Alpaca'd for Peru!

Our Peruvian Adventure!

This post is LONG overdue.  But life has been busy. We finished our first travel nursing assignment and jetted off to Peru for 2 weeks for the adventure of a lifetime!  After returning, we worked long and hard to find contracts for the summer and ended up splitting up for the summer. It wasn’t fun, but we are now reunited in SEATTLE.  We both had many adventures separately and had great experiences in North Carolina and Oklahoma. We will highlight those experiences next. But first- let’s hit the highlights of PERU!

First stop: LIMA

Honestly, you could spend a week just exploring Lima, but we had a DAY.  After an overnight flight as well, so we were really running on E. We enjoyed it nonetheless.  If you find yourself in Lima, explore the neighborhoods. We walked around Miraflores and found some cafes, the coast and beautiful parks.  That evening, we found the neighborhood Barranco, which is well known for the restaurants in it. We had dinner and a drink and wandered around its streets.  The main historic center of Lima is in the neighborhood El Centro. We didn’t make it there this trip, but Steph had been there on a previous trip to Peru and it holds many churches and museums.  

The Main Event: THE SACRED VALLEY

Next stop, CUSCO!  Highlights included:

• Cusco’s City Center

• Lago Humantay Hike

• Our 4 day, 3 night Lares Valley/Short Inca Trail Trek (actually our #1 highlight)

Let’s start by saying, don’t forget the Diamox. Cusco’s elevation takes some acclimating, but after taking it slow the first day and a half and using Diamox, we felt okay despite the change in altitude.  Day one and two, we spent exploring Cusco’s city center and going on a tour of Maras, Moray, and Las Salineras. We really enjoyed that tour and it was definitely less physically demanding, so a good tour to go on while acclimating.  

Day three we really went out in a ledge and decided to see how acclimated we were and did a hike to Lago Humantay. Insider tip: if you don’t have much of an agenda in the Cusco area, you can get some cheap rates for tours. Just keep in mind some things may be sold out during peak season. For example, hikes for Lago Humantay were $100 looking online ahead of time and booking last minute for the same exact tour in Cusco at some random tourist shop the night before, was 60 soles for the two of us (just over $18 a person). It was a full 12 hour day and very early morning but we loved the hike! By the time we finally got to the starting point (after breakfast and a 3 hour bus ride), the hike itself took about an hour and a half, it was definitely difficult as it was straight up the entire time at a high altitude. This hike is a portion of the Salkantay trek, if you plan on doing that trek to get to Machu Picchu. This was one of our favorite excursions. 

Machu Picchu!

And finally Monday, we started our trek to Machu Picchu! We booked our hike through a company called SAS Travel. It was one of the more affordable options, that still included everything we wanted to do. For two days we hiked through the beautiful Lares Trail. Up into the mountains, to the highest altitude around 15,000 ft. It was very challenging, but the best thing I’ve ever done! We camped along the way, had the best guide and crew (two horsemen and our own personal chef) and the best compadre, Julián from Colombia. Donkeys carried the heavy equipment on the trek and we were just responsible for our day pack. The Lares trail is beautiful and you get a great experience seeing how some of the local people still live in the mountains. On day two we descended down into a town for lunch and went to the city of Lares to enjoy the hot springs and camp there. We took a bus to Ollantaytambo, and then tourist train to the start of the short Inca Trail. Day three we hiked all day on the ancient route and reached the Sun Gate and finally saw Machu Picchu!

Such a rewarding moment and trek! We loved every minute (okay, maybe not every minute), but it was the best trip! We got to walk down to Machu Picchu to explore that day and stayed in Aguas Calientes (the town below Machu Picchu), so we could bus back up to Machu Picchu the next day to get another closer look. If you are going to Machu Picchu, I’d also reccomend having more than one day to spend at the monument as the first day we were there it was beautiful, clear and sunny and the next morning Machu Picchu was covered in clouds. It eventually cleared up, but you never know what the weather will be like! We did not do the extra hike at Machu Picchu called HuaynaPicchu, because tickets were sold out. But if you were spending a day or two at Machu Picchu and did not hike to get there, I would definitely recommend it for a day hike in this beautiful area. It is expensive, but I’ve heard from other travelers it is completely worth it. 

After our adventure in Cusco area, we flew back to Lima to meet up with our fav travel buddy, Caitey to go down to Huacachina! Huacachina is a very small oasis town in the middle of the desert. For three days, we enjoyed the sun, heat, and dune bugging and sand boarding on the dunes! We also made a point to go into the bigger town close by for a pisco tasting and then a little further north for a tour of Islas Ballestas, a boat tour or some islands the are the home to wildlife like assorted birds, seals, and occasional sea life (like the dead sea turtle we saw). But honestly, our favorite part was the dunes- sandboarding and dune bugging. So many laughs and so much fun, we did it twice! Luckily, our hostel (Bananas Aventures Hostel), had a daily tour! 

Our two weeks in Peru were absolutely incredible! There is so much more to do that we didn’t have time for, we could go back so many times and never do the same thing twice. If you have any questions while booking your trip, please reach out! We’d be happy to share our more detailed itinerary with you. 

Travel nursing has been a crazy, unpredictable ride and we can’t wait to tell you what we’ve been up to soon!

Happy hiking!

Steph and Tay