Peruvian Inca Adventure: Because We Only Hike the Real Thing

September 19, 2024

Inca Flat - adj. Def. A portion of trail that rises and falls 10 to 100 feet during a short stretch. Native Peruvians may misconstrue the trail as “flat” while non-Peruvians see it as distinctly uphill or downhill. Example: “That trail was not flat! It was Inca Flat!” “That’s what I said, the trail would be Inca Flat.”

The whole gang at the beginning of the Inca Trail

Our Inca Trail Hike began on September 9th.  We got up about 5:30, took our last showers for a few days and then headed out to the Plaza in Ollantay to be picked up by our team.  They told us they’d be there between 6:15 and 6:30, and we started to get a bit worried when we hadn’t seen them at 6:33, but they showed up just a few minutes later after we resorted to turning on our phone for data service so we could Whatsapp our guide to see when they’d arrive.  We got into the van with the other people from our group and headed to a place called Porter House for breakfast.  

Porter House is a place where the Inca Trail porters for Alpaca Expeditions can stay for the night before they start a hike because some of them travel in from places up to 4 hours away to work.  Porter House exists so they don’t have to get up at ungodly hours in the morning to get to the starting point to then carry 20 kg and hike 14 km.  It was at Porter House that Mom and I really got to meet the other people we’d be hiking with.  There was a group that consisted of a mom, dad, and 15 year old son.  And then there was a group of 6 from New York who all went to the same church who introduced themselves as, “All the Asians are with us!”  They were Jenny, Grace, Yun, Jason, Christian, and Lung.  By day 3 of the trip after seeing some other groups and the people in them, we all had a moment where we said to each other, “I’m glad we don’t have any annoying people in our group because there are some other groups that would have been terrible to be a part of.”  We also had our main guide Ronaldino and our assistant guide Yedira, along with 18 porters and a chef.

Urubamba River - It eventually helps create the Amazon River

After a delicious breakfast, we got back in the van and traveled down to Kilometer 82, where the trail starts.  We had to check in at the main gate with our guide and passports.  We then set off down the trail.  The first part of the trail was actually mainly dirt and Inca Flat.  As we hiked along, we frequently saw terraces and other Inca ruins off to one side or the other.  At some point we wandered into some ruins where we got some Peruvian history.  The history lessons we learned along the way were one of the things I really loved.  It wasn’t just a hike.  We learned about who lived there, what the purpose of the ruins were, who the big names were in Inca history (Pachacutec), and other things.  All of it helps explain why the Inca trail exists, because it isn’t just a trail someone decided would be fun for hiking tourists 40 years ago.  The Inca Trail we were hiking was actually created by the Incas back in the 15th century.  They laid the actual stones we were hiking on as a “road” from Inca village to Inca village, for messages to be delivered across the empire.

Patallacta Ruins as seen from Llactapata Ruins

After what seemed like a long time of hiking, we ended up having our first lunch together.  It turns out the delicious breakfast was not a fluke.  Much like on Kilimanjaro, we started out meals with a soup, and then a variety of things that included rice or pasta, meat, potatoes, and some type of fruit or vegetable dish.  At supper time we also got a dessert.  And we had snack time after getting to our nighttime campsite that was usually popcorn and some other snack foods.  Basically there is no shortage of food…which, mind you, had to all be carried up the trail by the porters.

Inca Trail Stairs and a porter.

As I had predicted prior to the start of the trip, Mom would set out and blaze a trail.  I’m more of a slow-to-middle speed hiker, so I let her go.  The family of three were also often in the front of the pack, being from Colorado and a bit more used to elevation than the rest of us.  That first night it was starting to get dark as we got to camp.  In Peru the sunset occurred around 5:45 pm, an early night for sure.  

Camp was all set up for us when we got there.  Mom and I shared a tent that was rather spacious; even larger than the ones we had on Kilimanjaro.  We stuck to the same sides of the tent the whole trip, since we got into a routine of putting our things in the same places.  Sleep was a mixed bag.  My hands, which were showing signs of a sun-reaction were somewhat painful, and kept me up for a while, before I eventually drifted off to sleep.

