All Tours in Cusco

APU SALKANTAY

By Deborah

Day 1: We arrived to Cusco and took it easy with the altitude, but just in case bought Acetak (acetazolamida 250 mg), which is exactly the same as Diamox.

Yure waited for us at the airport and gave us a nice briefing about the city, restaurants, shops, the altitude problems, etc, etc.

Day 2: We had a full day tour and visited: El Mercado Central or The local food market, this is a very interesting area where we saw mostly locals socializing and buying all kinds of food and handicrafts, we enjoyed very much the different sectors and took great pictures with different types of people, fresh food, the chirimoya fruit was our favorite!. Later we visited some of the Incan streets, The Temple of the Sun and The Cathedral.

At noon we had a break for lunch, we used a nice restaurant called

Tunupa and had great views of the Plaza de Armas (main Square)

In the afternoon with a van we visited the 4 incans ruins of Tambomachay, Kenko, Puca Pucara, and Sacsayhuaman which was the highlight. At the end of the tour we visited a very nice local school and dropped some gifts I was recommended to take.

Dinner was at other very good restaurant with delicious food called: Ciciolina. You should make reservations.

Day 3: We took a full day Sacred Valley tour, first we stopped at Awanacancha, this is like a cooperative – shop which is trying to recover and keep alive people’s amazing old techniques for doing beautiful colorful textiles. We saw and took great pictures of alpacas, llamas, vicunas and guanacos and also saw farmers from different villages weaving wonderful textiles. Later we visited the amazing Pisac ruins, the loop took us 2 hours at a good pace. Also we visited the Pisac handicrafts & food market, good place to buy some souvenirs and to taste the delicious white corn on the cob.

Lunch was near Urubamba village at a nice restaurant called Alhambra, great food with good variety of vegetables meats and nice desserts.

After lunch we visited the fascinating old Incan town of Ollantaytambo, where we saw the Incan streets, some still with water aqueducts and drainage channels, we visited a local family saw and learned how they live and bought nice dolls.

Finally we visited the religious sector where we saw amazing constructions with huge granite boulders, joined together with no mortar; you could not introduce anything between the joints!!

The Salkantay trek report is coming on the next post

Cusco & Salkantay trek report 2

Salkantay Trek

2 nights before we had a pre-trek briefing, they gave us maps and lots of information about the itinerary, the route, gear to take, limit of weight, food, etc, etc, they also gave us a duffel bag to put in our belongings for the trek.

Day 1: Cusco – Soyrococha

We left at 5:30 in a van, and drove for 2:30 hrs until a small farmer’s village called mollepata, this is where you have to pay a new fee for the trek ($44), and you can also have breakfast and buy the last snacks.

The ride continued for about 45 minutes until the beginning of the trek. We had a gentle hiked from Sayllapata until Soraypampa for about 2 hrs, the scenery is just spectacular with nice valleys, canyons, and snow capped peaks. When we arrived to Soraypampa lunch was set up and everyday we had: soap, towels, buckets with warm water to wash our hands, a camping table and stools.

After a delicious lunch and a hot coca tea we started going uphill, it took us about 3 hours to arrive to Soyrococha, sometimes was difficult, it was steep and we had to use switchbacks, but we had great weather and had amazing views of the Apu Salkantay (20,600 ft)

When we arrived to the camp; everything was already set up!, during the trek we had very nice camping gear, the best I have seen and used, we had a great and warm mountain hardwear cooking/dining tent (stronghold), our bathroom was the Environmental PETT Toilet tent, it had a seat an biodegradable plastic bags with eco- friendly powder inside. The other companies made holes in the ground.

I slept in a nice and warm 2 person mountain hard wear four Season tent (Spire), and over a thermarest–ridgerest pad which insulated very well humidity and cold. This first camp (13780 ft) was the coldest, but the most beautiful because you have the Salkantay peak in front of you!, do not forget to take warm sleeping bags and clothes (gloves, wool hat, scarf, etc). We did great because of the nice gear we had but I felt sorry for the other trekkers, we saw the camps and gear other companies had and everything looked very simple; specially the client’s tents (cheap Doite tents I think), the next morning I saw their pads and they were very thin.

Day 2: Soyrococha – Collpapampa

Every morning we had a wake up call with Lucio (the cook) or the guide offering us coffee or coca tea, which felt great. We also had soap, towels, and buckets with warm water every day in the morning and in the afternoon.

