Blogs from Salkantay Trail, Cusco, Peru, South America - page 3

Some sights around Cusco area before doing our jungle trek to Machu Picchu...... read more

From the cloud forests of Chachapoyas to the soaring peaks of the Cordillera Blanca through the dry carob forests of Chiclayo, our journey through Peru has, so far, taken us to parts of the country far off the famed Gringo Trail. That is all about to change as we board a flight from Lima to Cusco, arguably South America's tourism capital. The lure of Cusco - erstwhile capital of the mighty Inca empire - draws visitors to Peru in their hundreds and hundreds of thousands. But while most visitors associate Cusco with two hypnotising words - those two words being, of course, Machu and Picchu- there is, it seems, a lot more to the Navel of the Earth (for that is what Cusco means in Quechua) than that fabled citadel. Cusco is a mind-numbing twenty hours ... read more

Yeh i Know! I totally did! So as some of you probably know, we did the Salkantay trek, as we couldn{t get into the Inca Trail.. a shame, but Salkantay was meant to be good so we thought we{d go for it - Machu Picchu is the end game anyway. It{s a 5 day 4 night hike with camping on all but the last night, but we decided to take the option of skipping the first day and night, and doing some practice hikes of our own... thus skipping the dullest day, and the coldest night - and hopefully saving my knee from undue pain. (actually, I{m just going to apologise now if this is awful drivel... so very very tired, but we have to wait another 2 hours for the train and bus back to ... read more

Our trek started with a very early morning and a cold shower (just in the hostal) then a spectacular drive to the trail head with Mark the Texan, our guide Fredy and our two cooks. Although the last two hours were rather hairy on a very narrow road and a big drop down to the bottom of the valley. The first part of the trail was easy, just a gentle up. The steep up that followed was a whole different kettle of fish, especially with altitude and lack of fitness induced by a dissertation. We had lunch and stopped for the day in a sheltered valley which turned out to be our campsite. We had amazing views of Salkantay mountain which is really close, really high and covered in glaciers. Just looking at it makes you ... read more

I apologize for the delayed blog, I went from doing not much in cusco other than spanish classes and hiking to being overwhelmed with an intense amount of travelling, photos, hostels and broken computers... Every hostel has had about 4 computers, 3 of which never work, and 1 which we are allowed to use for 15 min if the connection is held. Here is a photo site i will attempt to put all my photos on + facebook: http://s1094.photobucket.com/albums/i448/tlgallin/ Right now, me and Vanessa are in La Paz, Bolivia after a crazy 3 -4 days of busing from Cusco. The border to enter bolivia from peru had been blocked by locals throwing large heavy objects into the streets. Buses couldn´t drive through, and even if they could they were risking intense damage to their vehicles. The ... read more