Titanium toes attempts to trek the Inca Trail plus some travels either side

[drron]

Fantastic effort.Well done.As time passes I am sure the pain felt will get less but the exhilaration maintained.

 

[bPeteb]

It was such a treat to have a sleep in. We'd left the heater on timer so we woke up to a room with some warmth to it. It was obviously sunny outside.

Everyone had struggled with sore calves yesterday after the 2000 steps on day three. Ours were both still a bit sore when we got up but we found out later that some of the group could barely walk two days later!

Al's knee was fine and didn't bother him again for the rest of the trip but he had the knee brace with us at all times just in case. It went three times last weekend just walking around the house. Xrays didn't shown any issues so it's MRI time this morning.

Let me put it out there now - we loved Cusco! Carlos is a Cusco native and we understand why he is so proud of his home town. It has a great feel. It looks great. The people are friendly. We ate well. We look forward to returning.

We had no real plans so we just a few of our group and walked to the main market. It was a nice walk from the hotel





past the main square

 

[bPeteb]

A couple more pictures taken on the way to the markets







We weren't tempted to buy whatever giant snail extract was being sold here

 

[bPeteb]

We love visiting markets and these ones were like many we’ve seen around the world



It was somewhere that locals could get pretty much anything they wanted – clothes, household goods, gifts





something to take home to cook for dinner. Whole pig anyone?



a meal

 

[bPeteb]

We see such beautiful flowers whenever we travel.



The fresh juices looked fantastic



We have no problems with street food so having one of the delicious juices on offer at a whole section of stalls was a given. They are very careful to stress there’s just fruit, no agua.



I’m guessing the fruit was washed in agua but we survived with no ill effects, just as we always have.

A couple more shots from the markets

 

[bPeteb]

We were on a bit of a mission to get something alpaca and I came up trumps. At an artisan collective in one of the old church buildings on the main square, Al found me a beautiful jumper on a small sale rack, for 100 Soles. About $40!! Considering we’d decided that 400 would be acceptable it was such a bargain. We later learnt (learned?) that one of the Quarry Track 'pull-outs' had been taken to a factory in Cusco that sold goods made with 'baby alpaca' wool. She paid $1000+ for a scarf made out of the stuff!!!

Our second mission for Cusco was a meal of cuy, or guinea pig.

We ended up at Restaurante Ama Lur at Calle Plateros, 327 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ama-Lur-Cusco/187406124667878#_=_

We both ordered the cuy and some large beers. I think the cuy was 60 soles. Some others in the group had tried it elsewhere and it and taken 40 minutes to prepare. Ours was on the table in about 15 minutes.

They were much bigger than either of us had expected.



They looked more like giant tailless rats than guinea pigs.

Check out the teeth!!



We had no idea how to eat them. The waiter came back after a few minutes of watching us stare at them and using some creative sign language asked if we wanted them chopped up.

They came back in about six pieces.




As we tried to saw through the fairly tough skin the owner came over and told us to "eat it like men" and indicated his hands. Phew! So much easier.

Ignoring the skin, it was tender and juicy and tasted like a cross between rabbit and chicken. I liked the flavour of the herbs that it had been stuffed with. Al wasn’t a huge fan of the herbs but we both enjoyed the meat. It was a much bigger meal than either of us expected, especially when you added in the obligatory potatoes.

We had a couple more very acceptable Peruvian beers and another box was ticked.



A big thumbs up from me. Bring on the next one!

 

[bPeteb]

We intended to visit the cathedral - closed until much later in the afternoon, and the church built on the Incan ruins - we enjoyed lunch too much. Instead we ended up at the very quaint but very interesting Museo Inka Museo Inka -UNSAAC. An amazing collection of artifacts. The highlight for us was a scale model of Moray (no photography allowed). We had never heard of it before and it will be one of the first things we visit when we go back to Cusco. A huge Incan ruin about 50km out of Cusco where the Incas trialled and perfected farming in microclimates. Amazing.

