Mollepata, Peru - Polarsteps

From Arequipa to Cusco! The historical centre of Peru. The upcoming weeks we make our way in and out of the city, but more on that in a separate post... First: 🥾On our way to one of the modern world wonders... Machu Picchu! And what better way to do this than on foot... We did the 5 day Salkantay-trek! And spoiler: we survived it! (we got these beautiful t-shirts as a present🎁, of course we would never buy these ourselves 😅) This time we arranged the luxury of a tourcompany: transport🚌, porters 🐴, drinks☕, snacks🍩, three meals🍴, a guide🧑‍💼 and new friends💖: all included! You can definitely do this on your own. However, the accommodation without a tent is expensive, and because of the steep ascent + descent we wanted to travel as light as possible 🪶. So these days we joined the Fast Guinea Pigs!! 🐹 Under the guiding power of Ruben! We formed a group of 15 and were so happy with the lovely people in the group that definitely made the experience even better! The best thing about hiking in a group, is that we noticed we were not the slowest ones🎉. Some were definitely not acclimatized enough to make it a smooth hike. The first two days, in particular, we spend on high altitude. On day 1, we did a 'test' hike to show our level of fitness. We went to a high altitude pristine mountain lake the first day and succeeded flawless by being one of the first ones up! ✨ The second day we survived the Gringo-killer which brought us to the highest point, the namesake of this trek: The Salkantay-pass at 4600m. Probably the highest point we ever hiked to. We celebrated this moment by showing respect to the surrounding mountains and Pacha Mama (mother earth) in a ceremony (building a rock tower and taking shots🫗). From that moment it was only down. More oxygen filled the air, as well as mosquitoes 🦟. We refused to listen to our guide: "It can't be that bad". But we ended up buying some well needed repellent, kill them all! ☠️ 🍲The second night brings me to a new chapter: food! Because we have to mention it: the food we got was bloody good! 😋 Thanks to the chef, chef-assistent and chef-assistent-assistent (yes these titles were actually used!😅). It was always more than enough and we never got the same dish twice! Unfortunately, this also counts for the second day's tea snack. Something that comes close to fried donuts. We got a tray for our whole group, but it was too hard to resist and with a small group we finished it all before the rest arrived. When they finally did, we complained about the 'terrible bread' we just had.🤫🤫🤫 The third day was the most enjoyable. Due to landslides, the jungle path was too dangerous to take and we continued our way on the bigger road. Time for some chit-chat. Ruben showed us natural paint and became a make-up artist, although not everyone was as happy with their new mask... 🍆 In the afternoon it was time to relax, in the hot springs!! Together with a load of other gringo's, we washed the sweat from our bodies. And until this moment we are still surprised with how the guards never noticed our strange behaviour, why is everyone drinking from the same water bottle? Ghehe, we smuggled some booze into the thermals🤫🍹. Back on the property we discovered the 'Bunker' a farmshed-disco with stereo and discolights! Until midnight we showed our moves, including the oldies of the group! The fourth, and last day of the hike, was the longest. Of course the previous night didn't make it better🥱. The best part of the day came early, when after passing the highest point we caught our first sights of Machu Picchu: majestic! 🌄 The rest of the hike was dreadful, especially the last three hours felt like a long, endless march just following the train tracks. Finally we arrived in Agua Calientes. The hiking part is finished, up for something cultural!

Country Guides:

Peru