The largest percentage of our trip will be spent in Peru. Deb lived in Lima for three years as a child, so she is very excited to be returning to this country of her youth for the first time in 25 years. We will enter Peru at Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. We are doing the four-day Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu. We meet up with our friends Phillip, Kathleen and Jessica at Machu Picchu, and after absorbing these breathtaking ruins, we'll all return to Cuzco (via Ollantaytambo) for the Inti Raymi festival. Next we plan to do a four-day Amazon jungle trip out of Cuzco, then it's off to Nazca, Huacachina, and Lima. After Lima, we will head into the mountians near Huaraz where we will do another trek or two. Then it's back to the coast to visit ruins at Trujillo & Chiclayo. We'll cross the border into Ecuador near Piura, after forty glorious days in Peru.
Monday, June 12, 2006 at 6:58PM The tour today took us to the famous floating islands of the Uros people. They build the islands from reeds and mud, and anchor them in place so they don’t float around. They have lived like this for close to 1000 years, and fled to the lake to escape warring Inca and Challa tribes.
Monday, June 12, 2006 at 7:02PM The bus we took to Cuzco was really fancy, and Lincoln rated it the second-best bus we had been on, with the first bus we took in Argentina being the first. We had a hostess who served us drinks the whole way (water and tea, not booze) and a great tour guide who gave us lots of information about the places we were passing, as well as at the stops we made along the way.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006 at 11:52PM Wandering around the streets of Cuzco , it is overwhelming both how touristy this city is as well as how much history it contains in its stones. Everywhere we look there are remnants of the Incan civilization – the huge boulders that make up the foundation of many of the buildings, as well as the style of their construction.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006 at 4:31PM The final day was the hardest of them all. We left at 4:30 to start the hike up to Machu Picchu . There is a bus up, but we all decided it would be more rewarding to walk up, especially since we hadn’t walked much the day before. There were more than 1500 stairs going up the hill and we were pretty tired by the time we got to the top. It
Thursday, July 6, 2006 at 9:38PM We were very excited when we got up this morning because today is the day that we were meeting up with Jessica, Phillip and Kathleen, our friends from both Ottawa (Jess) and San Diego, California.