Hostal Las Orquideas Ollantaytambo

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The next morning, feeling refresheed and revitalised, and amazed that my shoes were almost dry we set off on our trek. It was rather dull for the first hour and surprisingly hot despite only being 7am. We then reached "El Camino del Inca" - The Inca Trail! Well, AN Inca path... not the commercial trail. After a brief rest we were all set to go when the guide stood up and cracked his head on the corner of a metal sign... blood gushed everywhere but, to his credit, he ...

... time. The first place we stopped at was Salinas where the salt mines are. It was incredible; I've never seen anything like it. The whole mountainside had little rectangular white pools carved into it. The salt springs from inside the mountain flowed into the pools. Then the people stop the water with rocks (and also plastic now). For 3 months the sun evaporates the water, and then salt is left in the little pools. There were locals ...

... haha (deve ser trauma de infância...eu nao sei porque!). O problema é que demorei muito pra entrar no banho e quando entrei o fogo já devia estar apagado...E foi assim que tomei meu primeiro banho frio! (Sim, Sr. Amom, nessa hora eu lembrei de você e de sua praga! haha) Mas eu sobrevivi...

O único problema é que nao tem nada pra fazer à noite..E eu tenho que dormir um pouco cedo demais! Mas é bom, porque tenho que acordar 6h30 para tomar o café e ir trabalhar...E no dia ...

... bus in a row, preceded by a week solid of sleeping in a hammock on a cargo boat, 4 days sleeping in hammocks in the jungle, and 3 more days before that sleeping in a hammock on another cargo boat. A full night’s sleep on a mattress right now sounds amazing. And hot showers?? We have had one hot shower in exactly three weeks.

Anyway, we took the s/15 ($5) night bus to a town called Santa Maria. This went up and down some standard Peruvian bumpy, windy ...

... when we got to the campsite for the night (3300m).

The second day was our big day with the 2 highest passes (4200 and 4000m) and we hired a porter for that day between the two of us so we only had to carry some of our stuff. It took almost 4 hours to get up the first pass, called Dead woman`s pass - stairs after stairs, it just didnt seem to end and you could definitely feel a lack of oxygen up there. Our lunch spot was an hour downhill in ...

... They would be kind enough to say that I was very close when in fact they were just saying that to be nice and supportive. At the final stage of the climb, I went through a short section of Inca tunnel – to come out of it to find myself at the top of Huayna Picchu. I had an outstanding view of the whole of Machu Picchu and the surrounding mountains. It was an incredible view. I could even see the winding road leading to Machu Picchu and ...

... from inside the church, we went outside to be greeted to wonderful views of the surrounding mountains and watched the sun set over Chinchero.

On the drive back to Cuzco, I was in awe of the landscape and the magnificence of the Andean mountains. I also had noticed that Wendy was quiet. Her face though was speaking volumes. She did not look well. Yes, the one who “stayed away from the salad” and who warned others to do the same, was looking ...

... village on the trail (video_2) and then Llactapatta, the Inca agricultural complex (video_3) , and arrived to our camp site at Huallabamba (video_4). The tour was provided by the Inti Kuntur e.i.r.l ...