rjbriskin

My husband and I and our 2 children, ages 14 and 18 are planning our Christmas Vacation. Our travel agent is recommending that we fly to Lima for 1 nite, then on to Machu Pichu for about 4 nites at Hotel Monasterio,then he recommends that we do day trips to the ruins and Indian markets. Then on to Iquitos to the beginning of the Amazones for about 2 nites. We as a family like to tour and see different countries. I would love to get some input on his recommendations.

Jeff_Costa_Rica

The Hotel Monasterio is in Cusco, not Machu Picchu. MP could be one of your day trips via train from Cusco, or you could do an overnight there.

Getting to Iquitos from Cusco means backtracking to Lima then catching a flight to Iquitos from there. That alone could eat up one day of travel.

hills27

Monastario is wonderful. Make sure you get one of the oxygenated rooms. It helps with the altitude sickness.

I've posted a lot on Lima and MP. Here's a link to a post where I linked a bunch of others:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34994775

If you have a 14 and 18 year old, I think they'd love Ica and Naza for a day trip (from Lima). There's a recent thread on Nazca you can read.

Elizabeth_S

That's similar to a trip we did last year (except the Amazon part) - Here's a link to our blog so you can get a sense of the itinerary

http://lizandrichardsa.typepad.com/l...aca/index.html

Happy to answer any questions - really recommend you tour with a private guide rather than a group tour........there are a couple of highly recommended private guides on this site.

rjbriskin

Thank you Jeff, hills27 and Elizabeth for all your comments. I plan on reviewing all of your comments with my husband and kids this weekend to see if this is the kind of trip they would like to go on. If it's a YES I am sure I will be asking for some more advice. Last Christmas we went to Argentina and it was one of the best trips ever. The year before we went to Costa Rica, which was also amazing.