Peru: Cusco - Machu Picchu - July 2017

My son and I decided to spend 3 weeks in Peru, including one week in Cusco and Jungle trekking to Machu Picchu and 2 weeks volunteering in the Amazon.  My husband joined us for the first week of the trip.  I booked the volunteer portion of the trip with IVHQ (blog here), who contracted our trip with Maximo Nivel.   I booked the Jungle Trek from Cusco to Machu Picchu with Lorenzo's Expeditions.

Maximo Nivel picked us up from the airport in Cusco, brought us to the Maximo Nivel Office to check-in and then drove us to our hostel:  no glitches there.  Our hostel was about $17/nt for 3 people, so there wasn't much remarkable to say about it except that the owner said we could store our luggage there for free while in Machu Picchu, if we brought her a bar of chocolate in exchange.  We spent our first day in Cusco acclimating to the altitude, but to be honest, we didn't feel anything the first day.  Maybe it was a little hard to ascend steps toward evening, but that could have been attributed to our red eye flight from Mexico City to Bogota.  All in all, the first day we bought alpaca sweaters and hats,

Alpaca sweaters

 tried coca leaf tea to prevent elevation sickness and sampled assorted empanadas.  We dined on guinea pig and grilled alpaca.

Guinea Pig for dinner

Coca Tea

  We also took a double decker bus tour of the city, which included the inside tour of a church and a visit to the mountains overlooking the city.

Bus tour takes us by archeological ruins above Cusco

Christ overlooks Cusco

   At 3AM, we were started awake by fireworks, which may have had something to do with Cusco's medical worker and teacher strike Cusco.  We had to wake up at 4 anyway to meet our Lorenzo's Expedition tour guide, Dorian and his assistant, Freddie. They set an early departure to avoid morning traffic jams from the strikes.

The regularly scheduled breakfast at Lorenzo's house was cancelled and we were taken to a restaurant instead.

After breakfast, the ascent to 14,000 ft+ finally made me understand altitude sickness.  I didn't realize it at the time, but when it happened again going from the low jungle to high Cusco, in the back of a van, I understood that it was the altitude change that forced me to get out the vomit bag.    Somehow I still mustered up the energy to continue with the much awaited downhill mountain bike ride.

   Once gliding through the crisp morning Andean air, my stomach issues were forgotten and any negative attention focused on my freezing fingers.  Although the morning presented mostly fog, there were occasional majestic glimpses and rivers to cross.  We even encountered a truck accident.

  We moved from freezing fingers to banana trees within a few hours.   Lorenzo's team was amazing at distributing all the gear for so many customers and keeping guides at the beginning and end of the bike group so that we wouldn't fall victim to one of those wide-turning trucks.

We then checked into our hotel and walked to our wonderful Peruvian lunch.  Lorenzo is friends with the restaurant owner's family and wants to support them in sending their children to college.   They give each other the best possible service out of mutual respect.  After lunch, they took us rafting.

Our guides made us splash each other and even pretended they needed help by jumping off boat and pretending they couldn't get back to the boat.  They made us back paddle to save them.
   They made us surf the waves just to get drenched  We all enjoyed their sense of humor but having to constantly take my camera in and out of its waterproof bag became tiresome.

Our guides had told us to put on insect repellant before and after the raft trip, but no one listened to the "after."  Actually, no one brought repellant on the raft, so it was the 2 minute walk from the raft to the van that left us target to so many sand fly bites.   I also found out that American DEET wasn't strong enough.  

Sand fly bites from rafting

Maze for sorting coffee beans

Day 2 was the big hike through the transition between the Andes and the Amazon.  We covered about 14 km that day, including parts of the original Inca trail, built over 500 years ago.  We did not hike the main commercial one where permits are needed, but there are many other original Incan trails that are not part of the permit system.  We stopped at a few farms for tours, where we learned about their organic agriculture, including coffee, coca, banana, papaya, orange, avocado and lime.  We learned about "traditional technology" for coffee production and saw how coffee beans were sorted in a maze.  I was a little jealous when I heard you could buy 100 mangos for only $10.  They charge so little even though collecting them in the rainy season is dangerous; slipping accidents occur.

On this hike we visited farms where we learned about the coca leaf and its traditional importance for the Incans.  Indeed, it was one of their most important products, serving as medicine and food.  Chewing it kept them from getting hungry, thirsty or tired.  It's a natural remedy for elevation sickness  We tried chewing 10-15 leaves for 10 minutes.  We were supposed to feel a numbing effect in our jaws.  My son felt it, but I probably didn't take enough leaves or wait long enough.

We also learned there are 3,000 kinds of Andean potatoes!  We sampled a drink made from purple corn, lemon and sugar, called chicha morada.  We even tried cocoa beans.  Peruvian cocoa is so precious that the Peruvians don't usually eat it themselves; instead, they save it for export, while they eat cheaper imported chocolate, like Nestle.

Our guide talked about all the produce on this table: potatoes, coffee beans, cocoa beans, achiote, and even a salamanca for pouring liquid.

Our guide used the red juice from the achiote fruit to draw tattoos on us.  I received the sun, the center being Cusco, and its surrounding regions.  Cusco was the center of the Incan world.

