* Visit Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Iguassu Falls, Buenos Aires, Tigre, Gauchos Ranch, Lima, Machu Picchu
* Experienced bi-lingual tour-guide
* Fare inlcudes air-tickets, 3 meals daily, sightseeing and show tickets (except optional tours), 4-stars hotel accommodations
* Fare excludes tips to driver and tour-guide, travel insurance, airport tax, other personal expenses
 
2/8/2010: Los Angeles / Santiago (Chile) / Buenos Aires (Argentina)
Depart from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires, Argentina in the afternoon.
2/9/2010: Buenos Aires / Gaucho Ranch / Buenos Aires / Tango Dance
After arrival in the morning, your full-day voyage out of the city brings you to the vast Argentine Pampas. Enjoy the Tango music everywhere. You can tour the grain plantations and see horseback and carriage rides, experiencing the local traditions and the daily life of the Gauchos. Taste traditional South American infused drink – mate. In the afternoon you will be back to the hotel in Buenos Aires. In the evening, enjoy a famous Tango Show and a luscious dinner.
2/10/2010: Buenos Aires / City Tour / Tigre
Today, stroll the city of broad boulevards, sidewalk cafes, mansions and monuments of Buenos Aires and visit the May Square, the Government House, the Boca District and the famous Colon Opera House. In the afternoon, you will be transferred to Tigre for sightseeing. Tigre is a summer escapade for the high classes in the city. On-board a River Cruise of the Parana for few hours of relaxation. Along the journey, you can view the beautiful sceneries and high-class villas by the riverbank. This river is the widest river in South America. Later visit the small town of San Isidro and take the famous tourist train – Tren de La Costa. At night, you may choose an optional tour to go to Tango bar. You may also take a walk in the crowed and busy street of the city of Buenos Aires and feel the excitement of the Argentine night life.
2/11/2010: Buenos Aires / Iguazu, Argentina
In the morning, take your flight to Iguassu Falls, which is more spectacular than Niagara Falls. This afternoon you will visit Argentina Falls, then transfer to Brazil side Iguazu Fall, check in hotel.
2/12/2010: Iguazu Falls, Brazil
Today, a whole day escorted walking tour to the Brazilian side of the falls through path footbridges and belvederes, 275 cascades from a mile and a half long crescent where torrents of water plunge down to the basin in cataract 230 feet high; all strategically placed to give the tourist the best view allowing you to see each and every fall. A panoramic elevator can reach the bottom of the falls.
2/13/2010: Iguazu Falls / Rio de Janeiro / City Tour / Samba Parade Grand Opening at Sambodrome
Fly to Rio, arrive noon time. Warm welcome and greeting from your tour guide. Then will tour to the edge of Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon, which meets the Copacabana Beach. After dinner, transfer to the Sambodrome, where the Grand Opening Night of the Samba Parade will be held. The Sambodrome can accommodate 68000 spectators. There are total 14 Schools of Samba in Brazil, each school has 3000 to 5000 members and students. Every school will send in 10 floats to attend the parade for competition. Each night there will be 7 to 12 groups of Samba Parades at the Sambodrome. Each group cannot spend over one hour time, over the time limit, the judges will deduct some points in its score. The parade will last from 9 o’clock in the evening until 6am next day.
2/14/2010: Rio de Janeiro : City Tour
You will have time to take a rest in the morning after spending the night at the Sambodrome or free for your own leisure. In the afternoon visit Bara District, Beaches, and Rio’s largest shopping mall. A two-stage cable car will take you to the summit of Sugarloaf to have a panoramic view of the city, visit the Municipal Theatre, the Candelaria Church and Sao Benito Monastery.
2/15/2010: Rio de Janeiro : City Tour / Carnival Street Parade
Today, you make your way through the cobblestone streets of Paineiras to the city of Corcovado and the statue of Christ the Redeemer. You will visit H. Stern, the second largest jewelry center in the world; and the Maracana Soccer Stadium, the largest soccer stadium in the world. In the evening, free to join the Carnival street parade with Samba dance.
2/16/2010: Rio de Janeiro / Lima (Peru)
Free for leisure in the morning. Fly to Lima in the afternoon, arrive in midnight.
2/17/2010: Lima (Peru) / Cuzco
Fly to Cuzco. On arrival, check in hotel. Then visit La Catedral church, there is a world largest bell made by copper. La Merced Abbey has Saint Wafer with gold and one of the world biggest pearl in the abbey. There are other jewelries in Coricancha Sun Temple Plaza.
2/18/2010: Cuzco / Machu Picchu / Cuzco
Early in the morning, take a train to Machu Picchu. It is a city located high in the Andes Mountains in modern Peru. The ruins of Machu Picchu are one of the most beautiful and enigmatic ancient sites in the world. While the Inca people certainly used the Andean mountain top (9060 feet elevation), erecting many hundreds of stone structures from the early 1400's, legends and myths indicate that Machu Picchu (meaning 'Old Peak' in the Quechua language) was revered as a sacred place from a far earlier time. Whatever its origins, the Inca turned the site into a small (5 square miles) but extraordinary city. Invisible from below and completely self-contained, surrounded by agricultural terraces sufficient to feed the population, and watered by natural springs, Machu Picchu seems to have been utilized by the Inca as a secret ceremonial city. Two thousand feet above the rumbling Urubamba river, the cloud shrouded ruins have palaces, baths, temples, storage rooms and some 150 houses, all in a remarkable state of preservation. These structures, carved from the gray granite of the mountain top are wonders of both architectural and aesthetic genius. Many of the building blocks weigh 50 tons or more yet are so precisely sculpted and fitted together with such exactitude that the mortarless joints will not permit the insertion of even a thin knife blade.

Little is known of the social or religious use of the site during Inca times. The skeletal remains of ten females to one male had led to the casual assumption that the site may have been a sanctuary for the training of priestesses and /or brides for the Inca nobility. However, subsequent osteological examination of the bones revealed an equal number of male bones, thereby indicating that Machu Picchu was not exclusively a temple or dwelling place of women. Have lunch at a beautiful mountain restaurant, return to Cuzco in the afternoon.

2/19/2010: Cuzco / Lima / Los Angeles
Take a flight to Lima noon time. Then visit Miraflores which overlooks the Pacific Ocean. Last stop. Tour Lima’s most imposing colonial churches and mansions such as the Government Palace, the National Museum, Main Square, the Cathedral, the Municipal Theater, Desamparados Train Station and the Church of San Francisco. In the evening, you will be transferred to airport for your flight back to Los Angeles.
2/20/2010: Los Angeles
Today, your homebound flight will bring you back in the morning to complete this pleasant trip!
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