A couple years ago, an adventurous solo female AWR traveler, Tracey, went to the Peruvian Amazon with AWR for a week and stayed in Iquitos at the Muyuna Lodge. This year, she came back to us asking to put together a special customized package for her; she wanted to return to the Peruvian Amazon for a month and do a homestay this time. Read on to hear about Tracey’s month-long homestay in the Amazon!
“Wow! Peru was amazing! My experience there and with AWR was a definite 10!
Tracey in the cloud forest
During my trip everyone met me at the airports and stayed with me until I got checked in etc. I kicked them out of the airport a couple of times ? the service was great but not always necessary ?
The hotels were nice in Lima and Arequipa.
THE JUNGLE/CLOUD FOREST:
Making friends with local families
Sooo, I flew to Jaen. 1 gate open air airport in the middle of nowhere. No problem. ? I would stay in Chachapoyas for the week. I had been doing so much traveling etc. I wanted to relax and I had plenty of time for the forest.
Local Market in Chachapoyas
My first day there I found a language school a block away from the hotel, signed up for Spanish Class and found a tour company on the square to book some tours. I fell in love with Chachapoyas! It is a destination for Peruvians! I met very few Americans, just the way I like it! Their sights have just started opening up to tourism in the past 15 years. My first tour, I met a Peruvian family with 3 boys, the oldest spoke English. What a wonderful family! I spent another day with them on another tour, so fun! The hotel staff was wonderful to me as well as the tour people. I had a lot of down time and I met amazing people!
View from homestay house
Hosts at homestay
Tracey helping in the kitchen
The next Monday, Vicky another daughter of the family whose homestay I would be at, brought me to the bus station to go to Bagua Grande to meet Leyda. We drove maybe 45min – 1 hour into the mountains. Then hiked 1.5-2 hours into the forest in mud and pouring rain, arrived at her parents house after dark…. I loved it! Soooo amazing! They raised 6 girls in this house, they walked an hour each way to go to school. 5 years ago they put in some hydroelectric lights and solar for hot water for the shower. I always had a flash light in my pocket ?. The house is in the clouds, 6,000 ft. Cloudy and rainy every day and soooooo amazing! Saw the sun a few times for a little while. It really is beautiful. I was there for 8 days, a group of 5 came up to study birds for 5 days. 2 were from Florida doing their PHD and 1 guy from Colombia, 1 guy from Peru and Vicky the younger daughter of the family who owned the house. They were in the field during the day, so it was very peaceful, I read 2 books. I went into the pasture and tried to milk the cows, (not very successfully) I made cheese 1 day and Vicky and I taught each other English and Spanish! There are beautiful water falls on their property. It is just a magical place.
Waterfalls on the property
I really went without expectations…and I would go back in a heartbeat! I guess it reminded me what is needed for happiness, obviously not much…In general Peruvians there don’t have much and don’t need much to be happy warm people. I came home and cleaned my house out of stuff, because that is all it is “stuff”. And right now, it is hard to hang onto the magic I felt there, now being in this society that puts so much importance on the wrong things.
Homestay in the clouds
I left the cloud forest and went back to Chachapoyas for the last couple of days before returning to Lima.
Thank you so much for making this happen for me! It was an experience of a lifetime! I will always recommend AWR!”
For more information on this homestay, please contact us or visit their website HERE.
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Your friendly Peru expert,
Gretchen