Day 2 on the Inca Trail was the one they warned us about.  It is a super challenging day with 2 high mountain passes.  We started our day at Ayapata Camp at 10,829 ft.  We then hiked up, up, up.  First we went up to a place that could serve as a campsite, but for us was just a resting place.  We rested there for about 20 minutes, waiting for everyone to get to the site and have a chance to rest before the push up to Dead Woman’s Pass.  As far as people know, there was no actual “dead woman”, but they say that the shape of the mountain pass as seen from afar looking like a woman laying down.  Dead Woman’s Pass is at 13,780 ft, so an exhausting climb of just under 3,000 feet up to the top.  While the day before Mom had been in the lead, on Day 2 the altitude definitely hit her and she struggled.  I found it less of an issue, whether that is because of my hiking style of slow and steady, or because I had experience with higher altitude climbing and knew the best way to push through it, I’m not sure.  I stayed with mom and tried to keep her going to the next rock or place to sit and rest.  We’d hike up maybe 50 feet at a time and then take a break for 30-60 seconds, and then every 15 minutes or so take a 2-3 minute break.  As we neared the top of Dead Woman’s Pass, she told me to go ahead, that she’d be fine.  I pushed forward, taking the occasional break to make sure she was still coming.  That day was certainly a tough one.  The New York crew had some real troubles with it, having had less acclimation time than we did.  They also had smaller water bladders and ran out of water before reaching the pass.  I had 4 liters going into the day’s hike and still had roughly 700 mL in my Nalgene and 1.5 L in my backpack, so I gave about 750 mL to one of the New Yorkers so they had more water.  We’d be able to get more water once we got to lunch at the bottom of the Pass.

Heading up to Dead Woman's Pass

The crew up at the top of Dead Woman's Pass flashing the alapaca hands.

After resting for a bit up at the top we started the part I actually dreaded, the downhill part.  My knees HATE downhill.  And it wasn’t an easy downhill, but had steps of varying sizes and heights.  Some steps were maybe 8 inches in height, while others were 30 inches, so you had to be careful and pay attention.  Probably about 300 vertical feet down (out of 2000 ft), my right knee started screaming at me, so I pulled out my knee brace.  I took it easy because I knew it would be an issue.  Downhills are when I fully appreciate my hiking poles which help take some of the force of going downhill off.  One unexpectedly painful part of this downhill involved my hands.  Since I was a preteen I’ve occasionally had issues where I essentially get an allergic reaction to the sun.  When it happens, I’m usually in sunny environments that are not home and closer to the sun.  I started experiencing this before we left for the hike, but being on the trail at a higher elevation seemed to have kicked it in high gear.  My hands literally felt like they were burning any time they were exposed to sunlight; like I had stuck my hands in a pot of boiling water.  It hurt so bad, and I had trouble sleeping too because of the pain.  It was at its worst on the way down from Dead Woman’s Pass.  

The way down from Dead Woman's Pass

Thanks to a steady downhill pace, Mom and I were just the second and third people to arrive at lunch.  Our 15 year old, who still has knees that work, practically ran down from the Pass.  We had lunch, refilled our water, and then set out for the second Pass of the day, Runkurakay Pass at 13,123 feet.  The second pass wasn’t nearly as bad, but we were more tired so that made it not exactly pleasant.  We stopped at the Runkurakay ruins on the way up to the Pass and got some more history lessons.  From there we could also see Dead Woman’s Pass across the valley, which offered a neat view.  After reaching Runkurakay Pass, Mom and I started down the other side.  The sun was definitely trending downwards and we wanted to reach camp before it got dark.  One thing we weren’t expecting when we hit the other side of the Pass was smoke.  I’ve experienced enough wildfire smoke to know what it looks and smells like and we definitely hit smoke and short visibility on the far side of Runkurakay Pass.  We were later told that there are places in the area where they do controlled burns before the rainy season starts (October) to clear some of the growth of the forest and that’s what the smoke was.

Sayamarca with a smokey sunset.

When we got to camp that evening there were llamas waiting for us…like they were just hanging out in the overall camp area, but not in our campsite.  We had more good food and everyone was exhausted and tired.  Funny story about the night of Day 2…I had to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and when I was coming back, blind because I didn’t have my glasses on and only having light from my headlamp, I miscounted tents and opened the wrong tent.  I felt like I was in the wrong place before I even fully opened the tent, because the zipper wasn’t in the place I thought I had left it.  But once I opened in and went to crawl in, there was a leg where I meant to go!  Oops!  

Snack Time!

