Bruce and Barbara Exstrum recently returned from a custom Myths and Mountains journey to Peru! Below is an intriguing account of their experience and a few photos, snapped along the way.... 

We wanted to celebrate our milestone birthdays with a special trip.  Our planning started with Machu Picchu and escalated from there.  How much could we fit into 14 days but spend enough time to get to know each place?  Allie took our wish list and turned it into a well-crafted custom itinerary:  deep rain forest for a week, then Cuzco-Machu Picchu-Sacred Valley, followed by a scenic bus ride to Puno with a home stay on Lake Titicaca, and just enough time for a day’s tour of Lima before heading home.  We emerged at the other end exhausted (by design) but very happy and with many wonderful memories.  We made all of our connections, the accommodations were as advertised, and our guides were very professional, knowledgeable, and fun to be with.    

We highly recommend the Tambopata Research Center for getting the full rain forest experience, complete with a rare spider monkey sighting (plus watching the expert river pilots in both low water and very high water), Machu Picchu of course (no pictures prepare you for how breathtaking that first view is), the bus from Cuzco to Puno (we were dubious about the wisdom of taking a 9-hour bus ride, but it’s a really comfortable bus with interesting stops and as it turned out, we appreciated the chance to sit for a while), and the home stay on Taquile Island in Lake Titicaca, which  came with beautiful people, beautiful views, and some of the best food of the trip. 

However, we may not yet be able to claim membership in the Adventure Travel community because 1) Everything went as planned.  2) The closest we came to a “crisis” was having the soles of Barb’s hiking boots come apart (both shoes!) halfway through our visit to Machu Picchu. In an uncharacteristic fit of packing light, Barb had brought only these shoes on this part of the trip, but was saved by a kind vendor at the market in Aguas Calientes who not only had superglue for sale, but helped us apply it to make sure it would work (temporarily, but long enough to get us through the day). 3) We spent our last several hours before our late flight from Lima observing the local culture at the high-end cliffside Larcomar shopping center (but there is a small satellite of the Gold Museum there).  Did we mention we were exhausted and not thinking clearly?

Thanks again to Allie, Katie, and everyone at M&M and their excellent local providers for giving us such a memorable experience and several future months of sorting and editing the photos. 

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Here is a quick sampling of some of my favorite photos from our private trip to Peru. We have so many grand tales about our trip to Peru - from drinking homemade strawberry beer in a tiny, dirt-floored local bar, to being invited to the private ceremony celebrating the first haircut of a 4-month-old Aymaran baby (his mother was our guide), to rafting with a guide who was a member of the Peruvian Olympic kayak team. The topography, the people, the culture, the colors of Peru—from their yarn to their dirt, all together create an irresistible photographic journey.

About the pictures: 1) Machu Picchu, 2) from the drive to Colca Canyon where one really does feel like he is at the top of the world (the moss you see below the girls’ feet takes over a hundred years to grow), and 3) from Uros. The bird is indeed an Andean condor, the largest in the world. It was captured as a baby by one of the boys of the island and is almost full grown. I took four or five pictures of him and the two boats, but in this one he seemed to look straight at the camera. All together, they tell a wonderful tale. I am fascinated by the company that you have created.

I am a retired Advanced Placement English teacher, now pursuing my three passions, travel, writing and photography and hope one day we can travel again with you.

Sally Vihlen

I would rate the overall value of this trip quite high.

Days did not always turn out as we had hoped, but that's part of adventure travel. For instance, one day we traveled 2+ hours up treacherous mountain roads only to have to abort our plans for trekking to El Morado because the road was impassable (due to recent heavy rains). That I might add, however, that not following the planned itinerary many times allowed us to do and see things we would not have experienced otherwise.

All the hotels were very nice, except for one. However, upon learning of the situation, Myths & Mountains immediately took steps to move us to nicer accommodations. The breakfasts in the hotels were quite hearty, especially in comparison to breakfasts in hotels in the U.S, and the lunches that were included afforded us the opportunity to enjoy some of the local cuisine.

We were upgraded to the premium package on the Wine Train. With the sun shining, breezes blowing through the open windows of the dining car, guitars strumming, musicians singing, and food & wine flowing, we literally floated on air by the time we reached our destination in Santa Cruz. This experience was definitely a highlight of our trip!

Louise Girvin

It's late on Monday afternoon and before we head off for an hour massage given to us by blind men for only sixteen bucks - AN HOUR!!! - just wanted to let you know that we arrived here on Saturday afternoon and have been having just a fabulous time.

On our first day, we were picked up in Managua and driven an hour to Granada, an old colonial city that reminds me of Cuzco, Peru. Sans altitude and attitude. We checked into our lovely little hotel and wandered half a block to discover that we were literally just footsteps away from the main plaza, which was hosting a huge literary and music festival. It was hopping. I broke every rule in the book - I talked to strangers, ate freshly peeled mangos sliced and salted in plastic bags, walked around cobblestone streets that were unlit, etc. That night we ate at a pizza place that was fantastic.

