We are home!

Hallelujah!!!!

Lima evening traffic

It's raining...we are stuck in gridlock...the air is choked with exhaust fumes...time to head home!

View from the hostal

We're not crazy about the painfully steep road we have to hike up, but
the high setting does provide a fine view of Cuzco.

We're also not crazy about a front desk clerk barging into our room at
2:40am and insisting that we haven't checked in (5 minutes later he
apologized for having the wrong room - WTF??!). But the Loki hostal is
a pretty cool renovation of a 450 year old building.

The rainy season has begun

We kept seeing forecasts like this and didn't believe it. But after
three days in a row with rain, we're finally conviced the rainy season
really does begin here in October.

Happy Birthday Molly!

Molly enters her fourth decade of making the World a better place.  Brent should be spoiling her rotten about now...

The Andes from the Inca Trail

This was our view from the Inca Trail for three days. Note the Incan ruins in the distance. We saw about six significant ruins before we arrived at Machu Picchu. The Inca Trail was originally used by royalty and important people as they travelled to Machu Picchu. All the other ruins were either religious sites, resting places or farms (like in this photo) for growing food for Machu Picchu. It was an incredible experience to walk in the footsteps of the Incas and feel the power of Machu Picchu drawing us towards it. Unfortunately it rained cats and dogs on the fourth day when we arrived at Machu Picchu so we weren't able to see it from the sun gate as you can on a clear day. However we were extremely grateful to have beautiful weather for the three long days of hiking by day and camping at night (wet tents...ewww).

What a beautiful country.

Our porters

Here are our red tents (me in the first one) that our porters set up for us each day. Our porters were incredible. They carried our bags, tents, sleeping pads (and not Thermarests...full thick mattresses), food for three meals a day for 12 of us plus 2 guides plus all SEVENTEEN of them, a dining tent that fit 12 of us, a kitchen tent, plus dishes for all. Not only that, they left after us, ran past us on the trail wearing sandals made of old tires, got to camp and had everything all set up by the time we arrived. They all clapped as we arrived then brought over warm water and soap for us to wash our hands and faces.

Talk about roughing it...

Each morning we were awakened by the porters tapping on our tents saying "buenos dias - mate de coca?" which means "good morning - would you like hot tea?" And not just any tea; they drink mate de coca here which is tea made from the leaves of coca trees, the same thing you make cocaine from. The tea is supposed to have almost magical properties and is great for avoiding altitude sickness. Brent is concocting a new business plan to sell it at the ski resorts in Colorado. Might have trouble importing it but we are working on it.

The attitude of the porters could not have been better. They had smiles on their faces the whole trip and they even helped us with our Spanish. Brent learned that in Peru, "Que Mamacita" means "What a babe" and when he said it to me as I was summitting a 4200m (14,000ft) peak called Dead Woman's Pass, it became a nickname that stuck. The porters and guides loved it and we were Mamacita y Papacito the rest of the trip.

Fire near the Inca Trail

Here is the view from our first campsite and you can see the fire damage on the hill. The fire was started about two weeks ago by a controlled burn that got out of control. It burned across the train tracks that lead to Machu Picchu and they almost had to cancel train trips. This could be devastating because the train is the only way to get to MP and the small town of Aguas Calientes at the base of MP relies on the train for all supplies. Thankfully they were able to extinguish the fire after a few days but not before it burned a large swath of the Urubamba River Valley.

Machu Picchu or Bust

Molly and Brent are starting their 4 day trek to Machu Picchu.  No internet cafes in these parts of Peru....

One more stop before hiking the Inca Trail

We landed in Cusco this morning at 9am and so far our bodies haven't revolted against all the time we've spent at sea level. Cusco's at about 11,000 feet and locals have all kinds of advice for dealing with high altitude. Their favorite is mate de coca -- a tea made from coca leaves. They insist it's legit and seem a bit dismayed about the bum rap cocaine has given the coca plant.

We're amazed at what a large town Cusco is given it's altitude. It has an impressive mix of Inca and Spanish Colonial architecture. And too many nice restaurants for our short stay.

On Thursday we stop in the Sacred Valley, and then on Friday, we start hiking!! Probably (and hopefully) won't have wi-fi access for a few days...

Cusco

After a very early morning we are in Cusco Peru!! Here's us at our hotel