Wild & Natural Herbs
from the Amazon Rainforest
Independent Associate Website

Peruvian Adventure
with Amazon John Easterling
June, 2008

I won the contest in 2008, and was invited to join Amazon John Easterling and some of the staff of Amazon Herb Company on a trip to Peru, along with a guest.  I picked my dear friend and best travel companion, Laurie Linden, to join me on this adventure.

We arrived late at night in Lima. On the way to our hotel, we were stopped in the street to make way for the police, chasing down two robbers.  The police were shooting guns at the robbers!  An interesting start to our adventure...

We spent the next day touring Lima, and ended with a lovely dinner at a very classy restaurant overlooking an archeological dig, which was beautifully lit up against the night sky.

The next day, we were scheduled to fly to Cusco, then take a bus to the Sacred Valley of the Incas. At the airport, we found out the flights to Cusco were cancelled because of airline politics.  We were expected in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, so we ended up taking a flight south to Puno, then we took a bus up to Cusco.  The bus ride was long - all night until about one am, but we rode along the backbone of the Andes, on a clear, moon-lit night, with the snowcapped mountains around us.  The views were spectacular!  I was so glad our flight to Cusco had be cancelled!

We made our hotel in the Sacred Valley of the Incas in Urubamba Valley near Cusco about one am.  We had to leave for our train at five am to visit Machu Pichu. See the photos of Machu Pichu here.

The next day, we visited Ollantaytambo, one of Amazon John's favorite places, and where he and Olivia Newton-John got married right after our trip.

In Ollantaytambo, I fell in love with a baby llama (see picture on right).  The little, brown baby was soooo cute!

We spent some time in Cusco, got to do a little shopping.  Laurie and I both found some beautiful jewelry made by the shaman that Amazon John commissions the custom pieces of jewelry for special awards to the distributors.  (I have several pieces I hold dear to me!)

From Cusco, we flew to Pucallpa, a jungle town on the Rio Ucayali.  In Pucallpa, we first went to the Amazon Herb facility where we dry the Camu Camu berries, Uña de Gato bark and other herbs and prepare them for shipping.  After that, we took boats to our jungle lodge.  To see the pictures in Pucallpa, click here.

From the Jungle Lodge, we headed deep into the jungle at five am, having a nine hour boat ride ahead of us to reach the Shipibo Village of Porvenir.  Along the way, we were accompanied by DOZENS of rare, pink dolphin.

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