Natural Habitat Adventures Launches 12-Day Wild Peru Conservation Journey Accompanied by World Wildlife Fund Experts

Twelve travelers will share a rare adventure this summer, deeply exploring three wild, distinct bio-regions inside Perualong with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) experts and a local Expedition Leader. With sights ranging from islands known as a mini Galapagos and the world’s deepest gorge, Natural Habitat Adventures’ 12-day Wild Peru Conservation Journey is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel with personal WWF insight, from Aug. 30 to Sept. 10, 2016.

This conservation-focused journey is unique to Nat Hab, the world’s premier nature travel company. World Wildlife Fund experts and a native Peruvian Nat Hab Expedition Leader lead the journey along a carefully curated route -- an exclusive itinerary to Peru’s desert coast, the Andean highlands and the Amazon rain forest. At each destination, local WWF experts and researchers will share insight and updates aboutcurrent projects that are benefiting regional wildlife and their habitat, including sustainable fisheries, marine wildlife conservation, Amazon forestry initiatives and protecting indigenous cultures. Travelers will see firsthand the impacts of climate change on tropical glaciers and mountain ecosystems.

While visiting Paracas National Reserve, where a pre-Incan culture thrived more than 2,000 years ago, travelers will learn about the tropical desert ecosystem. During an adventure by private boat to theBallestasIslands,Peru’s mini Galapagos, witness sea lions, Humboldt penguins, guanay cormorant, the Peruvian booby, Peruvian pelican and a host of other seabirds competing for attention as guests learn about marine life conservation and sustainable fisheries. In the Aguada Blanca National Reserve and while crossing Pampa Canahuas in the central Andes Highlands, they may see flocks of grazing vicunas, the alpaca’s wild ancestors.

Few know thatPeru’sColcaCanyonsports a gorge nearly twice as deep (13,650 feet) as theGrand Canyon. At the Cruz de Condor viewpoint, one of the world’s best places to witness the endangered Andean Condor, travelers will watch the majestic birds ride the thermals before spending the night surrounded by hundreds of pre-Inca agricultural terraces that have been declared a Peruvian National Heritage site.

In the Peruvian Amazon, the Tambopata National Reserve is a 3.6-million-acre protected area where roads don’t exist and rivers are the only means of transport. The reserve is home to 103 species of mammals, 1,300 butterfly species and 90 species of amphibians. Deep inside Refugio Amazonas and Tambopata Research Center, both accessed by boat, guests will spend four nights immersed at eco-lodges. At the remote, rarely visited Tambopata research outpost, located inside 1.7 million acres of uninhabited forest, guests will learn about rain forest research and new and rare species discoveries, and embark on nocturnal adventures in search of caiman. The Chuncho clay lick provides a prime photo-op for its lively spectacle with hundreds of scarlet macaws feeding on the sodium-rich clay along the riverbank.

Mixed into Peru’s natural world are the legacies of people who have lived off the land for millennia. Travelers visit UNESCO World Heritage Sites, pre-Incan archaeological ruins, colonialArequipa’s gilded baroque treasures and remote Amazon villages where indigenous people continue to live traditional subsistence lifestyles.

Five percent of trip fees for Nat Hab’s Wild Peru Conservation Journey directly benefit WWF's work in Peru—high-priority, on-the-ground programs travelers will witness and learn about during their visit. The per-person, double, rate is $7,795; a single supplement is $1,495. These rates are exclusive of internal airfare, $750 per person (subject to change). This trip comes with an optional extension to Machu Picchu and Cusco, including travel down the Urubamba River Valley to Aguas Calientes and the spectacular Lost City of the Incas.This six-day extension costs from $3,695 per person, double. A four-day extension explores Lake Titicaca, the sacred source of creation in Inca legend. The per-person double custom extension costs from $1,295. The journey begins and ends in Lima.

For more information please see http://www.nathab.com/south-america/peru-nature-and-conservation-journey/.

For information on all of Nat Hab’s trips, descriptive itineraries, date availability and reservations, call 800.543.8917 or visit http://www.nathab.com/. Click HERE to order a copy of the current catalog.