I bid farewell to my travel friends, who all had different flight arrangements back to Lima and onward to the U.S. I still have another 5 full days in Peru, and have booked a variety of different excursions to expand my view and knowledge of this beautiful country. But today was a quiet one. I strolled around this morning; it…
Author: lkcopeland57
October 8: Back to Cusco
Today is the last official day of our group tour, which will end tonight with dinner. We had a morning of travel, with a train from Aguas Calientes to Ollantaytampo. The views of the valley were beautiful as we followed the river most of the way, and had the chance to see several snow-capped mountains in the distance. The Glacier…
October 7: Machu Picchu
And good fortune shone down on us, and the skies were clear and the sun was shining and it was a perfect day to spend at Machu Picchu. We felt so very lucky to have the views that one hopes for when visiting a place like this — the views that many of us may have seen in magazines or…
October 6: Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu
One of the reasons I chose this specific tour to get to Machu Picchu over the many others is that it offered some options each day, so you could tailor the hikes to your level and your body’s ability, and the chance to learn more about the history and region and culture, rather than just come here to hike and…
October 5: Huilloc to Ollantaytambo
As we get closer to our days in Machu Picchu we are increasingly spending time in villages and at sites that reflect the Incan influence. Today we left the high mountain lodge we had been at for two days, and headed over a pass and into another valley. It was cold and misty rain when we climbed into the vans,…
October 4: Exploring Huacawasi
The weather gods didn’t cooperate. The difficult option for today involved leaving the lodge at 7AM, and hiking over two mountain passes at elevations over 14,000ft. At the top of one of the passes a special lunch was to be prepared by the local people. And there are lakes and it is quite beautiful. Unfortunately, the mist, or cloud cover…
October 3: Lamay to Huacahuasi Lodge
It was a different start to the day for us today, involving a 3+ hours in the van as we traversed the Sacred and then into the Sacred Valley. The roads were very curvy, involving many hairpins and lots of climbing. Which meant that some people suffered from a combination of carsickness and the altitude. Our first stop was at…
October 2: Amaru to Pisaq
They say that in this part of Peru you should pack for 4 seasons in one day and I would agree that we encountered at least 3 today. And I was only half prepared. But it was an amazing day nonetheless with challenges and a few moments of misery, but mostly really pretty great. We were loaded into the van…
October 1: Chinchero to Lamay
We had an early call — needed to be packed and checked out and in the two vans by 7:30AM. It was a bit challenging for me to re-pack all my stuff after having exploded my suitcase during my 3 nights in Cusco, but I got it done before the group dinner and had a decent night’s sleep, which was…
September 30: Last day in Cusco, for now
There are a couple of places/sights that I still wanted to see before leaving Cusco for the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu, and that excursion began this afternoon. So I had the morning. First stop, the San Pedro market, which is the center of lots of trading for residents, local businesses and of course, tourists. There are two million visitors…