We will start with a visit to Lima’s most imposing colonial churches and mansions including the Government Palace, the Plaza de Armas, the City Hall, the Cathedral and the 17th century San Francisco Monastery.  We will also visit the Larco Herrera Museum to get a fascinating look at Perú's pre-Columbian history.  We will also visit the archaeological site of Pachacamac, one of the most important pilgrimage centers on the Pre-Hispanic northern coast.  The site consists of over 50 monumental building including plazas, streets, cemeteries and temples.

We will fly north to the land of the Moche/Mochica culture where we will visit Trujillo and the sites of Pyramid of the Sun and Moon, the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Chan Chan, El Brujo, Huaca Rajada and Huaca Cao.  Chan Chan was the capital of the Chimú civilization and featured ten thousand structures, some with walls 30 feet high, woven amid a maze of passageways and streets.  The building material used was adobe brick, and the buildings were finished with mud frequently adorned with patterned relief arabesques. The planning of this huge city —the largest in pre-Columbian Americas— reflects a strict political and social strategy, marked by the city's division into nine 'citadels' or 'palaces' forming autonomous units.

We will visit the amazing site at Sipán. Since the astonishing discovery of the tomb of the Lord Of Sipán and after 20 years of excavations and study, we can begin to understand the sophistication and complex social structures of the Moche Culture.

The tour continues to Zaña, Chiclayo and Túcume before crossing the Andes to the region of Chachapoyas where we will explore the Chachapoyan culture. We will visit Karajia, with its striking sarcophagi, sculptured like humans that have become an icon of the area.  For 750 years they have looked towards the rising sun and undoubtedly are the resting place for some elite members of the Chachapoya warriors.  Mummies of famed warriors were entombed inside the sarcophagi and placed on cliffs, with the skulls of their enemies placed on top.

We will then continue on to the incredible fortress of Kuélap, the largest stone structure in the Western Hemisphere.  Join us as we stroll amongst the prominent towering walls, temples and hundreds of roundhouses capped by the cloud forest. The citadel was surrounded by walls reaching 60 feet tall in some places and constructed out of large limestone blocks. Kuelap was the political center of the Chachapoya civilization, a pre-Columbian culture that flourished from about 900 to 1400 AD. At its height, the city may have had up to 300,000 inhabitants, mostly warriors, merchants, shamans, and farmers.

We end in the town of Cajamarca, which was settled by pre-Inca cultures as early as 5000 B.C. In the fifteenth century A.D, the region became a strategic Incan administrative center for the Tahuantinsuyo Empire under the rule of Tupac Yupanqui, who ruled from 1471 to 1493. Cajamarca was the site of the first encounter between Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and Atahualpa in 1532 before he conquered the Inca Empire.