Hola, friends and family! It's hard to believe that in a little over 2 days Casey and I will be stepping off the plane in Peru to begin our epic journey through scorching deserts, thick jungles, soaring peaks, and mysterious ruins. We are very excited to be sharing our experiences with all of you, and we're looking forward to posting pictures and stories of the interesting places and people we will see over the next few months.
This trip has been in the works for a while now, but even with all the planning, español learning, and research we've done it didn't hit home for me until 2 days ago when we sat down, split up the gear, and packed/weighed our bags for the first time. All of of sudden the trip went from this far off, distant thing to "Holy shit...This is really happening!"
Buried Under a Mountain of Stuff
All Packed Up!
Around 11:00pm saturday we'll be landing in Lima, Peru. The plan is to spend the night there and take a taxi into the city the following morning. We'll spend a day or 2 there, then hop a bus South to Ica, a town noted for its excellent wine, and Pisco (a distilled spirit made from freshly fermented grape juice). 5 miles outside the town is the desert oasis of Huacachina where we will spend some time camping and exploring the huge sand dunes.
The desert Oasis of Huacachina
From Huacachina we'll walk back to Ica and hop a bus to Arequipa, known as "The White City" for it's spanish colonial buildings constructed from brilliant white volcanic stone (sillar, for the geologists out there). The city is surrounded by 3 volcanos, and is a gateway to many hikes and treks.
After Arequipa we'll take a 15 hour bus ride to the small town of Cotahuasi, which is built at the entrance to the remote Cotahuasi Canyon...The deepest in the world (twice as deep as the grand canyon). Scattered throughout the canyon are small villages, some only accessible by walking the ancient Inca roads, many without running water or electricity. We are hoping to spend at least a week going from village to village, staying with families, or camping wherever we can find a flat enough spot for a tent.
Cotahuasi Canyon
The photos and stories I've seen from this area are breathtaking, and I'm really excited for our first taste of off the beaten path Peru. Hopefully all this spanish we've been practicing has paid off, because there is likely to be very few people here who understand english.
Next stop on the list is Cuzco, which we will use as a base to tour the Sacred Valley of the Inca (a region with many ruined Inca cities, and terraces), Choquequirao (built by an Inca king as an answer to his predecessors Machu Picchu, only accessible by hiking in), and the Salkantay Trek ... A 4 day trek over high peaks, and dense forests which ends at the fabled Incan spiritual site of Machu Picchu. From there we will take a bus to the Peruvian port city of Puno... Gateway to lake Titicaca.
Moray, Sacred Valley of the Inca
This is where our itinerary ends. My lovely wife catered to my need to have some sort of plan to get us started (it's genetic, I'm lookin at you Dad), but after this our travels will be dictated by what we can dig out of the guidebook, and more importantly: what we hear from locals and other travelers. I can't wait to see what strange places we end up in over the next year, and I'm very excited to have many of you following along with us. See you in a Year!
Andy
Also, check out our Flickr page where we will be hosting/storing all of our pictures:
So, it's been a couple weeks, how's it going man? Just got back from my honeymoon... back to the grind. Jealous of your adventures!
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