Maras is a town near the city of Cusco in the Sacred Valley of southeastern Peru. It's known for the Maras Salt Mines, thousands of individual salt pools on a hillside, dating back to Incan times. West of the town is Moray, an Inca archaeological site on a high plateau featuring a series of concentric terraces. Surrounding trails offer views of the snow-capped Urubamba mountain range. 

You will also have the opportunity to bring home some of this delicious organic salt and some of their amazing salt chocolate! 

We will travel by train this morning to the village of Machu Picchu Pueblo.  On arrival, we will visit the famous city of Machu Picchu, also named the Crystal City, the Rainbow City, the City of the Condor the Hummingbird, the City of Peace, and the City of Light. The legendary beauty of this magnificent village defines an ancient city of ascended masters. Feel the energies while exploring the three sacred beings on the Inca trinity: CONDOR, ruler of the realm of spirit. PUMA, ruler of the realm of physical manifestation, and AMARU the sacred serpent, ruler of the realm of the psyche, death & rebirth.  You will get time to spend alone in spiritual ceremony to enhance your connection with your divine self, a transpersonal transformational journey into the inner path to gain confidence in your unique purpose.

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Then we will take a bus up to the entry of Machu Picchu and explore the Inca Ruins.

Today is a day of rest. You can just take your time getting up, have some coffee, and do some deep meditation.  We will make a visit to the small village of Pisac to explore.

You can also request a flower bath or a wonderful relaxing massage. It's very important to be able to take a day to reflect on the wonderful experiences and maybe also journal. 

We will have time in the evening to sit around a fire to discuss and answer any questions about your journey. 

We will travel to the small village of Pachanta, where we will be staying and relax in the natural hot springs with a wonderful view of Apu Ausangate and prepare ourselves for our journey to the mountain the next day!

We will have a wonderful Andean breakfast before making our way to the magical Ausagte on horseback. We take in the beautiful lakes and take time to connect with all that Pachama has to offer. After our wonderful day at Ausangate we will make our way back to Catalina!

 For those that are interested in plant medicine, you will meet with one of the foremost authorities and shamans of the plant medicine San Pedro or “Wachuma”. You will be walked through internal celebration self-discovery and love.

The plant shows us where we hold our negativity in our bodies, where it came from, and then shows us what we SHOULD have learned from that experience. Once we see that, we release the negativity in our bodies, and we feel really clean and light afterward, we can think of that same experience afterward, and we can give thanks for the teachings we received. It teaches us that NO experience is a bad experience IF we learn from it.

In the same way, it shows us our thought patterns and teaches us that every illness we have is NOT because of bad luck, but because of the way we think. It teaches us to stop and recognize HOW we think and change our thoughts, into positive ones. This is how we clean our bodies from all illness…is by cleaning our minds. The medicine has produced many miracles, people being cured of cancer, and all sorts of illnesses, just by drinking this sacred plant.

The plant shows us too, that we are all children of the Light; we are all precious and special. It teaches us to see the divine within us and to hold the divine light within us

We also use this plant to reconnect to the earth. In this experience, we realize that there is NO separation between you, me, the earth, and the sky. We are all ONE. It’s one thing to read but to experience this oneness is one of the most beautiful gifts we can receive. The plant also teaches us to live in this world in balance and harmony, it teaches us compassion and understanding and shows us clearly to love, respect, and honor all things.

We will visit a very special festival celebrated here in San Salvador, where Catalina is Located.  The Lord of Huanca is an invocation of the martyred Christ that is venerated in the Cusco town of Huanca and is venerated by Peruvians in Peru and abroad for being considered miraculous.

The festival is celebrated every September 14, characterized by a massive pilgrimage of devotees from Cusco, Peru and even from different places such as Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Chile, who go to the Sanctuary of Huanca to receive blessings.

Dawn breaks in the sanctuary and the light finds hundreds of pilgrims kneeling in the warmth of candles, always embracing an image, a prayer, their faith. There is the stone painted with the reason for so much veneration: a Christ overwhelmed by lashes, the Lord of Huanca.

 One of the incredible things about Pisac which is a hidden gem, is the 12 indigenous communities that live in the mountains above Pisac. Over the last few months, we here at Catalina have forged relationships with 7 of these communities. These are Chahuaytire, Pampallacta, Paru Paru, Amaru, Viacha Ampay and Qotataqui.

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On this day and evening, we will spend time in one or two of these communities, learning about their culture. How they live, celebrate, and eat. We will learn about their agriculture, the staple of these communities the over 1700 different kinds of potatoes. They will also demonstrate how they take the wool of the Alpaca and how they create the permanent colors, like from the famous cochinilla bug that lives on the cactus of the Andes, and the process of making the beautiful textiles by hand they are famous for. We will dance with them and come away with a very deep sense of how these indigenous people, who are the descendants of the Incas have shaped the sacred valley and Pisac.