South America Cultural and History Tour: A 25-Day Route Across Five Countries

Most journeys through South America choose a single thread: the Inca heartland, the Amazon, or the great cities of the Atlantic coast. A South America cultural tour that runs from Santiago to Rio de Janeiro over 25 days follows all three, and the order in which it meets them is the point. The route moves from the Pacific coast into the Amazon and up into the Andes, crosses the high Altiplano to Lake Titicaca and Bolivia, and descends to Buenos Aires, Iguazú Falls and the Atlantic. Along the way it passes through pre-Inca pilgrimage centres, Inca capitals, colonial cities and modern metropolises. This guide follows the route of our South American Small Group History and Culture Tour region by region, and points to our detailed articles on each of its key places.

Five countries, one sequence of cultural landscapes

It helps to think of the journey not as a list of sights but as a sequence of landscapes, each of which shaped the societies that grew up in it. The Pacific coast of Peru is desert, watered by rivers running down from the mountains; its peoples built in adobe and looked to the sea and the oracle. The Amazon lowlands are a world of rivers and forest. The Andean valleys around Cusco were the agricultural heart of the Inca state, sculpted into terraces. The Altiplano and Lake Titicaca, high, cold and open, were the setting of older civilisations such as Tiwanaku and of the myths the Incas told about their own origins. Finally the plains of the Río de la Plata and the Atlantic forest carried the colonial and immigrant societies of Argentina and Brazil.

Travelling through them in one continuous journey shows how much these worlds have always been connected: by trade in textiles, food and ideas, by Inca roads, by Spanish conquest, and by the railways, rivers and borders that still link them. It also shows how differently the five countries have kept and told their histories.

Santiago and Lima: two capitals on the Pacific side

The tour begins in Santiago, the Chilean capital, laid out in a valley with the Andes rising directly behind it. A first morning takes in the view from Cerro San Cristóbal, the artists’ quarter of Barrio Bellavista, the Plaza de Armas with its Metropolitan Cathedral, and the cafés and galleries of the Lastarria district: an introduction to the Spanish colonial grid and to the confident nineteenth-century city that grew over it.

From Santiago the group flies north to Lima. Here the story reaches much further back. South of the city, the ceremonial site of Pachacamac was a destination for pilgrims for well over a thousand years before the Spanish arrived, built up by successive coastal cultures and later by the Incas around a famous oracle. Our article on Pachacamac and Peru’s pre-Inca sacred landscape looks at its temples, plazas and pilgrimage roads. In Lima’s historic centre, the cathedral, the Government Palace and the convent of Santo Domingo, founded in 1540, show the colonial capital that replaced it as the centre of power. Our Chile, Peru and Bolivia travel advice covers the practical side of this first half of the journey.

Into the Amazon: Tambopata and Lake Sandoval

The next stage is the most abrupt change of scene on the whole route: a flight across the Andes to Puerto Maldonado and the lowland rainforest of the Madre de Dios region. From the town, boats carry the group along the Madre de Dios and Tambopata rivers to a forest lodge. Our guide to the Tambopata National Reserve explains why this part of the Peruvian Amazon is valued for its biodiversity and how its rivers shape the forest.

The two days here are given to the forest itself: an evening on the river looking for caimans and other nocturnal animals, and a walk and canoe trip to Lake Sandoval, an oxbow lake where river otters, howler monkeys, macaws and the prehistoric-looking hoatzin may be seen. Our article on Lake Sandoval’s oxbow ecology explains how such lakes form when a meandering river cuts itself off. It is a reminder, early in the journey, that much of Peru is Amazonian, not Andean.

The Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu

From the Amazon the route climbs to Cusco and on into the Sacred Valley of the Urubamba, a stretch of relatively mild, fertile land that the Incas farmed intensively. The first stop, at Chinchero, sits at 3,772 metres and is known for the quality of its textiles; our article on Chinchero’s weaving and alpaca fibre explains how Andean knowledge is carried in cloth. The next day continues to Pisac’s markets and to Ollantaytambo, an Inca town planned around a great fortress, which once served as a resting place for royal travellers.

From the valley a train runs down to Aguas Calientes, at the foot of Machu Picchu. The citadel was built in the mid-fifteenth century under the emperor Pachacuti and used for religious, ceremonial and administrative purposes; it was never found by the Spanish, and it came to wider attention only after Hiram Bingham’s visit in 1911. The tour allows two visits, so there is time to see it both with a guide and at your own pace. Our article on Machu Picchu’s architecture, terraces and water systems explains how the site was engineered to stand on its mountain ridge.

Cusco: Inca capital, colonial city

Cusco was the capital of the Inca world, and the city shows more plainly than anywhere how the Spanish built on top of it. Massive Inca walls carry colonial churches and mansions. At Sacsayhuamán, just above the city, some of the stones in the ceremonial fortress’s walls are said to weigh as much as 125 tonnes. In the city centre, the cathedral and the Jesuit church of La Compañía stand on the Plaza de Armas. Most striking of all is the convent of Santo Domingo, built over the Qoricancha, the Inca temple of the Sun, whose walls were once faced with sheets of gold and silver. Our article on Qoricancha and Inca sun worship beneath a colonial convent traces that layered history. The tour also leaves a free day in Cusco to explore at your own pace.