Culinary checkbox number two was churros. I know we'd walked past somewhere in the morning that had churros in the window but do you think we could find it? Even with the help of a member of the group, who had a similar craving and had googled a possible location earlier in the day, we still came up blank.

We ended up in a very old school desert café staffed by a group of very good looking young men dressed in crisp white shirts and black trousers. The coffee and cake were ok, the waiters much better.

Three time three milk cake and whatever I had

 

[bPeteb]

Some final shots of Cusco. Like I have said, we loved it.

Balloons everywhere



This was in the 'fabric' street.



I loved that everywhere we visited had neighbourhoods that sold specific things - kitchen, automotive etc. We've seen this in Asia before.

Who doesn't love a minion? He was cutting some mean moves. I took this while he was having a breather.

 

[amaroo]

Our second mission for Cusco was a meal of cuy, or guinea pig.

A big thumbs up from me. Bring on the next one!

Good to see travellers eating the local stuff!

We tried it, however I won't be heading back for seconds.

The highlight for us was a scale model of Moray (no photography allowed). We had never heard of it before and it will be one of the first things we visit when we go back to Cusco. A huge Incan ruin about 50km out of Cusco where the Incas trialled and perfected farming in microclimates. Amazing.

One of the standouts from our tour around the Sacred Valley ... we stayed three nights in Valley - I'd recommend that as a minimum. You could easily stay for longer.

 

[Boca68]

Fantastic read!

So many memories. Happy to see that you so enjoyed it. I'm like you, I thought Cusco and Aguas Caliente were great. Cusco especially if you wander the old streets. Its a maze. I remember we found a gorgeous little plaza, with a cute restaurant. Just sat in the sun, no one around apart from the locals. Drank a couple of beers. Perfect afternoon.

But, to this day MP still takes my breath away.

Cuy! Not so much, it was edible, I'll say that. Moray is astonishing, I'd not even heard of it until we arrived in Cusco and I our driver suggested we go have a look on our drive to Urubamba. Like MP, the incredible detail and planning is perhaps the most amazing part.

I'll be back in Peru later this year and again early next, mostly work related, but intend to extend at least one of these for another visit to Valle Sagrado and MP.

Thanks again for a super TR bigpete.

 

[tgh]

+1 .. a great tr and a trip down memory lane.. need to go back with lots of time

 

[Bindibuys]

Agree, great trip down memory lane.
The only thing that gets me, is that after the "hike" most companies have their group return to Cusco that afternoon.
Ours (SAS) had us stay the night at Aguas Calentes, we were then able to go back up to MP the next day at our leisure.
I even walked back to the village from MP (ALL down hill )

 

[bPeteb]

Agree, great trip down memory lane.
The only thing that gets me, is that after the "hike" most companies have their group return to Cusco that afternoon.
Ours (SAS) had us stay the night at Aguas Calentes, we were then able to go back up to MP the next day at our leisure.
I even walked back to the village from MP (ALL down hill )

Agree completely Bindibuys. When you get there you're exhausted, unless you're super human! It would have been wonderful to have taken our time the next day. My feedback to Intrepid was exactly that. I also said that there needed to be at least one more day in Cusco, a trip to Moray, drop Bolivia and go to Arequipa instead.
Pete

 

[RooFlyer]

Thanks heaps. Like others, I enjoyed re-living the experience (except no trek for me).

Tip: Don't get your alpaca-wear dry-cleaned (at least with heat). My lovely alpaca jumper shrunk a lot. Cold hand wash only!

 

[bPeteb]

The Intrepid itinerary describes the transport used between Puno and Cusco as a public bus. As a kid I used to be put on the Cobb and Co bus from the Gold Coast to Sydney. Today's bus took bus travel to a different place.

Loading our luggage onto our very comfortable Mercedes mini-van for the short ride to Cusco's bus station



What we boarded next





Seats better than a domestic business class plane



free wifi, movies



even a couple of free drinks served by a very under-worked hostess. It was fantastic!

