La Casona de Yucay

... Jenny, looked at her, grabbed her and sobbed, I felt so rough but I had made it.<br><br>After walking through I fell against a wall, broke down with the emotion, and took a quick rest. In the distance the group could see Machu Picchu, unfortunately my eyes were too blurry and I could only see colour variations. I asked how much further did we have to go, I was told 40 minutes, great, I would be able to make a 40 minute walk down hill, WRONG, I was just about ...

... gringo is especially not advisable. We only had our lack of hiking experience going against us, and it was still a incredibly difficult ascent. We could not have taken a better picture at the top to express our physical, mental and emotional states of being.<br><br>Before getting to the pass, we came across donkeys pruning each other, and a rare spring-fed salt lagoon. We stopped to take the pressure off of Mollie's blisters ...

Note to tourists: Salkantay is no longer a trek that can easily be arranged with a mule driver for a small group. If you can carry all your own gear, which is ambitious as an understatement, you can conceivably complete the trek on your own, at your own pace, which is nice when considering you will be trekking 80 kilometers and ascending up to 4,650 meters above sea level. Agencies offer packages from $160 to $375 dollars per person depending ...

Today we set out on our Machu Picchu trek, one of 2 highlights on this trip (the other being the salt flats in southern Bolivia). I am thankful for the good nights´rest, as the altitude thing has had some impact on my ability to get a full nights´rest. But not so this past night, so I am raring to go.<br><br>After breakfast at the hotel, we made our way through the town to the nearby Inca ruins (insert name here later) to climb ...

... the joys of altitude sickness). Today was going to be the biggest physical challenge and I could have really done with a good nights sleep but hey, this was all part of the experience so no need to feel negative, time to pull my feelings to a high and get on with the mental preparation for climbing up to 4,440 meters.<br><br>The group was up and ready to start trekking 5:30am, unfortunately one of the group had become very ill during the night due to the ...

... no women not even the Queen was allowed to share his space (except by special invitation) so I guess he used the time to entertain one of his (400) concubines. Apparently, he only visited Machu Picchu once a year for the winter solstice so his apartments did not get hard use.<br><br>There are numerous different temples, some for the winter solstice, some for the summer solstice, some to worship one or more of the mountains and some for observing the stars (via a pool of water ...

... it´s sleep head bobbing along the roads till a quick stop for breakfast. A small mountain town with a cute restaurant, and a little garden where we sit out the back with chickens and kittens running around our feet. A little disturbed that we watch the owner feed a shed of guinea pigs breakfast, which sounds very nice, till you notice the guinea pig skins hung in the corner. Reminded of Izzy´s pets! I will not eat guinea pig and that´s that! <br><br>So then ...

... Aktualität mein** Einträge. Ehrlich gesagt bin ich ziemlich faul und handhabe es wie in Prüfungen: warten bis kurz davor (...und dann ordentlich ins Schwitzen kommen). In meinem Fall, kurz bevor ich zurückkomme. Nein, so weit w**de ich es nicht kommen lassen, nur keine Angst. Ihr w**det halt einfach alle 2-3 Wochen mit 4-5 Einträgen bombardi**t (an alle Facebook-Gringos: ihr könnt den Mist auch blocken ;-). <br><br>Und hi** noch eine Kampfansage an ...

... into an engine. I probably exaggerate slightly. Then we made our 180 and landed on the other side of the ridge. For a brief, but pretty good overview of Cuzco see: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/65 02/cuzco.htm<br><br>Again we were met by our Condor Tours rep. Our guide for this day was Edgar. By this time the weather was quite nice even if the air was thin as Cuzco is located slightly above 11,000 feet. We immediately set off and Edgar assured us we would get our full tour even though ...