Our last full day of hiking was a fairly fun one overall.  Moods were a bit lighter since the worst of it was over, and we were just a day away from Machu Picchu.  We started out with some uphill Inca Flat, before starting downhill.  We had about 3400 feet of downhill to cover before getting to our nighttime campsite, so the knees weren’t going to have a happy day.  We made it all of about 15 minutes uphill before we all had to shed our multiple layers of clothes we had on.  A little bit further along we were able to see Salkantay, the 2nd highest mountain in Peru.  The Salkantay Trail is an alternate way to get to Machu Picchu, and involves passing by Salkantay en route.  While we were stopped, Ronaldino also showed us how the Incas would create rope bridges using grass.  There is one bridge in the region that is rebuilt every year this way.  People on both sides create ropes from grass involving small ropes being woven into larger ropes, being woven into larger ropes, and then they start to work the span across before meeting in the middle.

Ronaldino making rope from grass.

As we made our way down, down, down both my knees and Jenny’s knees were not happy and the two of us were a back of the pack slow group.  It was nice to get the chance to talk with some of the others, as the New York girls were at the back with us.  We made our way to the ruins at Intipata,which were an agriculture center for Machu Picchu and the area back in the Inca days.  It was a large site with lots and lots of terraces.  A little bit further along, we made our way into camp.  It was a short day of hiking because the last day was going to be an early one.  After lunch at camp, we headed into WiñayWayna, a set of ruins that was a religious, agriculture, and housing village.  I was immensely impressed with WiñayWayna.  There we got more history lessons and our Alpaca Expedition t-shirts for the next day at Machu Picchu.  

WinayWayna

After dinner, we got our tips together for all our crew and presented them to them because that would be the last time we saw most of them because the next morning we get up really early and leave camp, having a sack breakfast instead of one in the mess tent.  We got all packed up, and then went to bed, knowing that we had a 3am wake-up call coming.

Us and our amazing porters and chef!

The last morning we got up and put together as fast as possible.  The reason for the early wakeup call was so we could be as close as possible to the front of the line the next morning where we would have to wait at the gate to be let onto the trail that leads to Machu Picchu.  The gate doesn’t open until 5:30am and the further back you are, the more people you’ll have in front of you.  We did good.  We were up at the front of the line and from there were able to doze for the next 2 hours and eat our sack breakfast.  Just as the sun was starting to rise, the gate opened and we set out for Machu Picchu.

Waiting for the gate to open

The last day of hiking the trail was Inca Flat and actual flat, and then came the Gringo Killer, a set of maybe 50 short, steep stairs just before reaching the Sun Gate.  The Gringo Killer is best climbed in a standard hands and feet scramble.  It was actually easier to climb than some of the other sets of stairs we had climbed up and down during the rest of the trip.  I have no pictures of the Gringo Killer because I had 180 people hiking behind me and didn’t want to slow down to take a picture of them.  

Mom and I with Machu Picchu in the background, taken at the Sun Gate.

After making it past the Gringo Killer, a short ways away was the Sun Gate, the first place from which you can see Machu Picchu.  The sun shines through the Sun Gate just after sunrise on the winter solstice and hits the main religious temple at Machu Picchu, marking the start of a new year.  Up at the Sun Gate we took a bunch of photos and then started our trek down to Machu Picchu. 

Peruvian Inca Adventure: Good Food and Good Views

September 8th, 2024

Pervian countryside as taken from the Collectivo

On September 6th, we were ready to leave Cusco for Ollantaytambo (Oyan-tay-tambo or Ollantay for short).  After trading out money we picked up our things and trekked a kilometer through town to the location where you can ride a collectivo to Ollantaytambo.  We got one for 10 soles a piece (roughly $2.60) to take us the 65 km to Ollantay.  It took us around 90 minutes to get there.  We seemed to have a traveling salesman onboard for the first 30 minutes or so.  He did a little preaching and then started selling a magnesium supplement, and then when finished with that, started in on some hand cream.  He managed to sell some, so apparently the gig works.  I know enough Spanish that I could sort of understand what he was saying, which was what made it more interesting.  Mom and I were talking, and said he could tell we were foreigners and probably didn’t speak Spanish because he never really looked our way.  At one point on the road we hit a police stop, where they checked everyone’s ids on the collectivo except mom and I, because apparently we were obviously not Peruvians, and probably couldn’t pass for any other South Americans either.

