These expert Peru travel tips were given by our Peruvian Expedition Leader,

1. When visiting Cusco, Peru, find free time to stroll through the streets of the San Blas District. This is where the artisans have made their homes, which have mostly been turned into workshops, classrooms and shops. Here, the older generation of artists share their knowledge and teach their children and grandchildren the handicrafts of Cusco in order to keep the traditions of their art alive. Treasures abound and one can always find that special handicraft that will truly remind them of their magical journey through the land of the Inca.
2. Don’t Miss: T’anta Restaurant in Lima, Peru. Located in the San Isidro district, T’anta is one of Peruvian culinary star Gaston Acurio’s moderately priced, café offerings. With delicious, freshly juiced drinks and inventive soups, pastas and a variety of options from a New Andean cooking style, Tanta’s sidewalk cafe is a great lunch spot in this trendy Lima neighborhood. (Editor’s Note: I recommend sticking to the appetizers so you can leave plenty of room for dessert!)
3. Lima is recognized as the culinary capital of South America and is full of really great restaurants. Add a few days in Lima to your next visit to enjoy some of them. Don’t miss ceviche at La Mar Restaurant, a chita a la sal at Costanera 700 Restaurant and a pulpo a la oliva in any seafood restaurants. For dinners you can’t go wrong with Rafael, Central, Fusion and Astrid y Gaston.
4. When visiting Peru is almost mandatory to enjoy a Pisco Sour, the national cocktail made with pisco, a local brandy. One of the best experiences while in Lima is to enjoy one at La Huaca Restaurant located right in front of a pre-Inca temple. Enjoy a 45-minute tour of the archeological remain and crown it with the local beverage at the restaurant overlooking the remains just when it is illuminated after sunset. (Get traditional Pisco Sour recipe here.)
5. Shopping in Peru is very good and the main products to look for include alpaca, pima cotton, Andean textiles, silver, pottery, music, coffee and chocolates. While in Lima, there are two places where you can find these products. Both are located in the Miraflores district. The first is the handicraft or Indian Market, an outdoor market with vendors from the whole country. The prices are fair and the offer is wide, but double-check the quality as it is variable. Bargaining is expected here and credit cards are not widely accepted. The second is Larco Mar, a mall that overlooking the bay of Lima, with good restaurants and cafes. Here you will find top-quality stores, all of which accept the main credit cards and where bargaining is not expected but superb quality is guaranteed. As a note, Larco Mar is the second most visited destination in the country, after Machu Picchu.

And one last tip from Kim Guth, our Peru Custom Travel Planner.

1. A bit of France in Machu Picchu — who knew! Indio Feliz Bistro in Aguas Calientes came recommended to me as the best restaurant in town… although from the outside it seemed just like another basic place with bland food. Talk about not judging a book by its cover: this place was amazing!  Each of the eight tables downstairs was immaculately set with crisp linens, attractive dinnerware and a vase of lilies, hibiscus and other beautiful flowers.  In one corner was a working fireplace. Everything I sampled would not be out of place in a fine Paris restaurant — minus the prices and attitude.  The meal was a dream. The fresh bread and red wine from Chile rounded out the experience.

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The image of the hairy-nosed otter — sometimes called Asia’s rarest — was captured by a remote camera planted by scientists in a forest reserve and could bolster conservationists’ efforts to seek stronger government protection for threatened species in Borneo’s biologically diverse jungles.

The otter derives its name from hairs at the end of its nose. It has mainly brown fur, a flat tail and a whitish chin. Its population has declined mainly because of hunting for its fur and meat as well as the loss of its wetland habitats to human development.

Indigenous to Southeast Asia, the otter was once believed to be extinct in Malaysia and severely threatened elsewhere. Sightings in Vietnam and Cambodia several years ago have raised hopes for its survival.

Sabah state is home to endangered animals including the pygmy elephant, Sumatran rhino and orangutan. Wildlife activists say their numbers have dwindled in recent decades because of illegal poaching and the loss of jungles cut down for timber and development.

Read full story here.

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Iguazú Falls was an added treat to our Pantanal trip. Although I had seen the falls many times on television (most recently on the Planet Earth series), nothing could prepare me for the sheer size and magnitude of the falls. At times the roar of the water was almost overwhelming. You could actually feel the sound. With IE we stayed at the only hotel that is actually in the park. It was built in the late 1950’s as a casino, but since they outlawed gambling in Brazil it became a tourist hotel and one of the first hotels certified as an eco-friendly hotel in the country. It was wonderful to be able to see the falls from both the Brazil side, and then from the Argentine side. One of the highlights of this side trip was to be able to view and video the falls from a helicopter. Wow, talk about impressive. Another highlight was going with our professional photographer and catching the falls at sunrise. It is such an experience to travel with a professional photographer. International Expeditions always goes that extra mile to ensure there guests have the best trip imaginable.