 

[bPeteb]

The trip took us up onto the Altoplano, and area that stretches across Peru Bolivia and Chile.

Looking down the runway at Cusco on the way out of the city



I love travel of every kind and if I haven't been somewhere, and even if I have, I can't stop looking out the window at the ever changing scenery.

The huge snow-capped mountains (they're alpacas/llamas grazing)



the small and not so small colourful villages towns



the equally colourful locals



the local transport

 

[bPeteb]

Baby alpaca skins (we think) drying by a river



There's flamingos in that river!



the outskirts of Juliaca



Juliaca, a huge dusty maelstrom, where the airport for Puno is located



They all mesmerised me. I was amazed that the majority of people spent the whole time on the bus with their curtains pulled, or asleep, or both.

 

[Major]

Great photos and a great TR. Thanks for all the details

 

[bPeteb]

I've wanted to go to Lake Titicaca since I was a very small child. I'd seen a National Geographic special on tv about Jacques Cousteau diving in the lake looking for giant frogs. I was just a little excited therefore when we crested a hill and Puno was below us with Lake Titicaca stretching out behind it.





Puno itself was pretty unremarkable. Considering its location it ignores the lake. Our bus dropped us off at the main bus station. We then took two smaller vans to the Camino Real Turistico hotel www.[B]caminoreal[/B]-turistico.com/english/ that was a couple of kilometres back from the port/harbour. Carlos warned everyone to stay within a specific area as there was a problem with petty crime, particularly around the main lookouts.

The hotel was a step down from the Koyllur in Cusco. More like Lima's ordinary lodgings. Saying that, the staff were friendly, our room was a decent size, our bed comfy and it was quiet.





It was also well located with the main pedestrian shopping/restaurant street starting just across the road.

 

[bPeteb]

On this holiday we'd both expected to be lugging our bags along narrow paths, steep streets, up to our rooms in hotels etc etc. For this reason we'd bought new HiSierra (Samsonite) convertible wheeled packs. What a bloody waste of money. Most of the people brought actual packs (way too backpacker for me!!!) but we could just have easily brought our mid-sized wheelie cases.

Instead, we had porters at each hotel, we pulled up right outside every hotel bar one, most hotels had lifts and for our overnight stays we either had duffles provided or took our back packs. Intrepid's collateral should be much clearer about all of this instead of their one-size packing-and-luggage-description-fits-all.

Carlos took us to a stall at the market to show us the 'popped' goods



People in Puno appear to 'pop' everything they can - any kind of pasta, rice, quinoa, corn of every size. They sweeten them and cocoa them. We bought a bag of I have no idea (now. I did at the time!) and it was delicious. The popped pasta was an acquired taste.



The centre of the city, the walking street and the central square were all very nice



Carlos had booked dinner for us all at a very touristy restaurant. It was his only miss of the trip. The food was super ordinary and the service terrible (meals and drinks forgotten). The band was fun, I enjoyed my giant lemonade that some thought was a humungous pisco sour



Best of all was chewing on the miniscule leg of the deep fried cuy that one of our group decided to try for dinner



After dinner Carlos took us to a local mercado to buy the gifts for our home stay families who we'd be with the following night. Like our visit to the weaving community at Qoqor on the way to the Sacred Valley, Intrepid supports a farming community at Llachan on the shores of Lake Titicaca by taking groups to stay and lend a hand with day too day chores.

Gifts were cooking staples - oil, rice, grains, pasta, sugar, spices etc. One of the group had chosen a small, gourmet, flavoured olive oil, some fancy balsamic and some other 'what I'd buy for myself to nibble on' stuff. I looked in her basket and told her that I thought she was missing the point. Carlos overheard me and suggested that she swap it all for more homebrand plain 'bigger size' stuff. I still don't think she got it because as we walked out she said "I thought this was a gift. I'd have loved to be given that." Mmm...