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Machu Picchu and Easter Island 12 Days 11 Nights

LIMA, CUSCO, SACRED VALLEY, MACHU PICCHU AND EASTER ISLANDMachu Picchu - Easter Island

Prices per person in USD:
Tourist Class Hotel 3stars US$ 4446 
based on double occupancy

First Class Hotel 4stars US$ 5298
based on double occupancy

[message_box title="" color="red" show_close="Yes/No"]You can also see the following package: GALAPAGOS, NAZCA LINES, MACHU PICCHU AND EASTER ISLAND 19 days 18 nights[/message_box]
The booking must be make SIX months before the trip.

Both prices include domestic airfares:
Lima - Cusco
Cusco - Lima
Lima - Santiago
Santiago - Easter Island
Easter Island - Santiago
Santiago - Lima


Include: 
- 2 nights at a Lima hotel, 3 nights at a Cusco hotel, 1 night at a Aguas Calientes hotel, 3 nights at a Easter island 
- Vista Dome train: Cusco - Aguas Calientes / Aguas Calientes - Cusco 


Itinerary Outline 

Day 1: Arrival to Lima
Day 2: Lima, City tour
Day 3: Cusco, City Tour
Day 4: Valle Sagrado
Day 5: Machu Picchu
Day 6: Machu Picchu
Day 7: Cusco to Lima - Santiago
Day 8: Santiago to Easter Island
Day 9: Easter island
Day 10: Easter island
Day 11: Easter island to Santiago
Day 12: Santiago to Lima

ITINERARY

Day 1 - LIMA PICK UP
Upon arrival reception and transfer to the select hotel - overnight (no meals)

Day 2 - CITY TOUR
This tour could start in the morning 9:30 am or 2:30pm. You will be picked up from you hotel. This excursion offers the best combination of the differents attractions in Lima and its three historical periods: pre-hispanic, colonial and contemporary. In Lima, there were several different pre-columbian cultures which are dated thousands of years back. Lima was part of the Inca Empire until was founded by the spaniard Francisco Pizarro on the 18th. of January, 1535. During our guided tour we will travel along its millenary history.

ANCESTRAL LIMA. At the Huaca Pucllana, an archaeological precint build in the IV century A.C., we will have a panoramic view of this magnificent ceremonial and administrative centre which was considered by the Incas a holy village. We will learn about the life and rituals of its ancient inhabitants and admire its typical piramidal building, very characteristic of sacred pre-hispanic edifications which were adored in the coast of Perú. 

COLONIAL LIMA. The peruvian Viceroyalty was the most important one in the Spanish Empire and Lima was its capital. The highlights of its historical centre are its architecture and the urban design of the city, found in thold streets filled with colonial houses adorned with moorish-style balconies. Our trip includes the Paseo de la Republica (Promenade of the Republic), Plaza San Martin(San Martin Square) and the Plaza Mayor (Main Square), with their different buildings: Palacio de Gobierno (Government Palace), Palacio Arzobispal the (Archibishop's Palace), the Basilica Catedral (Cathedral Basilica) and the Palacio Municipal (Municipal Palace). We will enter the monumental Convento de San Francisco (Convent of Saint Francis), which displays the biggest collection of religious art in America. We can admire the Choir Room and the Monks’ Library, the Sacristy, with its collection of Zurbaran and Rivera paintings. The Big Patio of the Main Cloister, decorated with sevillan tyles from the XVI century, its beautiful moorish arches and its subterranean crypts known as The Catacombs, where you will feel the presence of Lima's colonial past. 

CONTEMPORARY LIMA Visit to the most traditional residential areas in the capital: The Olive Grove of San Isidro, Miraflores and Larco Mar, distinctive tourist centre of contemporary Lima.

After the tour transfer to you hotel. Overnight (breakfast included).

Day 3 - LIMA / CUSCO
You will be picked up from your hotel and transfer to the airport for your flight to Cusco upon arrival reception and transfer to the select hotel, morning at leisure to acclimatize to the altitude. In the afternoon 1:00 pm you will be taken on a city tour and visit a local archaeological sites, the Cathedral, Koricancha, Sacsayhuaman and surroundings returning later afternoon 5:30 pm to your hotel around and enjoy the hospitality of the local people (breakfast included).