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The small village we will be visiting looks pretty ragged.  According to Victor, it has a population of 200 and there is a school there. We boarded the skiff, sailed around to the other side of the La Amatista, pulled up to a muddy bank and disembarked onto a partially grassy soccer field. Directly in front of us is our first stop — a one-room school house.

Inside the school, already seated in small chairs (there were no desks), were 21 village children ages four to 11 in kindergarten through sixth grade. They were all as cute as a button and well behaved. George, our resident raconteur, music rapper, naturalist speaker and gifted teacher, spoke to the kids, all the while moving his arms up and down and racing about the room making them laugh.

They sang a song, counted to 10 in English and we, in turn, sang to them, also in English (there are no linguists in the group). George had us introduce ourselves and the kids then repeated our names. Then George introduced the kids and we said their names. The kids then stood and sang the Peru National Anthem (a very long song, by the way). Hernando then gave our group school supplies to pass out to the kids and the anxiously awaiting adults. The adults may have been more excited than the kids to receive a pen. I was at once very happy and very sad.

In the village, a well constructed sidewalk runs perpendicular to the river. I’m guessing it is about 500 yards long. Along the length of the sidewalk were power lines. All the homes have electrical power.  The crops they grow here also ran the length of the sidewalk — cucumber and yucca where they harvest the manioc or tapioca root. One of the local men demonstrated the harvesting of the manioc. First, he cut down the tree with a machete. He then grabbed the trunk, gave a hardy pull and the tubers (roots) came out of the ground. Each plant has four to six large tubers each the size of a sweet potato.

Dan volunteered to harvest one as a demonstration of our groups’ capabilities. They handed him the machete and he handled it like a pro — chop, chop, chop, the tree was down, a manly yank and the manioc was out. We all cheered. He then became a folk hero to the local folks.

A tidbit:  George explained that a kid in the village can only continue his education past elementary school if he has friends or relatives in Requena who will provide room and board;  otherwise they are doomed to the rough life of their parents. It broke my heart.

Our next launch is at 4:15 to visit another village and meet their medicine man. Here again, the ride from our boat by skiff took 30 seconds to mud steps carved into a steep bank. The village was built perpendicular to the river. The current school building which lies about 200 feet from the river was one mile from the river just a few years ago. It is currently being dismantled and moved further inland. Can you imagine?

The main street is dirt — now mud from the rain. The houses are shabby huts on stilts with thatched roofs that look badly in need of repair. The town has a water tower and water purification system for drinking water and cooking. Prior to the system being installed several years ago, dysentery was a major health issue for the children of the village.

The town had a nice soccer field and a number of the locals were playing a game against some of the crew from our boat.  Three, four and five year old kids were running around playing and laughing and just being kids. They were all adorable.

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• Do not touch a monk: There are over 75,000 monks in Laos. They are highly revered and a sacred part of the Lao Buddhist tradition. They are people of honor and as such we are asked not to touch them or take their picture without asking.
• Ask before taking a photo: Having your photo taken is a personal matter and asking permission before you take a photo shows the proper respect. In asking first you will find you are seldom turned down.
• Do not shout: The people of Laos do not shout under most circumstances. You’ll find shouting actually gives you the opposite of the desired affect. Instead of paying more attention to you, the person you are shouting at will shy away and not want to be seen with someone making so much noise. They value quiet and peacefulness.
• Do not put your feet up: To show someone the bottom of your foot or shoe is a sign of disrespect.
• Do not touch people on the head: Buddhists and animists believe the soul resides on the top of the head, the highest point of the body. Touching someone there disturbs the soul and is a sign of disrespect.

Check out stories from our 2010 Laos tour.

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“Anytime our company and staff are recognized for the passion and dedication we put into travel, it’s an honor,” said Maggie Hart, IE President.  “What makes the ‘World’s Best’ list so special is that it is voted on by our guests – the people who know us the best.  And making it to that list seven consecutive years reinforces to all of us at IE the importance of the personal service and engaging, educational adventures we offer.”

To qualify for the World’s Best Awards, readers of Travel + Leisure judged tour operators on six criteria: staff/guides, itineraries/destinations, activities, accommodations, food and value.  Out of a total of 100 points, International Expeditions received an outstanding overall score of 90.39.

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The captain started the engines at 6:15. It is overcast and extremely humid. Yesterday felt long — I am hoping for more diversity today, and the early group returned and indicated they saw a large number of parrots, macaws and parakeets.

The water current is very swift. The shallow banks of the rivers are being constantly eroded by the current, causing the trees and vegetation to collapse into the water. We see examples of it every day — trees leaning precariously over the water.

We leave at 9:30 and will be taking a shortcut along a different body of water. How our skiff drivers navigate this place is amazing since it all looks alike in every direction — brown water and thick, impenetrable jungle.

