From biking to trekking

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Hola!
Because it´s been so hard to find time to update you all on our travels, I decided to cheat a little bit - I am copying Brij´s accout of our Sacred Valley bike tour and Salkantay Trek to Machupiccuhu, including what almost turned out to be impossible - to get from Cusco to Puno by bus. Just so you know, we are at the Colca Canyon right now so we made it safely to Puno and Arequipa. The current connection is too slow to upload any photos so I have to leave that for next time, sorry!


MJ came, saw and left in the last few days. We biked the Sacred Valley from Cusco to Pisac the first day, in time to walk up to the ruins above town that evening. The next day we didn´t have a set destination, so we biked through Calca and almost took a detour to Lares, but it was too late in the day by the time Jeff got sufficient information on the route. So we explored Huyllabamba (or what we thought was it anyway) on the way to Urubamba. Turns out the real Huallabamba was about 3 more kilometers down the river. But we got to watch a little football game near the plaza of that village.

Urubamba wasn't much of a place, but the next day we did a neat bike/bike-push up to the village of Maras via the Salt mine/terraces (Salineras), and then onwards to Moray. Moray is just an archaeological site where the Inka experimented with circular terrace farming.

The next day we biked to Ollantaytambo, just in time to eat a little and wait for our shuttle back to Cusco. There were more piles of rocks above O-town but unfortunately we did not have time to go exploring.

Next day we got picked up at 4;30 am for a 2 hours bus ride to the beginning of our 4 day Salkantay trek. The Salkantay trek was beyond description, so I won´t try to describe it now. 😊

We returned to Cusco last night to find out that the major cities in Cusco have been blockaded due to a nation wide strike. Our next destination, Puno, is one such city. Rumor has it (and some verification through media) that they are not allowing any buses or tourist vehicles into Puno, and the ones that try to take the road less traveled to get there are being stoned.

So we are still in Cusco despite our original plan to be on the way to Puno for 2 night and then Arequipa. It was a welcome break to have a whole day to wash stinky clothes, dry everything, catch up on some sleep after an epic day at Machupicchu, charge batteries, etc.

But now we have to figure out a way to Arequipa, since Adrienne, JT and Connie fly out of there and we still are holding out hopes of seeing the Colca Canyon.

Our preliminary options at this time are;
1. Find direct transportation to Chivay (gateway to Colca Canyon)
2. Take a 12 hour bus to Nazca (the place of the famous lines visible from space), then take a 12 hour bus to Arequipa, then 4 hours to Chivay.
3. Last and least accepted option is to bike to Chivay - take 4-5 days to get there. But this requires the acquisition of bicycles by those amongst us who don´t have them and carrying considerable loads on our backs, for those that don´t have trailers or panniers.

Our ambitious plan is to be out of Cusco early tomorrow morning, but who know what will really happen ...

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Photos

Side trip in Urubamba on Day 3
Salt mines mountain bike trip to Salineras