Sunday we spent most of the day at the huge handicraft market, shopping for bargains, stopped at a volcanic crater lagoon, and ate tons of local food for about $5 each. That afternoon it rained, so we sat in the courtyard of the hotel and played cards, then had dinner at a vegetarian restaurant.

Today we had an early start and went kayaking in the lake for a few hours around the hundreds of islands that dot the lake. It was windy and quite a workout, but really beautiful. This afternoon, we drove an hour up boulder strewn dirt roads to the top of a volcano to a rainforest, where I shrieked and screamed and cried through seven zipline courses, throwing myself off the top of trees, zooming to another tree while howler monkeys and parakeets buzzed me. So we're all tired and sore and ready for our one hour sixteen dollar massage by some blind men on the street corner spa.

Tomorrow we're off on a two hour drive that leaves at 5 am to catch a one hour ferry to an island in the middle of a volcanic crater. We're there for one night before returning to Managua and flying to the Corn Island for four days of seafood and snorkeling. Everyone's having a great time and WISH YOU WERE HERE.

UPDATE:  Now back from Nicaragua and enjoyed the last few days of relaxing beach time on Corn Island, a little gem of a Caribbean island which receives few American visitors.  Though it has a long way to go until it reaches Costa Rica or Ecuador Rock Star Eco-Tourism status, Nicaragua's rough edges has its advantages - quite inexpensive and few crowds.

“I’m going to Madagascar!” I’d tell people gleefully. “The movie?” “No, THE COUNTRY.” 

And people would scratch their head, not quite knowing where Madagascar is on the map.  So let me help you.  Just wander over 12,000 miles by plane (approximately 26 hours of flying and 10 hours of layovers in Dallas and Paris), through 3 continents and enough time zones to screw up your sleeping patterns for at least a week.  Madagascar is a country just east of South Africa, separated by the Mozambique Channel on one side and the Indian Ocean on the other, an island that floats peacefully isolated and is  blissfully ignorant of the rest of the world.   

I was honored to be invited to travel there by Conservation International and the Madagascar Tourism Board as one of only 10 international tour operators that best represent responsible tourism practices in the world.  The 10-day itinerary was designed for us to hit the ground running from Day 1, and for the next nine days, we scoured the country testing standards for hotels, guiding practices, infrastructure, etc, often with schedules that got us up and running from 5:30 am and had us straggling into our hotel rooms well after 10 pm.  The final verdict:  it is in desperate need of reformation, but is making the right strides to get there…eventually.   

The fourth largest island in the world boasts that 80% of its plant and wildlife species are endemic, found nowhere else in the world.  Some scientists call it the “Eighth Continent.”  There are more than 60 “taxa” of lemurs found here, which makes Madagascar one of the most important primate strongholds in the world.  Ancient baobab trees, many estimated to be 600 or more years old, tower sphinx-like among devastated deforested fields, some still sadly smoldering from slash and burn practices.  There are no stoplights – anywhere.  The language, known for its indescribably frustrating long string of consonants, has a vocabulary that strangely evolved from Borneo.  Yet many of the people speak French fluently, an influence of its French colonization from the mid-century.   

So Madagascar, in sum, is one crazy, beautiful, mixed up place to go.  

The Malagasy people are unwaveringly beautiful and kind, with generous smiles and an overwhelming desire to improve their country.  As a Filipina, many assumed I was from Madagascar, and when I opened my mouth, my American accent would leave them open-jawed with amazement that someone who looked like them could actually be an American.  It was a source of continuing entertainment.  As we were leaving, a group of airport porters asked about me, and when told by our guide that I was an American, all four of them let out a simultaneous yelp of disbelief. One of them pulled on my sleeve to make me talk, and when I greeted them in English, they began giggling helplessly.  Jeez. 

The lemurs were fascinating to watch, especially since November is when most babies are born.  The indri calls out with haunting calls throughout the forest, curiously reminiscent of whales singing.  The sifaka dances awkwardly across the forest on two legs.  Nocturnal lemurs have the biggest, brownest, most beautiful eyes.  The crowned lemur is adorable, their facial markings distinctive from other species.  We saw a ton of gorgeous chameleons and geckos in lurid rainbow colors and watched in morbid fascination as a ground boa swallowed a frog (hard to identify, since we only saw its two legs waving frantically from its mouth). 