Petting the farm's pet coati while sporting my new achiote tattoo of the sun.

After leaving the farm, we entered the most beautiful part of our hike, along the Urubamba River.

Sitting on the rock where Incan messengers met to send letters,
(the tambo)

The view around every corner became only more amazing.  Each time I put my camera away, I had to take it out again a few seconds later.  The Jungle Trek let us see the transition from the Andes to the jungle and let us feel like it must have been to be Incan and traveling to Machu Picchu on foot.  The trip is not as demanding as the traditional Inca Trail trip, where everyone has headaches and feels sick and even the guides are not so happy.  This trip gives you honest exercise, fun, culture and amazing views!

At the end of the 2nd day of the Jungle Trek, we had to take a cable car across the river.

Our cable car got stuck at the very end so we had to be pulled back to the starting side and do it all over again!  Lucky us!  Then we passed

Tunnel at the end of Day 2

entrance to Cocamayo Thermal Baths

through a tunnel and hiked a little further to reach the Cocamayo Hot Springs, where we got to hang out for a few hours.  The thermal baths at Cocamayo have 5 different temperatures!  Pick the pool that suits your temperature
or try them all!  This was certainly a backpacker haven, and we heard languages from all over the globe being spoken.  Most everyone was young and fit!  The whole thermal bath experience was great except for the extra bug bites I accumulated there.  Of course, our guides watched our belongings the whole time so nothing would be stolen and we could really relax!

a view of Cocamayo from the end of our full day hiking trail.  What a heavenly sight for the sore backpacker!

     The next day consisted of zip lining and a half day hike along the railroad to the town of Machu Picchu.  The zip lining included a variety of attachments, from Superman, to upside down to tandem. We had suspended bridges to cross as well.

After ziplining in the morning, we started our railroad hike to the Machu Picchu Village.

We walked along the railroad for a few hours to get to Machu Picchu.

This is the restaurant that we all stopped to have lunch in,  The great thing about Lorenzo's Expeditions is that Lorenzo knows all the owners of the restaurants and hostels we visited.  He has close, personal relationships with them.  That makes them want to provide great service to Lorenzo's customers.   We always got fantastic service and food at each place.

Finally, we got to Machu Picchu Village and checked into our hostel:  What a cute village just to walk around!  We had time to explore on our own, but the guides also took the whole group to a really fancy restaurant: Chullpi.  This was no ordinary backpacker's restaurant!  Lorenzo's goes out of their way to make us feel appreciated near the end of the trip, with our final meal together.  We had to go to bed early to wake up before dawn to start the walk up to Machu Picchu to meet our guide.  Unfortunately, our trip fell on the date that Machu Picchu was free for all Cusquenos!   So it was extra crowded!   The walk was steep and tiring, and you can't see anything in the dark, walking in a thick single file line with other hikers, but we made it through the crowds for our 6AM meeting time!  At first we were sad to see all the fog.  It totally obstructed our views.  The fog, however, cleared up by 8 or 9 AM!

Foggy Views

Clear Views!

The traditional Machu Picchu View- but with lots of tourists!

Our guide taught us everything he knew about Machu Picchu.   It was built between 1445 and 1530.   Basically, the rocks were cut, and then water was used to expand the cuts.  The tightest fitting rocks required the most work and were used for royalty, how deserved the best quality construction.   Water came from aqueducts which were built to get water from springs in the mountains.

The Incans used trapezoidal windows for maximum strength and sloped roofs for rainfall.  Notice how the walls incline to fall in one place.  This was so that other places would be safe during an earthquake..

  Here you can see how the Incans build drainage ditches along all the footpaths.  

Mid-day, the guide says "good bye" and we our on own own.  Some stay to hike the mountains and some go back to the village to catch their train home.   We booked our trip several months in advance, so we were able to get tickets to climb to the top of Wayna Picchu and see the ruins there.  

Some of the stairs to Wayna Picchu.  We noticed that the width of each step was made for a very short foot.  Not for my foot!

These are my favorite stairs at Machu Picchu!

This is a steep, heart pumping climb, but well worth it to see the complexity of all the stairs and the views at the top.

You have to do some spelunking to get to Wayna Picchu!   It is absolutely amazing to see the stairs built all the way through the cave.

View as the top of Wayna Picchu.  It's 360!  Don't worry.  We recommend having a snack up here.

Some of our favorite memories at Machu Picchu were petting the alpacas that grace the park.

All in all, this trip was definitely worthwhile; I would have chosen the same trip again!  Our guides explained how they used to guide the traditional Incan Trail, but that they preferred this trip.  It has the best of the hiking but not all the elevation sickness!  Plus we got raft, hike and zipline.  It is still a strenuous trip; you don't see unfit people on this kind of trip at all!  But everyone was healthy most of the time, with the exception of the extreme elevation change at the beginning of the bike trip, and the rafting bug bites!   Taking a train home was picturesque, but I'm certainly glad that I didn't take a train both ways and just make Machu Picchu a 1 or 2 day trip!  Thanks for Lorenzo's for a most memorable trip!