When I got off the tent, everything was white because of the frost we had. After some panqueques and a hot chocolate we started the hike until the pass, it took us just 1 hour to get to the pass (15100 ft), we had a very nice day and took amazing pictures of the mountains around, glaciers, the summit of the Salkantay Peak, and we even saw an avalanche!

After making our offerings to the spirits of the mountains we head downhill for lunch, as we got lower we saw more vegetation; beautiful flowers (orchids, begonias), trees and also more colorful birds (tanagers, hummingbirds), it took us 4 hours to arrive to los Andenes, the lunch spot.

Do not forget to take walking poles and a strong bug’s repellent we had lot of small black flies.

After having a nice lunch we continued 2 hours downhill until the 2nd camp, a small village called Collpapampa, 15 minutes downhill from the camp they have 2 small pools with hot volcanic water, so do not forget to take your swimsuits if you want to relax.

Day 3: Collpapampa – Playa Sahuayaco

After breakfast: fruit salad, cereal, yogurt and hot drinks, we started the hike, it was downhill again with beautiful views of lower green mountains we saw more birds, flowers, nice waterfalls and farming fields with coffee, passion fruits, bananas and other tropical crops. We also had more flies and got some bites, so I recommend using long pants and long sleeves.

After 5 hours we arrived to the last camp for lunch, a village called Playa – Sahuayaco. After a nice lunch we had the rest of the day to rest, have some cold beers and soak in the river.

During the trek you can buy mineral bottled water and snacks to help the local families, in this village there is electricity if you want to recharge batteries.

This day we said good bye and tipped our great and very helpful horseman, Cristobal.

Every night we had lectures about the Incas, and the next day’s activities, but this night was special because we had 2 choices for the last hiking day.

- The 1st option was to leave early and hike uphill for 3 hrs until the pass, visit a small Incan ruin (llactapata), have good views of Machupicchu, after the pass hike for 2 hours downhill until the Hydroelectric power plant and after lunch hike along the rail tracks to Aguas Calientes (3 more hrs)

- The 2nd option was to take it easy and take a van to the Hydroelectric power plant (1 ½ hrs), and after lunch hike along the railtracks to Aguas Calientes. (3 hrs)

Day 4: Playa Sahuayaco – Aguas Calientes

We decided to take the 2nd option, because we wanted to save energy for visiting Machupicchu and also our legs were a little sore.

So we had breakfast at 8 am and took a van to the Hydroelectric power plant, the ride was on a bumpy road, but it was nice, we saw nice mountains and farming fields with lots of tropical crops.

Before arriving to the power plant we got off the van to register at a government’s checking point (do not forget to take your passports) and hiked for about 10 minutes to see an amazing waterfall, after taking lots of pictures of the waterfall we hiked to the power plant for lunch.

After lunch the hike was mostly over the rail tracks, sometimes over gravel. It was a very nice hike, we had great views of Machupichu, very well protected on top of a high mountain, saw lots of birds: parakeets, hummingbirds, tanagers, the cock of the rock (beautiful Peruvian national bird), etc, we also saw more orchids and lots of other flowers.

After 3 hours we arrived to Aguas Calientes town for a cold beer and a hot shower.

This day we said good bye and tipped Lucio, the best cook ever (I actually tried to get us to come home with us). He always made excellent meals, extremely hardworking with a wonderful infectious laugh. He was a porter on the inca trail.

Dinner was at a good restaurant called Indio Feliz, but we were already missing Lucio and his amazing food.

Day 5: Machupicchu

We got up at 4:30 am and had some breakfast, we tried to catch the 1st bus but when we arrived to the bus station we were surprised to see a long line, to get in a bus we waited for about 20 minutes!

When we arrived to Machupicchu there was other line, at the entrance they will check the size of your packs, so just take small ones or you will have to leave the big ones in a storage room (price 3 soles per pack).

If you want to take the Huaynapicchu hike you must get up very early and catch the 1st bus. The limit is 200 people from 7-10 am and 200 more after 10 am.

We had a 3 hours guided visit of Machupicchu and after some lunch we took a nice hike to the Sun Gate (1 hr).

Later in the afternoon we took a train to Ollantaytambo (1 ½ hrs) and drove back to Cusco (1 ½ hrs)

Thank you very much for a wonderful experience, I may go back the next year and for any trip or trek in Peru I would strongly encourage you to contact Yure (yure_c@yahoo.com, Mobile: 51 84 984625267)

Good Luck :)