This was the first of four trips to Peru over a very short period of time. Of course, for the first trip, Machu Picchu is a must-do. We spent several days in the Urabamba Valley as well. Besides learning about the Inca, we began to understand the many other civilizations that inhabited Peru before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors.

Our other stop was in the rarely-visited Manu National Park. Roughly the size of New Hampshire, there were a total of 2200 visitors the year prior to our visit. This was our first visit to the rain forest and the Amazon basin, so everything was new and amazing to us.