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Salkantay Mountain
never been climbed. This trip started bright and early at 430am, we were picked up from our hostals and then drove 3 hours to our starting point. Here we hiked next to Salkantay Mountain (witnessed a HUGE avalance) and hiked uphill to the highest point of 4550m. I was feeling the altitude a little bit and it made me kinda nauseous, but after we reached the highest point the rest of the day was downhill into the valley where we were camping. It was a very cold night, and had rained a little bit earlier in the day too. I wore just about everything I brought to bed. But in the morning we were awoken with Coca Tea and had really good pancakes. The second day was the easiest day and we mostly continued walking downhill for 5 or so hours. At this campsite it was a lot warmer, there were way more mosquitoes, and hot springs! We had lunch and then went to the natural hot springs along the river. That night we were also able to have a campfire and our guide told us some history about the Andean mountains and people. He was WAY better than my last guide. He walked
with us and explained things to us, and boiled all our water, and ate with us, and really was excited to be there.
The third day we hiked up and down along the river for another 5 or 6 hours until we got to La Playa, which is a little town. After lunch me and two of the girls explored the town (nothing exciting) and walked for another hour or so. This trek had a lot more free time than my last one, and I was a little dissapointed that it wasn´t harder hiking.
The fourth day was the hardest day. We covered a total of 25km, the first 9 straight up hill, then another 7 downhill. The last 10km were along the train tracks, which was not very exciting and hard to walk on. Our final night was spent in a hostal in Aguas Calientes, at the base of MP. It was so nice to sleep in a bed and have a shower (cold of course).
We woke up at 330am to start the hike up to MP. We had to walk for about an hour and a half up stairs to get to the entrance,
Our guide
explaining the importance of the Coca leaf and why it should be legal everywhere.. we wanted to be in the front of the line so we could get our tickets to climb Waynu Picchu (they only let 400 people go a day). Manchu Picchu was really amazing. You can´t really tell from the pictures what its actually like, but it is pretty big and very high up in mountains, which gives really awesome views. Our guide gave us a tour and some history about it (most is only speculations). The most common idea of what MP was for is that it was a religious spot, since there are about five different temples.
After the tour a few of us hiked up Waynu Piccu which was very steep (people were crawling up and down some of the stairs). The views from here were really awesome, and the fact that there were some ruins built up there was crazy. We spent more of the afternoon walking around before heading back to town.
In town we had a few hours before our train back to Cusco, so a few of us went to dinner and walked around. The town in really small and very overpriced. Its only there because of the tourists and they try
and get as much money out of you as possible.
The trip was really great. I´m glad a had about 9 days of hiking right in the middle of my travels. Its nice to get out of the cities and into the mountains. Tonight I am taking an overnight bus to Copacabana where I plan on staying one night and visiting the Isle de Sol and then Im heading into La Paz where Im meeting a couple people I volunteered with. Im glad to get out of Cusco and Peru. Even over the last two weeks it has become so full of tourists, prices have gone up, and the people on the street trying to sell things are driving me nuts. It will be nice to have a change of scenery.
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