We spent hours on dirt roads, bumping our way across the country.  In Menabe, the main highway has been ignored for so long that only a narrow, tattered ribbon of asphalt remains.  Our drivers made it an art form to speed by in a zig zag pattern dodging zebu carts, people and massive potholes, often preferring to drive on sidewalks, honking madly as we brushed by angry pedestrians.  One of our cars crossing a river gully on two steel planks popped a tire and as the driver slammed on the brakes, the car ended up with its two right wheels and half the car hanging precariously over the edge of the gully.  Passengers were rescued just fine, thank you very much, and the local villagers kindly donated the use of their zebus and horses to haul the car off the bridge. 

And it was hot.  One day in the Kirindy Forest, our car’s outside thermometer claimed it was 54 centigrade (roughly 138 degrees).  Our driver explained that the thermometer wasn’t working correctly, it was only probably 45 centigrade (120 degrees).  Unfortunately, that was the same day that I was with two other guys in the group who got lost in the forest, and had to spend an hour wandering around in that awful heat until we were rescued, just minutes before I spotted another boa slithering towards us.  Survivor Madagascar, anyone? 

The leeches, surprisingly, weren’t too bad or scary.  I thought they were inch worms until I pulled up my pants leg and found my entire left sock soaked in blood.  Our guide shrugged.  “That means they are already full and fell off.  Not to worry – we use them for medicinal healing.”  So I didn’t worry, threw away the bloody sock, slapped on anti-biotic cream and scratched my itchy leech bites. 

Nonetheless, we were all intrepid travelers, so we brushed off the bad and the ugly, and tried to concentrate on the good.  Go to Madagascar, see things you’ll never see anywhere else in the world, and enjoy the smiles of the people.  It’s a worthwhile destination – for the true wildlife adventure enthusiast. 

It was so hard to leave the Atacama Desert.  Years from now, archaeologists will look askance at the scratched fingernail marks at the doors of the Tierra Atacama hotel and wonder what poor, desperate human would be so distraught to leave the desert that one would carve her fingers into the wood of a door of a luxury all-inclusive resort in a futile attempt to avoid being dragged away to civilization?  Umm, that would be me.

On my last day in the desert, I got up at 4:30 am.  I had chosen to see sunrise at the Tatio Geysers.  That meant leaving by no later than 5:00 am, then driving two hours across the sands into the Altiplanico high desert plateau to an isolated spot where burbling hot springs spittle and gurgle and percolate, emitting sulfurous gas fumes into thin air.  Better to go as early as possible, I was told.  The colder it is, the better to see fumes.  Be prepared for bitter cold.  No one mentioned that 90 minutes of the drive would be on teeth-rattling, bone-shaking gravelly dirt roads that meandered up and down and around and about the Andean mountains in the pitch dark of the pre-dawn.  

Even at below 5 degrees Celsius, it was magical.  As the pinkish hues of sunrise draped its warm arms around the mountains, we walked among the ghostly steamy clouds of the geysers, stepping carefully over rivulets of boiling water rippling from gaping holes in the barren earth.  It’s only been in the last few years that stone barriers were built around some of the bigger geysers in the areas.  You really don’t want to hear the gruesome details about what’s left of a human body after it has fallen into one.  At least, not before breakfast.  

Next, we rattled and bounced our way to the Puritama Hot Springs, hidden in the creases of the bottom of a deep red rock canyon.  It’s not easy to get there.  A rock-strewn one-lane road (and believe me, I use the term “road” loosely) is the only route down.  Some poor hapless soul has the thankless job of sitting on top of the canyon, peering down, and signaling drivers the thumbs up sign to head down as long as no one else is driving up.  Because it would really, really, really not be a fun thing to go in reverse on a rock-strewn one lane road.  Uphill.  From the bottom of a canyon.  No matter how pretty the view is. 

It’s a short hike.  The hot springs cascade down into a series of gorgeous little pools, one more spectacular than the next.  High desert grasses provide a modicum of privacy.  We picked Pool #4.  The one with the adorable waterfalls that provided a pounding massage on my back FOR FREE.  The one that we lazed in while we daintily picked from an assortment of smoked salmon, cheeses, crackers, and nuts that was thoughtfully provided to us by our guide in a floating wooden tray so we didn’t have to exert ourselves by getting out of the water.  Hmmm, champagne?  Beer?  I went for the Fanta.  Orange soda in all its sweet glory never tasted so good.  Dear god, this is too decadent, I thought, as I floated in the pool, blinking at the blinding blue skies and contemplating my wrinkly fingers, shriveling from way too much time in the water.  

Too soon, it was time to leave.  We had to head back to the hotel so I could pack up, be driven an hour to the Calama airport, then fly two hours back to Santiago.  Tonight I was staying in an executive suite at the Holiday Inn literally across the street from the SCL airport.  By the time I collected my luggage and walked the 20 steps to the hotel front door, it was nearly 11 pm and I was ready to bed.  I had a 6 am flight the next day and I needed to check in by 5 am. 

This is the glamorous life of an adventure travel specialist!