Water, altitude and movement: across the Altiplano to Lake Titicaca

From Cusco, the journey to Lake Titicaca is made by rail. The train crosses the Altiplano to Puno in a little over ten hours, with an open observation carriage at the rear. Our article on the Andean Explorer rail journey from Cusco to Lake Titicaca follows the line across the plateau.

Lake Titicaca lies at about 3,810 metres and is shared between Peru and Bolivia. From Puno the group visits the Uros floating islands, built and constantly renewed from totora reed, where island families explain how their homes are made and maintained. In the afternoon it drives to the stone burial towers of Sillustani, a pre-Inca cemetery of circular tombs, and on to a Quechua farm.

The next day crosses into Bolivia. At Copacabana, the cathedral houses the revered Dark Virgin of the Lake. From there a hydrofoil carries the group to Moon Island and the Temple of the Sun Virgins, and on to the Island of the Sun, with its Inca staircases and sacred fountain. Our article on Isla del Sol and Moon Island explores the myths and pilgrimages that made these islands so important to the Incas. On the far shore, at Huatajata, the group meets the Limachi family, builders of the reed boats RA II and Tigris that were used in transatlantic expeditions.

La Paz and Tiwanaku

From the lake the road follows the snow-capped Cordillera Real to La Paz. The following day goes out by way of the eroded landscape of the Moon Valley to Tiwanaku, the ceremonial and political centre of a culture that flourished between about 500 and 1000 AD, long before the Incas. Its stone monuments, temples and the Gateway of the Sun show an earlier Andean civilisation whose influence the Incas later absorbed. Our article on Tiwanaku and Puma Punku looks at what archaeology can and cannot yet say about them.

Buenos Aires: the Atlantic city

The flight from La Paz to Buenos Aires crosses into a different South America. Argentina’s capital was transformed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by European immigration and export wealth, and it looks it: wide avenues, grand public buildings and neighbourhoods each with their own character. A morning on the southern side of the city takes in Plaza de Mayo, the Casa Rosada and the painted houses of La Boca, along with the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires’ great opera house, a building that says a great deal about the city’s civic ambitions. The next day turns north to Recoleta, its cemetery and rose garden, and the Evita Museum, before an evening of tango, first as a lesson and then as a show.

Iguazú and Rio de Janeiro: borderland and finale

The tour’s last natural landscape is a shared one. At Iguazú, the Iguazú River drops over a basalt escarpment almost three kilometres wide on the border between Argentina and Brazil, in the middle of protected Atlantic Forest. The group sees the falls first as a panorama from the Brazilian side, then crosses the border to walk the Argentine trails and take a boat into the canyon. Our article on Iguazú Falls as a shared river, forest and borderland explains how the two national parks frame the same water so differently.

The journey ends in Rio de Janeiro, between the mountains and the sea. Two full days take in a cruise on Guanabara Bay, the two-stage cable car to the summit of Sugarloaf Mountain, 396 metres above the bay, and the cogwheel railway through the rainforest of Tijuca National Park to the statue of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado. For the practicalities of the Atlantic end of the trip, see our Argentina and Brazil travel advice.

How interpretive small-group travel changes a South America cultural tour

A route like this could be done as a series of photographs. What makes it a cultural-history journey is interpretation: an Odyssey Program Leader travelling with the group throughout, and English-speaking local guides at each stage who can explain how a Tiwanaku gateway, an Inca wall and a colonial church relate to one another. Seeing them in sequence, a few days apart, makes the connections easier to understand than any single visit could.

Group size matters too. With up to 16 travellers, the group can usually dine together around one table and get to know one another. It can also reach places and stay in properties that larger coach parties often cannot. And there is time in the itinerary, in Cusco, Buenos Aires and Rio, to explore independently.

How physically demanding is the tour?

It is one of our more active itineraries, rated Level 3, Moderate to Challenging. Program activities can involve up to six hours of continuous activity a day over varied terrain, including stairs, uneven paths, boat landings and walking at altitude. Travellers need to be in good health, mobile, and able to manage their own luggage. Several days involve early starts and internal flights. If you are unsure whether the pace suits you, our Tour Specialists can talk it through day by day.

How does the route deal with altitude?

Gradually, as far as geography allows. After the Amazon the group spends its first highland nights in the Sacred Valley, with time set aside to rest and acclimatise, before moving on to Machu Picchu and Cusco. The Lake Titicaca and Bolivia section, at around 3,800 metres, comes only after about a week in the Andes. Even so, altitude affects people differently, regardless of fitness. Talk to your doctor before you travel, and expect to take things slowly for the first days in the mountains.

Do you need visas for all five countries?

Requirements depend on your nationality and change from time to time, so check your government’s travel advice before booking. One recent change matters for this tour: Brazil now requires Australian, US and Canadian citizens to obtain an electronic visa in advance, and it cannot be obtained at the border. Our South America travel advice and the regional guides for Chile, Peru and Bolivia and for Argentina and Brazil cover entry requirements and other practicalities in more detail.

Is the tour suitable for solo travellers?

Yes. Many of our travellers join on their own, single rooms are available, and the small-group format means solo travellers are part of the group from the start, with meals usually shared around one table.

From the coast of Chile to the beaches of Rio, this is a journey through five countries and thousands of years of history. The South American Small Group History and Culture Tour brings it together with a Program Leader, local guides and a small group of fellow travellers.