The service on the ship is first rate. Everyone is very helpful, always polite, always smiling.  We are always greeted by name and everything is spic and span.

Our pilot left the main river and turned into a narrow tributary.  As soon as we turned into the tributary, we saw more pink dolphins. We continued up the waterway and it felt like I was truly in the real Amazon for the first time — the thick, tall jungle surrounds you here and it is strangely quiet except for the birds and the occasional monkey. The water is crystal clear and is called “black water” since it is deep and clear and appears black as you look into the water from the boat. The surface is like a mirror. As we continued, we came to an area of dense vegetation covering the water’s surface and it went on acre after acre. The vegetation is water hyacinth in full bloom with large purple flowers standing erect above the greenery. Also part of this dense collection is water lettuce, a non-edible, small smooth leafy plant. These enormous masses float on the surface and are not anchored by roots to the bottom which is 20 feet down this time of year. Our pilot pushed against the mass with the bow of the skiff until a large section would start to move. He would reverse the engines to pull back and clear the props of vines and then push forward once again until he cleared a channel. It was a tedious procedure of slow, incremental progress, but amazing to see.

We saw a large number of bird species, several types of monkeys, tree sloths and frogs. The air was very still with temperature and humidity off the charts. Whew! Our guide handed us a chilled washcloth to cool off and freshen up. It was heaven.

Another tidbit: Each evening on the observation deck, e have a band made up of our guides, Victor and George, the expedition leader — Hernando, the chef — Pepe, and two cabin boys who play the keyboard, guitar and wooden flute. They play well, but are greater entertainers. The guides have an encyclopedic knowledge of anything that grows or lives in the rainforest. It is truly uncanny since there are 1,600 bird species alone. Their stories and insights about the people, their culture and the land are fascinating. Both George and Victor were born in the rainforest and grew up there until moving to Iquitos for their education. While both guides have accents (Victor heavier than George), both have a rich English and scientific vocabulary.

A small glimpse of American culture: Hernando was whistling the theme song from Sesame Street yesterday. I laughed since I recognized it immediately, but wasn’t sure I could have come up with the melody on my own.

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The skull, which measures nearly 10 feet across, belonged to a genus and species of sperm whale that may have been up to 57 feet long and includes the longest documented sperm whale teeth, measuring more than 14 fearsome inches.

Study members speculate that the creature was certainly a top predator, probably occupying the same ecological niche of the living killer whale. Modern sperm whales may grow to about the same size as Leviathan melvillei, but they dive deep into the ocean to feed on squid using suction. The older whale, on the other hand, may have used its sharp teeth to rip into mid-size baleen whales.

Read the full story in the LA Times.

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The vegetable area is starting another season, and the beds have been replanted with a variety of vegetables — cucumbers, sweet peppers, cilantro. We also have some experimental plots dedicated to growing horseradish with different amounts of natural fertilizer (chicken droppings), plus peppers planted using two different methods of ground cover which protect the surrounding soil from serious rainwater leaching.  Implementation and evaluation of these experiments are being made by the students. Our papaya trees, only just recently planted, are quickly bearing fruit and our passion fruit plants are thriving.

The medicinal area of the garden is smaller by comparison but is showing strong growth as we’ve planted the most commonly used medicinal plants in the area — achiote, hierba luisa, hausai and rosa sisa.

The ornamental flower area is starting to get more attention.  This is a great asset to the garden as it brings together many examples of rainforest flowers all in one place for students and guests to enjoy.  Rarely does one see a broad range of rainforest flowers together in the wild.  We’ve been nurturing a number of new marigold plants and we’re buying seeds to plant more.  Marigolds are a great deterrent for ants which continue to be a challenge to control in the garden since we’re using only natural methods. We recently made the purchase of almost 100 bougainvillea flowering plants to run along our fence line.

About Las Malvinas: Housed at a public school, the Las Malvinas urban garden project is the centerpiece of an IE-funded environmental education program. Teachers use this outdoor classroom to teach environmental awareness, biology and language arts to the school’s 1,000 students. The Garden is home to a vegetable garden, medicinal plant garden and two ponds.

Learn more about the Las Malvinas Garden and how you can support the project at Traveler’s Philanthropy.

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While nest have been relocated individually, relocation at this scale has never been attempted anywhere in the world.

Most of the nests designated for removal are those of the loggerhead turtle, the world’s largest hard-shelled turtle, growing to an average adult weight of 250 pounds. The loggerhead is the most prevalent of five species of threatened or endangered sea turtles that inhabit the U.S. Gulf Coast, others include Kemp’s ridley, leatherback and green turtles.

Teams will dig up eggs from the nests, placing them in special containers covered with sand and shipping them by truck to the Atlantic coast of central Florida.

Read the complete story at www.reuters.com.

For updates on how the Gulf oil spill is impacting wildlife, please visit the National Wildlife Federation.

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