From the inside of the collectivo

When we arrived in Ollantay, we made our way to our hotel, the Eureka Lodge, which turned out to be all of about 50 meters from the Inca ruins of Ollantaytambo.  We were given the room with the best view in town, I am assuming purely because we were staying 3 nights, while most visitors stay for just a single night.  I’m not sure I’ve ever stayed anywhere where I had such an amazing view from the bed in my hotel room. The one issue with the hotel that we had was lack of hot water. Cold showers aren't exactly fun.

View of the Ollantaytambo Ruins from our hotel

After unpacking, we wandered town a bit.  We found where the train station is, though we’re not heading to Machu Picchu by train.  We will return from there on the train though.  We also made our way back to the main square in town, and then found the local market.  Even more importantly, we found a bakery!  We were walking down the street and smelled something sweet and had to turn around.  We ended up getting some cinammon and sugar covered pastry, that was warm.  It was so good.  After another break in the hotel room we wandered back to the square for supper, where we had a delicious meal.

Probably the best version of Lomo Saltado that I had on the trip.

We got up on our second morning in Ollantay, and headed to the ruins right after breakfast.  They were pretty empty then, which is the complete opposite of how they are in the afternoon.  We’ve found that in the afternoon there ends up being a couple hundred people up there.  We have a view of the ruins from our hotel room, but we found out this morning that we can really only see about ⅓ of it.  There was a lot more to the right that we weren’t able to see, and more up on the hill we look towards, but just can’t see due to our position.  What we can see are a lot of terraces, but there are a ton more too.  Each terrace is about 12 feet tall.  Up high are building ruins.  

Ollantaytambo Ruins - Up at the Top of the Terraces

We took a trail up to a high temple area called Inka Watana.  It was a lot of work to get up there, reminding us once again that we are not at 1300 feet.  But really the muscle fatigue has lessened, and it is more just breathing that hasn’t fully caught up yet.  We took a lot of picture breaks on the way (aka, catch your breath breaks).  From the trail up to Inka Watana, we could see so much more than what we had seen so far.  The valley below on the side of the mountain we were now on (the side away from Ollantay) was mostly small farms.  Every once in a while you’d hear a train whistle and see the train heading away from Ollantay to Agua Calientes and Machu Picchu below.  Up at Inka Watana there seemed to be an altar or something with 4 cutout spaces in the wall.  After taking in the views up there for a bit, we wandered back to the floor of the ruins space, and over to the other area which we couldn’t see from our hotel.

Looking down into the valley on the non-Ollantaytambo side.  Also note the terraces across the valley.  You see terraces, used or not, a ton of places.

Along the floor of the Ollantaytambo ruins are a series of canals and fountains.  It is neat to see the way the canals still work, transporting water today (and sometimes using a little modern ingenuity to hook up hoses to the canals).  There were also the required llama and alpaca at the bottom area as well.  We followed the canals back as far as we could before reaching the end and coming back to the base of the terraces.

Canals through the Ollantaytambo ruins leading to one of the places where they turn into a fountain.

There was a second set of terraces, and high up on them was a building that looked like a church, though I’m not sure if that is really what it was.  We haven’t paid for any guides at any of these ruins we’ve visited so far, and I’m sure we could get a lot more history if we had them, but it is also nice to have the opportunity to wander and not feel like we’re wasting anyone’s time.  We will have 2 hour guided tour at Machu Picchu as part of our trek, so there we’ll have someone knowledgeable telling us what things are.

The High Barns are Pinkuylluna.

After finishing up at the Ollantaytambo Ruins, we crossed the valley over to the Pinkuylluna ruins which are a lot less well taken care of, and don’t really seem to match the ruins across the valley.  There wasn’t really any nice stairs up.  There was a lot more going up rocks, and feeling like you needed to use your hands to steady you.  We first went up to the area that was labeled as the Graneros Parte Alto, or High Barn according to Google translate.  I’m not sure what would have been up in this barn, but it was probably at least 300 feet up the side of the mountain.  The High Barn had 3 tall, still-standing structures that we had been able to see from down below and it was so interesting to see them up close.  From the High Barn, we went across the face to some other structures that appeared to be buildings, and a Low Barn (note, this was still probably a solid 150 feet from the valley floor).  

Structures at Pinkuylluna above Ollantaytambo.  You can see the main plaza in Ollantaytambo in the background.

