Though Machu Picchu, found in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, is obviously a huge draw for tourists to Peru, there are numerous other archeological  sites in Peru and other countries in South America that are also very impressive, but are not visited nearly as often. I will mention a few of the major ones and several recently discovered minor ones that come to mind. 

We have been busily updating our website for 2024, and in doing so have added quite a few new tour options in Peru and Colombia that we think are pretty exciting.

I attended Colombia's 2023 Nature Mart Conference in September 2023 and participated in one of the 6 tour options that were offered prior to the conference in various regions of the country.  Each of these focused on community-based initiatives geared to conserve the environment and to help the local people.  This is keeping in line with the government's emphasis on Regenerative, instead of Sustainable tourism. The graphic below shows the difference.

Are you planning a trip to the Amazon and want to learn about the plants and animals that you might see? Or do you want to learn about the history of exploration in the Amazon - from the adventures of the explorers to the knowledge that they gained?

In the over 20 years that I have been involved in travel to the Amazon, here are some of the books that I have found to be fascinating reading sources.

You may be pondering where to go on your next vacation, since it's getting close to summertime in the northern hemisphere. Let's take a look at what your interests are and see what places you might consider.

I recently visited Caño Cristales, along with some other sites near the town of La Macarena, on a trip with some other agents that was sponsored by Procolombia.

Of course everyone wanted to see Caño Cristales because it is a wonder of nature, famous for a unique aquatic plant which lives in this river that spans 100kms, and changes its color into red only once a year between July and November.  But the purpose of the trip was also to highlight some of the other newly-developed attractions in the area that can be visited all year round.

For many years, if travelers wanted to do an Amazon tour in Colombia, they needed to fly to Leticia, at the Tres Fronteras border with Peru and Brazil. From there, they could either do a lodge-based stay in the area, catch a cruise boat or a speedboat to Iquitos, Peru, or catch a cargo or transport boat towards Manaus, Brazil.

But when the vast majority of the FARC guerillas quit fighting in 2017,  other areas of the country became safe to travel to and it opened up fascinating areas in the Amazon made famous by the famous ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes, during his explorations in the early 1940's, as are mentioned at