Day 4 - SACRED VALLEY, PISAC, OLLANTAYTAMBO, CHINCHEROS 
After breakfast at 8:00 am you will be taken through the Inca Sacred Valley where life has remained almost unchanged for 500 years. You will visit the impressive village of Pisac and the Indian market, enjoy the beautiful handicrafts on sale and wonder at the many ethnic tribal costumes worn, not just for tourists, but as part of their heritage by the local people. The tour also include the visit to Ollantaytambo fortress and the Chincheros Market Before returning to your hotel in Cusco late afternoon (around 6:30 pm) (breakfast and lunch included)

Day 5 - MACHU PICCHU 2days 1 night by train (See more about Machu Picchu)
Early morning 5:30 am and after breakfast, we'll depart to the train station to our journey to Machu Picchu on Vistadome Train. (4 hours) at 9:40 am you will arrive to the Aguas Calientes Town from where you will have to take 20 minutes bus to the Archaeological site; Once there where you will have a guided tour with an English speaking professional guide follow by some time at leisure, stay overnight in the area or town relax at the nearby hot springs (entrance not included) (breakfast included)

Day 6 - MACHU PICCHU - CUSCO
Morning at leisure by your own, you can visit the ruins early next day when the full magnificence of the site reveals itself in all its majesty (entrance and bus fee for this day not included on the rate) return to Cuzco where you will arrive around 7:30 pm. (breakfast included)

Day 7 - CUSCO - LIMA - SANTIAGO DE CHILE
After breakfast, return flight to Lima and your connecting flight to Santiago.
Flight from Cusco to Lima at 15:50 pm, arrival to Lima 17:15 pm
Flight from Lima to Santiago at 22:15, arrival to Santiago 03:50 am (day 8)

Day 8 - SANTIAGO - EASTER ISLAND (See more information about Easter Island)
You will take your flight to Easter Island. The flight will take approximately 5 hours
Flight from Santiago to the Easter Islands 9:30 am, arrival to Easter Island 13:25 pm
Reception at Mataveri Airport and transfer to Hotel. Afternoon free to rest.

Day 9 - EASTER ISLAND
Departing from Hanga Roa's town at about 9:30 am, going to the southeast and northeast coast of the Island visiting the Ahu Vaihu temple, which is located 10 km from Hanga Roa. It consists of a stone platform with 8 Moais and 8 pukao dispersed in the proximities. Then, we will go to Ahu Akahanga, the also called as the "platform of the king". The legend tells that Hotu Matua'a's tomb is near this place. There, we will find 4 platforms, 12 Moais, 8 Pukao and towards the interior of this Ahu; it is possible to see the best preserved village of the island.

Later, we will go to Ahu Tongariki, with 15 moais being the biggest Ahu of the island. Then, we will meet Ahu Te Pito Kura, which possesses the highest statue of the island raised in an Ahu, the moai Paro (10 meters of height and 85 tons with a Pukao of 11,5 tons). Close to this ceremonial temple is the great spherical stone that is identified as the center of the universe (Te Pito o Te Henua), as the legend tells, it was brought to the island by Hotu Matua'a in his craft.

Later, we will arrive to Ahu Nau Nau, temple of a complex construction due to its different levels where we will find 5 Moais with Pukao. There, we will see petroglyphs in the backs of the statues. We will continue our excursion to the volcano and quarry Rano Raraku, where there was carved most of the moais of the island using the volcanic rock of its hillsides. There are an estimated number of 400 moais in several stages of carved.

To finish our adventure, we will go to Anakena's wonderful beach. It is a beach of white sands chosen for the arrival of the Ariki Hotu Matua'a and his sister Avareipua. Anakena corresponds to the name of a small cave of an adjacent gully.

Returning to Hanga Roa, we will realize our last stop in the Fundo Vaitea, country estate with an extension of 6.560,80 hectares, which represents 39,6% of the total surface of the island and it was created to achieve an agricultural production capable of sustaining the needs of the whole island, which was achieved years behind.

Return to the populated Hanga Roa, total duration 8 hours. (breakfast and lunch included)

Day 10 - EASTER ISLAND
We will begin our tour at about 8:30 am from Hanga Roa to Tahai's Archaeological Complex, ceremonial center with 3 Ahu, Ahu Vai Uri with 5 moais, Ahu Tahai with 1 moai, and Ahu Lo Te Riku with 1 moai. From this site the visitors can appreciate wonderful landscapes. Then, we will go to Orongo's ceremonial city, ancient ceremonial city located in the west summit of the volcano Rano Kau. It is composed by approximately 53 houses of elliptical shape with flagstone walls and a small square access looking at the sea. In this place were realized the most important ceremony of the second period of the island, the Tangata Manu (“the bird man”). It was carried out until approximately 150 years ago, with the arrival of the first Christian missionaries. Return to Hanga Roa, total duration 3,5 hours.