With the hiking up to the ruins around Ollantay completed, so too has our hiking until the Inca Trail Hike.  

Our last day in Ollantaytambo we spent just walking around town, walking outside of town (on flat land), and repacking for our hiking trip.  We didn’t want to do  anything too taxing since we’d be spending the next 4 days hiking.

Peruvian Inca Adventure: Oh Yeah, It's All Coming Together

Plaza de Armas with Catedral de Cusco

September 6, 2024

On the morning of September 3rd, after a quick breakfast we got a ride to the airport so we could fly to Cusco.  The airport was very crowded in the domestic area, but we heard that a new terminal was being constructed and set to open by the end of the year.  They’ve also built a second runway which will hopefully speed up departures, so flights don’t end up as late as ours was.  We were probably about 45 mins late and spent at least 15 mins waiting to take off as flights were coming in and leaving on the same runway.  When we arrived in Cusco, elevation 11,150 ft, we were picked up and taken to the place we were staying, which was a 2 bedroom apartment with a kitchen.  This kitchen space came in useful as we boiled up a bunch of water there, as the tap water isn’t safe for drinking.

Qorianchka

The plan for the first day in Cusco was to just wander around the historic district and acclimate.  We could definitely tell that the elevation was higher than what we were used to.  We felt a bit out of breath moving around, but this was why we got here when we did; we wanted to get acclimated to a higher elevation.  One of the first things we did was was pay off our Inca Trail Hike with Alpaca Expeditions.  It was nice getting that money turned in and no longer having to worry about what to do with $1200.  We wandered through the Historic District, the Plaza de Armas, and over to Qorianchka, before returning to Plaza de Armas later.  The Plaza gets really busy after the sun sets (an early 5:45 pm).  One thing my mom and I have noticed is it appears that the majority of the tourists seem to be Spanish speaking, so Peru is very popular with the other South and Central American countries.  The Plaza has a number of police officers walking the square in pairs, very visible due to their fluorescent yellow jackets.  There was this cute interaction we saw between 2 police officers and a probably 4 year old boy.  He was dressed up exactly like the policemen, including the fluorescent yellow coat that said Policia, so they have a fan.  Very adorable.

Day 2 in Cusco also happened to be my 35th birthday!  To celebrate (or really just because it was the plan for the day) we took a collectivo to the town of Pisac.  A collectivo is a 15 passenger van that is used to get around from town to town and they’re ridiculously cheap.  The trip to Pisac was 5 soles each direction per person, which equals out to about $1.25.  You just go to a specific part of town and they’ll start saying “Pisac? Pisac?”  “Si, Si!”  And then you get on.  Along the way some people got off and others got on, while others just stayed on the whole trip.  The road was very twisty and turny and my stomach didn’t like that much.  I was on the verge of being sick when we pulled into town, but after a bit of fresh air by the river I was feeling better. Along the way we passed through a few smaller towns, including a town where they had sheep “mowing” their soccer pitch.  

Pisac Ruins

After arriving in Pisac, we took a taxi up to the top of the Pisac ruins, which were old Inca ruins.  You could hike up and back down, but from what I read, it was probably worth the price of the taxi to take you up to the top and just walk down to town.  The ruins were fantastic.  Loads of terraces, just like you see pictures of.  There were the ruins of a whole group of buildings on the hill overlooking the terraces (which were used for farming).  We followed a path that stayed high and had amazing views of the valley below.  We assumed that the ruins were built at different times because there were areas of big stones with perfectly straight edges and other areas of smaller stones with rough edges.  As we had only been up at elevation for around 24 hours, we were definitely very short of breath going uphill, but overall felt fine.  When we finished the hike, even though we were starting to get hungry, we got back on the collectivo for Cusco, because I didn’t want to risk eating before the twisty drive back.  

Pisac Ruins - This temple aligns with the sun on the solstice.

Once back in Cusco we went out in search of Lomo Saltado, a traditional Peruvian dish of beef, onions, tomatoes, and potatoes, with rice.  It was absolutely delicious and just what I needed after a 3 hr, 3.5 mile hike.  Very filling and very good!  

