This entry certainly is going to be the longest one yet, as it summarizes two weeks of our stay in Cusco, tightly packed with activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After only 2 days in Lima, my friend and I took a plane to Cusco, mainly to quickly and appropriately acclimatise to the high elevation, which we would be important for our planned hike to Machu Picchu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Collecting all the information on the different treks to Machu Picchu (where they start, how much they are, if you can do it without a tour, etcpp) took quite a while and the process had already started around beginning of February.
I tried to gather info from everyone I met along the way, as A LOT of travelers around here are on roughly the same route through South America and chances are high that they either already did a hike up there or are about to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There’s 2 “big” hikes to Machu Picchu: the Inca Trail <\/strong>and the Salkantay Trek<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Inca Trail is by far the most popular and busy one and you can only do it with a tour organisation. The cost for that is around $500 per person and the permits are limited to 500 a day. The reason is that the trail was once overrun by tourists, and wherever people go, they often leave behind trash and cause damage. To minimize these negative impacts, the trail eventually became regulated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a couple of different reasons, we decided to do the Salkantay Trek and wanted to hike without a guide. It took around a day to wrap our heads around the fact that we couldn’t to what we had planned to do for the last 2 months.<\/p>\n\n\n
So, after arriving in Cusco we quickly set out to gather information and planned the start of the hike, only to learn that both of the above treks to Machu Picchu are inaccessible right now because of landslides caused by massive rainfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n