Afternoon
We initiate the tour about 3 pm from Hanga Roa's settlement visiting Ahu Vinapu. It was used for the islanders in the year 1.200 A.C. it includes 3 Ahu. The first has 6 moais demolished and painted of red color. The second one has a supposedly feminine moai which had two heads. Finally, the third and the most ancient moai has only removed stones. We will continue our way to the quarry Puna Pau, archaeological site to the east of Hanga Roa. It is a small crater of red dross, from where were obtained the Pukao or hats with which were crowned the moais. Along its antique exit way, there are some incomplete and abandoned moais. We will go on our tour towards Ahu Akivi, the first Ahu restored by the science in the island in the year 1960. The platform with 7 moais is characterized for being one of the few ones located in the center of the island, with its statues facing the rising sun. According the legend, these 7 moais would represent 7 exploratory young men sent before Hotu Matua'a's arrival to investigate the island. Our adventure takes to us to the cavern of Te Pahu, a place used as housing and as temporary refuge in war times. Then, we will return to Hanga Roa, total duration 3,5 hours. (breakfast and lunch included)

Day 11 - EASTER ISLAND - SANTIAGO
Breakfast in the hotel. Transfer to the airport for the return flight back to Santiago. Flight from Easter Island to Santiago 15:25 pm, arrival to Santiago 21:55 pm. (breakfast included)

Day 12 - SANTIAGO TO LIMA, TRANSFER OUT.
Flight from Santiago to Lima at 01:33 am, arrival to Lima at 06:03 am
End of our services.

INCLUDE:
International and domestic airfares as specify in the program, nights at select hotel based on double occupancy, all transfers, professional bilingual guide service, entrance fee, transportation and meals as specify in the program.

NOT INCLUDED:
Airport departure taxes or visa fees, excess baggage charges,  extra expenses for flight cancellations, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages or bottled water, snacks, insurance of any kind, laundry, phone calls, reconfirmation of international flights and items of personal nature.

Site MeterEASTER ISLAND (RAPA NUI) 

Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeastern most point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile annexed in 1888, Easter Island is widely famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people. It is a World Heritage Site (as determined by UNESCO) with much of the island protected within the Rapa Nui National Park. In recent times the island has served as a cautionary tale about the cultural and environmental dangers of overexploitation. Ethnographers and archaeologists now argue that the introduction of diseases carried by European colonizers and the slave raiding that devastated the population in the 1860s had a much greater social than environmental impact.

The name "Easter Island" was given by the island's first recorded European visitor, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who encountered it on Easter Sunday 1722, while searching for Davis or David's island and named it Paasch-Eyland (18th century Dutch for "Easter Island"). The island's official Spanish name, Isla de Pascua, also means "Easter Island".

The current Polynesian name of the island, "Rapa Nui" or "Big Rapa," was coined after the slave raids of the early 1860s, because of Easter Island's geographic resemblance to the island of Rapa in the Bass Islands of the Austral Islands group. However, Thor Heyerdahl has argued that the naming would have been the opposite, Rapa being the original name of Easter Island, and Rapa Iti was named by its refugees.

There are several hypotheses about the "original" Polynesian name for Easter Island, including Te pito o te henua, meaning "The Navel of the land" or "The ends of the land". Pito means both navel and umbilical cord which was considered to be the link between the world of the living (kainga) and the spiritworld Po, lying in the depths of the ocean further East. Since Easter Island is the easternmost Polynesian island it's possible the name refers to it being the "ends" of the world of the living; however after Alphonse Pinart translated it as "the Navel of the World" in his Voyage a l'Ile de Paques published in 1877, this second meaning has been lost. According to some oral traditions, the island was first named Te pito o te kainga a Hau Maka, or the "Little piece of land of Hau Maka". Another name, Mata-ki-Te-rangi, means "Eyes looking to the sky."

Easter Island is one of the world's most isolated inhabited islands. Its closest inhabited neighbor is Pitcairn Island, with fewer than a hundred inhabitants 2,075 km (1,289.35 mi) to the West. It has a latitude close to that of Caldera, Chile, and lies 3,510 km (2,180 mi) west of continental Chile at its nearest point (between Lota and Lebu). (Isla Salas y Gómez, 415 km (258 mi) to the east, is closer but uninhabited).

The island is approx 24.6 km (15.3 mi) long by 12.3 km (7.6 mi) at its widest point — its overall shape has been described as a triangle. It has an area of 163.6 km² (63 sq mi), and a maximum altitude of 507 metres. There are three Rano (freshwater crater lakes), at Rano Kau, Rano Raraku and Rano Aroi, near the summit of Terevaka, but no permanent streams or rivers.