After our success and learning the ways of the collectivo the day before, on our last day in Cusco we took a collectivo to the Tambomachay ruins north of Cusco.  This was a test of our abilities because Tambomachay is not an actual stop for the collectivo.  Instead we had to yell at the driver to “Pare aqui!” and he pulled over, we handed him our soles, and set off into Tambomachay.  Outside of Cusco are a number of Inca ruins.  Tambomachay is the furthest out, then right nearby is Puca Pucara.  The next major ones were Amaru Marka Wasi, Q’enko, and the closest to Cusco was Sacsayhuaman.  However, a guide book I had found at the used book store had in it a trail to follow from Tambomachay, all the way back to Cusco that passed another few ruins.  We ended up hiking 10 miles that day.

Tambomachay is believed to be a set of ruins that served as a religious center, with sacred water fountains.  There were multiple canals funneling water into fountains.  This set of ruins was fairly small when compared to Pisac.  

Tambomachay

After leaving the grounds of Tambomachay, we crossed the road and walked a short ways to Puca Pucara.  Puca Pucara means “red fortress” and the name is believed to come from the stone used to build the fortress on the hill, which had a reddish tint.  It makes sense that Puca Pucara was a lookout fortress, because it stood up high on a hill and a lot could be seen from there.  It was round so you could look out in all directions.

Puca Pucara

From Puca Pucara we followed the directions in my guidebook to hike down to Amaru Makra Wasi.  This guidebook had directions like “follow the road, until you see a trail cut to the left, then follow it past a pond, a soccer pitch, and then a grove of eucalyptus.  When you come to the giant rock, go right into the valley.”  But sure enough, the trail was exactly where the book said.  It was as we were passing the pond that we found the cutest thing we’ve seen so far on the trip, a baby llama and 2 baby alpaca. The only way you could have ever seen them was following this trail.  They were so adorable and we watched them for a bit because I had to have a picture of a baby alpaca and they were too busy munching their grass to look up for quite a while.

After we passed the big rock, we no longer really seemed to be anywhere near people, though we could hear a rhythmic indigenous drum that someone was playing somewhere nearby.  We came across a series of ruins that I’m sure 98% of the people who visit the other ruins never see.  There we did see a group that had ridden horses out there, and another that seemed to be with a guide and came from the direction we did.

We continued south towards Cusco and to reach Amaru Marka Wasi, which is also known as Templo de la Luna.  This ruin had just barely visible carvings of a puma, a condor, and a snake, representing the 3 levels of the Inca religious theory of life.  There were piles of cut bricks, which confused us for a bit until someone told us they were piles left by the Spanish, when they dismantled the structures after reaching them.  From there we ended up getting lost.  The reason was we followed the obvious trail instead of the more faint one mentioned in my guidebook.  This resulted in us going about .4 miles in the wrong direction before realizing our issue and doubling back, to go the right way.  We eventually found our way though, and got to Q’enko, our next set of ruins.

Amaru Makra Wasi

This one was the busiest of all the ruins we had visited so far.  We seemed to hit them at the exact same time as all the guided tours from Cusco did because it was so crowded.  It was also a smaller set of ruins so there were a lot of people in a small area.  They have a rock that supposedly looks like a puma on the summer solstice in December.  This time of year it doesn’t look like anything other than a large rock standing upright.  This set of ruins had a small crevice area to walk through, and then another tunnel built through the rock where there was an altar to sacrifice people on, meaning this area was a religious site.

Sacsayhuaman

From Q’enko, we followed the road for a couple hundred yards before crossing and walking down the long road leading to Sacsayhuaman.  Sacsayhuaman was incredible.  It was massive.  Just after walking in we turned to the right and went up a small hill.  We then had to take a twisting tunnel through the rocks for a number of yards, and then it opened up into a HUGE amphitheater.  I bet the amphitheater was over 100 yards across, a perfect circle (from my eyes anyways).  We walked across the amphitheater and out the other side, then up a slight hill to where we could get a better view looking down into the amphitheater.  After climbing up another hill we reached a point where we could see down into this wide expanse and over to the other side where there was a zigzag wall made of stones that were 2-3 humans tall.  How they got those stones there and stacked on top of each other is beyond me!  The wall had to have been at least a quarter mile long.  It was just stunning to look at.  Then up on top of the wall the remains of some other structures, things they say were once towers.  Sacsayhuaman was said to have impressed even the conquistadores.  

Sacsayhuaman - See...2-3 human tall stones!

