Begin your journey to Peru's vibrant capital city. This is a long day from the USA. Get some sleep on the plane. These flights almost always arrive in Lima at night. If you bought an international LATAM ticket, you will go through transit gates for Bolivia. If you used another airline, you will pass through immigration and customs and then check in for your red eye flight to La Paz, Bolivia. This flight leaves around 1 am and lands at 4 am. After customs and immigration in Bolivia, you will be met by Van Evans or his associate. Then we will drop down into the capital city of La Paz and check into a hotel.

Have some breakfast and then sleep until 11 am. Then we will board transportation for the two-hour drive to visit the archeaological site of Tiwanaku. Also called Taypikala (center of the world), Tiwanaku is the location where natives say the bearded white god Wiraqocha (weed-a-koh-cha) descended from the heavens in the “form of a brightly shining man.” This is the most sacred location of all the temples along the Holy Path. This is where Christ first appeared to the Andeans. We will see the Door of the Sun (at left), which was interpreted, in part, by President Spencer W. Kimball when he visited Bolivia in 1977. Return to La Paz. We may have time to shop in Calle Sagarnaga or visit Calle Jaén, the colonial street of the city.

After breakfast, check out and we will drive three and a half hours to Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca. To get there we will cross the lake in a ferry at Tiquina (where Christ also visited). You will feel the positive spirit and energy as we get closer to this sacred area. At Copacabana, we will check in the Hotel Rosario or take a private boat to the Island of the Sun (Isla del Sol) and check in a boutique hotel there. This is the second stop along the Holy Path where the Savior taught the people. The people then built the Temple of the Sun which had a veil. We will visit the remains of that Temple of the Sun on the Island. The Augustinian Friar Baltasar de Salas found gold plates buried on this island with engraved scriptures. Dinner at the hotel.

This will be a long day. Early in the morning we will board a private boat to visit the temples Island of the Moon and the Island of the Sun if we have not already been there. On the Island of the Moon, a dramatic temple ceremony took place with actors who represented characters. Return to the airport above La Paz and fly a short 90 minutes to Cusco, Peru. Have dinner in the city and then our driver will take us to our hotel in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Get some rest.

After breakfast, attend church at the Urubamba Branch. Then change your clothes and check out, donating your church clothes to the members and future missionaries. Then we will be treated to a visit to the ruins of Ollantaytambo where the Savior visited the people and where they carved His face into the mountain. There is a good spirit there. Later we will visit the Inca Salt Mines and agricultural ruins of Moray. Dinner in Urubamba. For those so inclined, we can hike an hour down the Inca Trail from the salt mines and meet up with the bus on the other side of the Sacred River (Vilcanota). Get to bed early tonight.

Just take your day pack and the bus will drive us to Ollantaytambo to the train station to board a late morning train to Machu Picchu. In just under two hours the train arrives in Aguas Calientes, the town below the ruins. We may have time for lunch in Aguas Calientes. Then we will walk to the bus transfer which will take us up to Machu Picchu and spend a few hours at this remarkable Inca sanctuary (you may opt to Add On the climb to Huayna Picchu or the hike from Kilometer 104). Meet back down in the town to have an early dinner and then board the train back to the Sacred Valley. Trains are on time in Peru! Don’t be late! We will be met at the train station in Ollantaytambo and taken back to the hotel.

Sad to leave the Sacred Valley, the bus will take us up to the Raqchi scenic overlook of the valley. If interested, do the zip line across the canyon. Then we will visit the town of Chincheros and see how the women dye and spin and weave. They may feed us lunch too! After that, we will continue on to Cusco and check into the Marriott Convent hotel. Cusco is the oldest continually inhabited city in the Western Hemisphere. People have been living there since around 800 AD. Dinner on your own. The rest of the evening is free to roam the city of Cusco.

On this day we will visit 3 temple sites along the Holy Path the Savior sojourned. First we will walk to the Temple of Coricancha, now a monastery. After the tour, we will drive south and stop to see the probable temple site at Urcos and stroll along the Holy Path. Then on to visit the Temple of Wiraqocha at Raqch’i (built to worship Wiraqocha, the white bearded god). The shaman Grivanesa, at left, will give us a tour of the temple grounds and the washings and anointings they still do there.

Enjoy your last morning in Cusco. See the 12-angled rock or one of the cathedrals in the main plaza. We will take a late morning or early afternoon flight back to Lima. In Lima, we first head to the Larco Museum, one of the best in Peru. Then we will check in the hotel and the evening is free. For dinner, enjoy the famous gastronomy of Lima.

This morning we will visit the colonial sector of Lima, including the presidential palace and main plaza de armas. We’ll walk to the colonial San Francisco church and tour the underground catacombs to see the bones of thousands. Then we can head over to Miraflores for last minute shopping or on to Larco Mar to have our final tour dinner on the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. After dinner, the bus will take us to the airport for our late night flight back to the USA.

But if you don't think 11 days is enough adventure and you crave more, try one of our Add On’s.