Back from Peru

First of all let me say one thing WOW! I had a great time in Peru. I am not sure how to write about this since there were so many things that happened while we were there. You can read the earlier post which I actually did on the 3rd day of the trip in an Internet cafe. The rest of the trip I think I will sum up in this post.

The night after we arrived in Cuzco we had a meeting at SAS Travel, which was the agency that we booked our hike through. We were the first ones there at the meeting which was next door to the hotel, Hotel Los Marqueses, where we were staying. We sat down and had some coffee and cookies since we hadn't yet grabbed any dinner. Soon there after another person from the group came in who was from D.C. and we started to talk. She asked Jodie and I when we had gotten to Cuzco, which of course had only been that day. So the question of altitude sickness quickly came up. For good measure you should go to a city such as Cuzco to acclimate for at least 3 days prior to doing any physical activity. This was something that I hadn't thought of until after we had found out the times when the trek was leaving. I wasn't too worried about it personally since I had been skiing at Tahoe earlier this year and not felt too fatigued, even though we would be 5,000 feet higher than I was at Tahoe. Jodie however started to panic a little.

Soon there after the rest of the group showed up and we listened to the break down of the trip. I also realized that I had forgotten to call on the Friday before to confirm our trip, luckily there was still room in the group. So with the end of the meeting and the anticipated 6:00 am departure time, we headed out to pay for the trip and grab a bite to eat.

Jodie picked this neat little vegetarian place (we didn't realize that until we saw the menu) that had excellent food. So we enjoyed a nice dinner and then headed back to the hotel for bed. Now I have to say that the Marqueses was indeed a nice hotel, but that first night it seemed as if someone forgot to turn on the heat. So when we woke up the next morning we were wondering whether to stay here when we got back from our trip. As we checked out we booked the hotel for the rest of our stay, figuring it was better to have some plan than to come back and have to find a hotel.

So now it was off on our hike to Salkantay and Manchu Picchu!