Home » Peru » Travels with Ickle Sis.

A long journey from Arequipa to Lima was followed by a nice hotel (to celebrate Anne's birthday). We were waiting for Heather (James' sister) to arrive from USA so had a second day in Lima Miraflores district merely hanging around. An early start to meet Heather's plane from Mexico where she was transiting. We arrived at the airport around 5.30am but much to our annoyance the plane was delayed by over 7 hours. Anne disappeared back to the hotel whilst James sat and let the world drift by for what seemed an age.

Travels with Ickle Sis.

James and Anne Walkington
2006-09-26 18:06:15

Displayed times (last time: )

chunks of ice breaking from the glaciers made eerie listening. A ceremony for Pachamanna included giving an offering of coca leaves beneath a tower of stones. Unfortunately at the top Heather's boot fell to pieces. The whole sole had started to peel away from the leather. Thankfully due to James' first aid kit (courtesy of Palmerston North A+E department) he was able to fix it was a 3/0 nylon suture set anda bandage. Although we had been told that the uphill was over that was not the case and we trudged up further slopes and eventually descended to a lower pass. The valley stretching out below led down to the Sacred Valley of the Incas which was our final destination in 2 days time. An easy descent down gravely paths passing another small village where the locals were pleased to get the rest of our oranges, and we reached our second nights camp by a river.

The final day involved an easy walk down the remaining valley for about 3 hours to meet a bus which would take us to the train station for the trip to Machu Picchu. The village at the bottom - Aguas Callientes is a horrible tourist trap from which there is little escape. Everything is very expensive for what it is and the place looks like a dump from the train in.

The following morning we got up at 4.30am to get an early bus with hundreds of others to Machu Picchu. Unfortunately it was raining, the cloud was down and you could barely see the place when we got there (they don't call it cloud forest for nothing). Nevertheless we started the long wander and thankfully the clouds lifted a little so we could see the city and the surrounding mountains. Eventually managed to get a few good pictures and much to Heather's disgust we climbed the hill behind Machu Picchu which can be seen in all the classic photos.

To cut a long story short 7 hours later after walking pretty much every trail possible in the area we eventually got the bus back down to the horrible little town and ...