The Trail (one)

(Not a Wordless Wednesday, but a Pugless Wednesday)

I can proudly say that this year, at 33 years old, I accomplished one of the biggest (and long delayed) dreams of my life. Long delayed because I wanted to do this since I was in college, which would have made a lot more sense because I was younger and stronger... anyway, I also wanted to go to this place with someone special, so I did with my husband last March (Coco is special too but he couldn't come).


It was a little embarassing to say "I am from Perú" following by "No, I have never been in Machu Picchu". Specially when the person asking me is not from Perú and had been in Machu Picchu.

I have always been very good at high altitudes. My husband had lived in Miami his whole life, but he has been in my country twice before, and had done well in the mountains. Cusco is approximately 3399 m.s.n.m. (11151,44 feet above sea level). You can sit on a bench or a step in the main square of the city and watch people walk by you of as many countries as you can remember. All sorts of languages, most of them I had never heard before. The city never sleeps. I do sleep early, so I probably had missed most of the fun, specially because it was St. Patrick's day and there was a big party in the Irish Pub. Definately this is a place I want to go back to, next time with no previous arrangements for city tours.

We visited the most common archeological sites near Cusco and in the Sacred Valley. One of the most interesting places for me, was the alpaca farm. They not only breed llamas, alpacas and vicuñas, but also complete the whole process of producing textiles using typical ancient methods for dyeing and knitting, with patterns that have been inherited from Inca times. They have a show room with very high quality textiles, sweaters, suits, etc. and a part of the proceedings benefit the community, since they are able to get a profit from their artistic work. The prices are high compared to other artisan markets but the quality is notably high, too. Compared to the U.S. and Canada, prices are reasonably cheap. I wish I had bought more stuff, but we did the trip on a budget.









Another favorite was the village of Chincheros, in the Sacred Valley. The pictures speak for themselves.





After two days getting used to the climate and the altitude in Cusco, we got to prepare our backpacks to start the 4 days 3 nights hiking towards Machu Picchu.

We were told that it was going to be sunny, rainy, hot, extremely hot, cold and extremely cold, all in one day. Was that possible?