11D/7N Buenos Aires, Lima, Cusco & Machu Picchu

Buenos Aires, this complex, energetic, and seductive port city, which stretches south-to-north along the Rio de la Plata, has been the gateway to Argentina for centuries.

Buenos Aires physical structure is a mosaic as varied and diverse as its culture. The city has no dominating monument, no natural monolith that serves as its focal point. Instead, Buenos Aires is composed of many small places, intimate details, and tiny events and interactions, each with a slightly different shade, shape, and character. Glass-sheathed skyscrapers cast their slender shadows on 19th century Victorian houses; tango bars hazed with the piquant tang of cigar smoke face dusty, treasure-filled antique shops across the way.

The city neighbourhoods are small and highly individualized, each with its own characteristic colors and forms. In the San Telmo district, the city's multinational heritage is embodied in a varied and cosmopolitan architecture - Spanish Colonial design couples with Italian detailing and graceful French Classicism. La Boca's pressed tin houses are painted a rainbow of colors, and muralists have turned the district's side-streets into avenues of color.

For all its diversity, the elusive spirit of Argentina as a country is present everywhere in Buenos Aires. The national dance, the tango, is perhaps the best expression of that spirit - practiced in dance halls, parks, open plazas, and ballrooms, it is a dance of intimate separation and common rhythm, combining both an elegant reserve and an exuberant passion.

Lima, called "Ciudad de los Reyes" (City of Kings) for the Spanish conquerors, was founded by Francisco Pizarro in 1535. Positioned halfway down the dry and dusty desert coastline of Peru, the city of Lima is hemmed in by the Pacific Ocean on the one side and the foothills of the Andes mountain range on the other.

A sprawling and chaotic city, the capital of Peru is overcrowded, polluted and a noisy metropolis. The stark contrast between poverty and wealth is most visible in the miles of dusty shantytowns that stretch along the coast on either side of the city, and the glitzy apartment and office buildings of the affluent seaside suburbs.

Its historical center and San Francisco's Convent has been denominated as UNESCO "Cultural World Heritage Site" because of the beauty and wealth of much of their constructions.

In Lima you will find imposing colonial constructions, museums in which you will be able to recreate a complete image of the millennial Peruvian past in its archeology, history, art and pre-Inca archaeological locations.

Certainly, like a modern and cosmopolitan city, it offers all the tourist services, an excellent and modern hotel infrastructure, a great variety of attraction centers, cultural and night amusement, luxurious casinos and gambling houses, and excellent restaurants, in which the exquisite and variety Peruvian food prevails.

The cultural and religious center of the Inca world, Cusco was once an awesome city. The seat of the God-king, the Inca (‘Inca’ technically refers to just the monarch, often called the Sapa Inca, who was revered as a divine ruler by the people), it was a city built to reflect the might of the Empire.

Despite its brutal sacking by the Spanish conquistadors, Cusco remains an exciting and vibrant place. Today it is a large commercial center as well as the undisputed archaeological capital of South America, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the continent’s biggest tourist destinations.

Spectacular colonial architecture stands astride monolithic ruined Inca palaces made of perfectly hewn stone, which line atmospheric, scorched cobbled plazas. White-washed alleys and terracotta-tiled roofs are home to a rich mix of history, lively nightlife and a vast array of museums, sights and scenery. The collision and fusion of indigenous Andean and imported colonial cultures is interesting and always evident, even to those tourists who only come to the city as a staging post for the most famous trek in the Americas, the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.

Despite the number of visitors it receives, Cusco remains relatively unspoiled and it is still easy to experience the city’s beauty and ancient feel, which remains very tangible today. Although Cusco has embraced tourism and developed a sound infrastructure to support the influx of visitors, the city’s magnificent historical past still has a powerful hold on its glorious present.

Machu Picchu, The Lost city of the Incas, is a mystical, sacred place. Touched by the clouds, the ruins are one of the most enigmatic and beautiful ancient ruins in the world.

Rediscovered on July 24, 1911 by Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham, Machu Picchu (meaning 'Old Peak' in Quechua, the language spoken by the Incas) was thought to be a sanctuary for the preparation of priestesses and brides for the Inca nobility.

The dramatic setting in a remote area of the Peruvian Andes enhances the shroud of mystery even more. An absolute wonder of human heritage, Machu Picchu will touch your heart and soul in many ways.

Invisible from below and high above the rumbling Urubama river Machu Picchu emits a sacred and spiritual energy. The first sight of Machu Picchu is breathtaking. The city appears to be a natural extension of the hillside. The palaces, temples, terraces, baths and some 150 houses, all in a remarkable state of preservation, are carefully arranged so that the function of the buildings matches the form of the surroundings. The natural slopes host agricultural terraces and aqueducts; the lower areas contain buildings occupied by farmers and teachers, and the most important religious areas are located at the crest of the hill, overlooking the lush Urubamba Valley thousands of feet below. These structures, carved from the gray granite of the mountain top are wonders of both architectural and aesthetic genius. Many of the building blocks weigh 50 tons or more yet are so precisely sculpted and fitted together with such exactitude that the mortarless joints will not permit the insertion of even a thin knife blade.

One of Machu Picchu's primary functions was that of astronomical observatory. The Intihuatana stone (meaning 'Hitching Post of the Sun') has been shown to be a precise indicator of the date of the two equinoxes and other significant celestial periods. Shamanic legends say that when sensitive persons touch their foreheads to the stone, the Intihuatana opens one's vision to the spirit world.

Whatever its origin, the Inca has built this small site (5 sq mile) into an extraordinary city.