Beautiful Peruvian Trek

Jack and I went treking for three days in the Andes in mid-October. Here´s how our trip went. Let me break this down for you. We got up around 5:45 am so that we could be picked up at 6:20 am to meet our guide and the rest of the group. Then we got on a bus and drove through some mountains in the Andes to our destination point, from where we started hiking. Anticipating that I may have some trouble with rocky areas, steep drop-offs and the high altitude (we were at around 12,100 feet high at the start) I hired two walking sticks. I soon found out that I would definitely have problems with the altitude. I sounded like a woman doing lamase while hiking up the steep parts - which was quite often, considering we were hiking for about 5-9 hours a day. But I did it, and was surprisingly not too sore either.

The hike was absolutely amazing. The area was gorgeous, like nothing I´ve ever seen before. We hiked a total of 3 days for perhaps 19 hours total. The highest campsite was 4,400 meters (about 13,000 feet or so). We hiked past glacier lakes, llamas and alpacas grazing, small villages where children often tended the animals. Most of the trip was extremely rocky, with steep drop-offs. I was frightened to be sure. But most of the time I was too busy trying to breathe to worry about the cliffs and rocks. I do have a new found respect for those people who climbed the Alps to get to freedom.





Here is a picture of a glacier in the background:



We were really taken by the local people, who only speak Quechua, and live in small huts.


Children would come out to great us on the path, and ask for candy. We had bought some small gifts for them, hair bands for girls and combs for boys, in a market before setting out the first morning, and they took them with the biggest smiles on their faces. Another hiker had bread, or ¨tanta¨ in their language, and they absolutely loved that! One little two year old, who could barely walk up the steep hill from his hut to the path, only took the tanta and literally rejected all other gifts- clearly its food that mattered most to him.



The striking thing about these children, was that they all seemed so happy, even though they were extremely dirty and work nothing more than sandals on their feet (it was freezing at times). They also had burns on their cheeks, from both sunburns and frostbite. It was heartwarming to witness how they live and to know that in order to get to school, the majority of them travel a few hours a day. Some take a bus, but most walk to school. And the walk is not an easy one.

On our second night, three women came to sell tapestries to us at the campsite. One woman carried a huge bundle on her back, plus a three month old baby. And she totally put us to shame walking up the steep hills - she was incredibly fast. That night it started to snow - we literally woke up on the third day to a few inches of snow around us.

On the fourth day we made it to Machu Picchu. We woke up very early again to take the bus up and see the ancient Inca site as the sun rose. It was amazing. Although we were sore and tired, the ruins were stimulating.


We ended our hike by returning to Cuzco and preparing for our trip to the Amazon. I would highly recommend this to anyone who's willing.