We recently returned from our first vacation in the Southern Hemisphere - Peru! We spent a few days in Cuzco city, 4 days hiking the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, a few more days at a rain forest along the Amazon river and finally one day in Lima. I can tell you right off the bat that the highlight was the hike, more so than reaching Machu Picchu itself. Although MP was pretty darn amazing, it would have been less interesting to get to it by train. The 4 day-3 nights trek to Machu Picchu was nothing short of spiritual!
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| Main square in Cuzco city |
Cuzco is a small, hilly, picturesque city located at ~10000 ft altitude. Having had my sleep cycle disturbed with a long lay over at Lima airport, I dozed off almost immediately after boarding the short, half hour Lima-Cuzco flight. Woke up suddenly about 10 mins before landing in Cuzco only to be stunned out of my mind at what I saw from my tiny airplane window. Snow capped mountains sticking way the hell above the thick cloud layer right next to my plane!! Or at least it looked that way - as though I could stick my hand out of the plane and touch them! They were breathtaking! Immediately after the awe passed, a disturbing thought crept into my sleep laden head - that the pilot had to be particularly experienced to be landing at an airport that is ringed by mountains so close by and with a shorter than usual runway. Well, I'm still alive and in one piece. :)
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| There were tiny villages all along the Sacred Valley. |
Having never been to this altitude before, as soon as we got off of the plane at Cuzco airport, at least 3 of the 5 of us friends traveling together felt it. I couldn't tell if it was the altitude alone or a combination of altitude, hunger and lack of sleep but boy did we feel it! I think it was the latter but our breathing felt a little harder, speech was slightly slower and so were our movements, just a wee bit. :) It felt a bit strange, like living in slow motion. I think it's safe to say that the first thought that went through my mind was this - how the hell are we going to hike the Inca trail!?!? :)
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| Ollantaytambo |
We had pre-arranged for a taxi to take us to our hotel. It was waiting for us when we walked out of the tiny airport. All we wanted at this point was some food and a decent bed to crash for a few hours before venturing out to explore the city. We were all cold and tired. As we rode in the cab through the city, everything seemed awfully familiar to Ashwin and myself. It was so much like being in India - the traffic, stray dogs, roads, buildings, bill boards...everything! At some point Ashwin screamed, "Just like India!!" This became a rather frequently recurring thing throughout our trip!
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| Picturesque views along the Sacred Valley |
We reached our hotel about 20 minutes later - the
Ninos hotel. If you ever find yourself in Cuzco, I highly recommend this hotel. It's a cute hotel with a central courtyard and a basic cafe where you can find decent breakfast, sandwiches etc. It's clean and well maintained. The staff is friendly and helpful and the proceeds from this hotel go towards helping poor Peruvian children. We were greeted at the hotel with
coca tea, which instantly warmed us up! Among many other useful properties, Coca tea is said to help with adjusting to higher altitudes. We drank tons of coca tea through out the trip for as long as we were at the higher altitudes. After some food and a few hours of sleep we were ready to explore the city.
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| Ruins of Chinchero |
Cuzco is just like a small hill station in India. (There....I said it yet again!) It has a central square which is surrounded by tons of restaurants, touristy gift shops, tour companies and night clubs. We spent the next 3 days acclimatizing to the altitude (a few hours into the first day though, we were breathing normally already), exploring interesting Inca ruins around the
Sacred Valley and shopping at the local markets. (I bargained here...just like India!! :))
On the evening of the third day in Cuzco, we went to the
LLamaPath (our trek company) office in order to get the orientation on the hike with great excitement, anticipation, and some anxiety too (about the altitude). We had trained for several weeks for this trek and the moment of truth had finally arrived. I don't think it had still sunk in that we were really going to do this until we actually started on the trail the next day! :-) Next morning, we woke up at 3:00 am, our backpacks and duffel bags ready and walked over to the main square to meet up with our trekking group. We boarded the LLamaPath bus that would take us to the trail head (called km 82), along with our trusty guides and amazing porters.
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| Circular terraces of Moray |
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| Salt mines of Maras |
More to come...
