We recently returned from a 5 week road trip around Peru in May. I really only used my real camera at Machu Picchu the cell phone camera was used mostly everywhere else with a few exceptions.
We did a 7-day Amazon river cruise out of Iquitos, while there were dolphins, sloths and monkeys the majority of what we saw was birds, lots of birds. Long lenses like your 200-500mm would be ideal.
We also hiked the Inca trail and visited Machu Picchu twice.
Here is a run down on my camera use in different places, this was my personal experience yours could vary:
- Amazon -real camera & long lenses for animals / cell phone
- Lima - cell phone
- Iquitos - cell phone
- Cusco - real camera / cell phone
- Sacred valley - real camera/ cell phone - Maras Salt mines, Moray, Ollantaytambo, Pisac, Saqsaywaman, Andean Baroque Circuit of churches, Palccoyo Mountain & Vinicunca (rainbow mountains)
- Arequipa - cell phone
- Ica - cell phone
- Nazca - real camera for Nazca lines fly over / cell phone
- Colca Canyon - real camera for Condors, cell phone everything else. Recommend you have very good lock on Auto Focus skills for the condors, they are in flight and moving the entire time
- Inca Trail - cellphone
- Machu Picchu - real camera - no end to subjects for any focal range,
Things I wish I had known -
#1 I found Colca Canyon over-rated (but many things in Peru are). We did not hike "below the rim" with my experiences there was personally nothing appealing to doing that. The condors at Condor Cross overlook are worth seeing but it's a 30-60 minute experience.
The highlight were the hikes above the rim near Yanque, seeing the shocking subsistence farming aspect of rural life there and going through the Salinas and Aguada Blanca National Reserve on the drive to Colca Canyon.
I you are going to be in Arequipa and going to Colca Canyon I would highly recommend skipping any canned tour which will just take the highway up and back and rent a car and drive yourself and go through Salinas and Aguada Blanca National Reserve on the way to Colca Canyon. It's spectacular filled with smoking volcanos and hundreds upon hundreds of herds of Vicuna, Guanacos, Llamas and Alpacas, plus salt lakes with flocks of pink flamingos.
In fact the drives we did between destinations were some of the most memorable parts of the trip. Between Cusco and Nazca you go up, down and through a canyon that shames Colca Canyon by far but it's not widely well known outside of Peru. Driving through the Andes is spectacular, here in Colorado we have 14,000 foot peaks but 14,000 are the pointed tops of them, in Peru we were routinely driving for hundreds of miles at 14,000 feet, the immense size of the Andes is mind-blowing with lots of passes we did between 13,000-16,000 feet and still having mountains towering 20,000 feet above you. The roads through the Andes are some of our fondest memories.
#2 The inca trail
If you haven't already, learn what the benefits of chewing coca leaves are. You can buy a bag of them for about $1 in Cusco and other small villages in the area. The endurance coca leaves gave us made a huge difference in the enjoyment of the hiking experience. All the guides and porters will be chewing coca leaves on the trail.
Also don't underestimate the difficulty of the trail. We saw at least a dozen people turning back on the first day either by themselves realizing they were over their heads or their guide talking them out of continuing based on what he was dealing with. Two who turned back we know ended up in the hospital before they met up with their group/family members again in Machu Picchu.
The Inca trail is heavily advertised with light emphasis on the difficulty. We trained for it and were glad we did.
#3
Machu Picchu
Just in case you don't know but you can't see more than 1/2 of MP on a singe entrance ticket now. It takes at least 2 tickets (2 different circuits to see about 90% of what there is to see).
Only circuits 1 & 2 provide you with the postcard view of MP on the terraces near the guardian hut. Be 100% sure what circuit you are getting with your Inca trail package.
I'm a MP geek so we did circuit 3 coming in off the inca trail and circuit 2 the next morning along with climbing Huayna Picchu.
#4 spend more time in the Sacred Valley and Cusco, its by far the most interesting, photogenic and beautiful of the places we saw in Peru. We stayed 6 nights in Cusco and 1 in Olyantaytambo and could have added 3-4 more nights without a problem.
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Thanks,
Mike
https://travel-curious.com/home/north-america/united-states/utah/