After finishing up at Sacsayhuaman, we finished our day’s trek by walking down into the Cusco Historic District and back to our room.  After a brief respite in the apartment, we headed out for some food.  We ate at a place closer to our place that was probably more of a locals place than a tourist place.  2 filling meals cost us a whole 36 soles, or roughly $9.36.  As we’ve really only been eating a moderate breakfast, a mid-afternoon snack that we brought, and then supper, it makes for a fairly cheap day of eating.  

Then after finishing up supper, we headed to the Alpaca Expeditions place where we attended a meeting to brief us on the trip.  The guide said this will be the hardest hiking you’ve done, but I’ve done Kilimanjaro and Everest Base Camp trail, so I have a feeling this might be the 3rd hardest hike I’ve ever done.  I’m not looking forward to all the stairs I’ve heard about.

In the morning, we finished packing up our things.  We then headed to the Scotiabank to try to trade in some of our large bills for smaller ones.  The ATM gives you 100 soles when you’d really prefer smaller currency like 10 or 20 soles bills, or 1, 2, or 5 soles coins.  So we managed to get a bunch of smaller money which will be more useful.  Google Translate Offline was very useful to get us what we wanted at the bank.

Peruvian Inca Adventure: Alpaca Bag to Peru

 September 6, 2024

On September 1st, Mom and I started our Inca Adventure to Peru.  This trip had been a long time coming.  Years ago I promised her that we’d hike the Inca Trail together to Machu Picchu, because she wanted to experience one of these multi-day hiking trips that I’ve done.  Last year we settled on doing a trip in September 2024, and that was when the planning began.  I would act as travel agent for the trip and for the most part, she’d just hand over money when I asked.  During Christmas of last year, I surprised her with one surprise feature of the trip: a 4 day, 3 night Amazon River cruise.  So this trip became a hiking and cruise trip, but then to make sure we were acclimated to the higher elevation of the Andes, we added a few more days before the hike began, and then a few more.  Before I knew it, the trip rounded out to 20 days.

At 4:00 am on September 1st, we used the Dad Taxi Service to get to the airport.  Our first flight to Atlanta was right on time.  Following that we had a 6 ½ long layover before getting on our flight to Lima.  During the flight I watched a few movies, and we got a surprise supper…I swear it had said only snacks would be provided and food could be purchased, but a meal we got.  Our flight landed in Lima and overall customs was really quick and easy.  We waited for a while for our bags to appear, but the important thing was they did.  Then we headed out the door to where we had a driver waiting to take us to our hotel, Hotel El Tambo Dos.  The hotel was quite nice with a good breakfast.  It was in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima and nicely located for what we had on the docket for Lima.  The travel agent did good. ;)  

Huaca Pucllana

On our one full day in Lima we did a ton of walking.  We started our day walking up to Huaca Pucllana, a historical ruin site.  The site was first built by the Lima people who lived in the area from 200 CE to 700 CE.  After them came the Wari People.  They created a pyramid at the site that was only found in 1981, which seems crazy because it is literally in the middle of Lima.  They had no idea something existed under that giant mound of dirt.  They are still working on digging it up.  They’ve found pottery and things like shells and fish bones in areas that lead them to believe that the ocean and oceanlife were the main deity for the people.  The structures on the site were made of what looked like giant bookcases of mud bricks. The bricks are about the size of a dictionary. It made for an interesting look for a pyramid. Very different from the stones you see at other sites.

Parque el Olivar

From Huaca Pucllana we set out Parque el Olivar, a park with a bunch of olive trees that have been growing there for over 400 years.  There were some young ones and some old ones, none bearing fruit this time of year (remember, Peru is south of the equator so it is actually early spring here…like early March).  At the park we took some time to sit down, have a snack, and watch people around the pond in the park.

One of the old olive trees in Parque el Olivar

Up next we wanted to see the Pacific Ocean as this would be our only chance.  We never actually went down and felt it though; just appreciated it from 30 ft away.  The beach was more of a large pebble beach, no sand.  And a bunch of surfers.  Lima is sort of built up on a cliff.  There is about 100-300 feet of flat ground probably about 10-20 feet above sea level, and then a cliff that reaches about 200 feet up.  At the top of the cliffs are a string of parks.  Some of the parks had artwork in them, others had tennis courts, while one place you could go paragliding.  After following the cliffside parks a ways, we turned back towards our hotel.  We ate supper at a chicken place and then went back to the hotel and almost straight to bed because we were still exhausted from traveling the day before.

Cliffs of Lima in Miraflores