Trekking through Peru - Part 1

The hubs and I decided we wanted to travel more. And by travel more, we mean by plane. We do lots of local trips (mostly hiking if you read along) but realized we wanted to do more venturing out of the Pacific Northwest. 

So after always discussing "wanting to travel more" I  sporadically booked a trip to South America. The hubs studied abroad and ever since we've been wanting to visit South America.  I found awesome ticket prices to Lima so we decided to do one of my bucket list items: Machu Picchu!!! 

This is the first part of two post which will explain why we intended to visit Machu Picchu but never actually got to :-( 

We booked through G Adventures tour which has a load of mixed feelings. 

Lets just say our tour-mates all had far superior experiences than we did. 

From booking to the end of the tour we experiences nothing but issues that made my dream trip turn into a nightmare.  

My ultimate recommendation? We won't be booking G Adventures again, mostly just from the hassle of booking the trip. 

Flights were booked, bags were packed. 

And we were ready. 

Below are some photos and stories PRE-HOSPITAL stay.  

Yep - we landed ourselves in a hospital in Peru which concluded the last 80% of our trip. 

 But the first 20% was quite lovely :-) 

Our tour we booked was the Lares Trek - hiking 22 miles up to 15,800 feet altitude over the course of three days. 

 For those of you who have never been 15,800 feet above sea level - its fucking hard (pardon my language - but there's no better way to describe it!). Your lungs and muscles are entirely depleted from oxygen. 

Every step is taken with a deep breath. 

Your lungs are pissed off. 

And to top it all off - do this in rain. 

But all complaining aside - it was amazing. 

We met locals who live the same way they did hundreds of years ago using bones as tools and dying alpaca yarn with boiling water and natural ingredients. 

I was taller than everyone we met. 

Our local guides/porters cooked amazing food and taught us all about our surroundings. 

For a good chunk of time I was quite certain I was in the movie set for The Hobbit. 

Our tour mates were a wonderful group of people - and I was secretly obsessed with the 3 Irish gals, their accents, and ability to wiggle the word "fuck" into their every conversation. 

Making alpaca yarn - step 1: Create Yarn

Ollyantaytambo

View from our room in Ollyantaytambo

Meet Polly and Ibo's new sister

Mango.  That's a MANGO!  Heaven.