem. Fishing is an important source of food and we will also learn about the different plants and their uses for the local communities. At the end of our Amazon adventure holiday, we return to Misahualli where we spend the night before continuing our journey back into the Andes.
travel information on Inca Trail and Machu Pichu in Peru: No Dragoman Overland adventure travel trip is complete without a community tourism project and on this Peru and Ecuador adventure travel trip we offer much more than just the usual tourist Inca Trail (although if you want to do the Classic Inca trail, you can). Machu Picchu and Inca Trail deals have become such big business that hundreds, if not thousands of trekkers, now trek Classic Inca trail every day. We have therefore developed our own unique Inca trail so that you can trek through unspoilt stunning Andean mountains and visit Machu Picchu as well. This kind of community project is fundamental to Dragoman Overland Adventure Travel’s responsible travel policies
Peru is known as being the heart of the Inca civilization and Cusco was very much the centre of the Incas realm. This trek takes us back in time to that very heart.
The Incas worked in stone to create some of the finest architecture in the world. Incredibly these were built without mortar and blocks fitted together like a jigsaw. The architects of the time were closely in tune with their environment and so designed their structures to survive earthquakes and as a result many are well preserved for us to explore today. The quality of the stone joints has to be seen to be believed especially when you consider that this was all completed before the invention of iron and the wheel and that the Incas had no form of written language.
To reach their far-flung outposts the Incas constructed a huge network of roads, over 2000km of hand worked Inca trails, across some very severe terrain.
Inca Trail & Quechua Community Trek is exclusive to Dragoman Overland Adventure Travel and has been pioneered by our local tour operator Andina Travel, who are founding members of ATSO, the Association of Sustainable Tourism.
The Inca trails that we trek take us off the beaten track and into the hidden heart of the Andes, following in the footsteps of the ancient Incas in the Pumahuanca region. We explore the spectacular scenery of the Cordillera Urubamba mountains; nestled deep in the eastern Andean landscape of glacial lakes, sub tropical valleys and high mountain puna. Above us the mountain “Apus” or Gods look down from the snow-capped summits of Mount Veronica, Pitisuiray, Sawasiray and Chicon, as we trek through this little known area. The mountains have inspired local myths and legends and shape the lives of the Quechua speaking Andean farmers who work this ancient land.
Each day your senses are assaulted by new sights, a vizcachua bounding between rocks, small bright blue gentians flowering in a sunny mountain meadow, Ibis and Andean geese feeding at a lake edge, the sounds of children herding the llamas and alpacas through the valleys, a whiff of smoke from a family fire… there is just so much to take in.
Local communities have closely managed the opening up of this region for tourism from the very beginning. In collaboration with national and international protection agencies and a handful of trekking companies, a plan was put together with these local communities to promote tourism in the area following the guidelines of sustainable tourism and responsible travel. This helps to bring money into these remote areas, whilst protecting the communities from exploitation and allowing them control over how their environment is used.