Sacred Valley & Lares Adventure Officially Begins

The neat thing about this trip we did is that each and every day you get to choose a cultural activity or a hiking activity on top of the group activity that was offered. Prior to our departure, we thought we knew what we wanted to do each and every day, but it turns out that we decided to switch things up along the way based on how we felt. I would recommend this type of trip to anyone and everyone out there, especially if you are traveling with a group of active and not-so-active people because everyone can do what they so choose throughout the entire trip.
 
The food at every lodge was AMAZING and that was my favorite part of the entire trip!

Below are the details of what options were available to us each day and a little description about what we chose.

Day 1: Cusco/Chinchero/Lamay

Today, Lars and I decided to do the group activity and the cultural events. Since it was our first day of the trip and we needed a formal introduction to the various archaeological sites, it did not disappoint! Chinchero was interesting as was Moray. But overall, the Maras Salt Mines was our absolute favorite! There were so many wonderful opportunities for pictures and it was great to see how the villages all come together for one similar purpose. 
 
After visiting the salt mines, part of our group walked down the road that officially was in the Sacred Valley. We met the van and the rest of the group here and headed to the Lamay Lodge, our accommodation for the next two nights. We were in shock as this luxury lodge was beautiful and so unique. The staff at the lodge were there to greet us with a warm washcloth and welcome drink. This lodge provided appetizers at 4:30pm, dinner around 7pm and a warm hot tub to soak in under the Peruvian skies. Worry not, we took full advantage of that part. The level of service was incredible at this lodge, turn down service with hot water bottles each and every night in the beds - I didn't even know that was a thing. 

 

This morning, we woke up and started our day around 8am and headed up the mountain to begin our hike from the village of Amaru down to Viacha while the other travelers in our group visited the Pisaq market. We had a local man join us with his donkey who carried water and emergency supplies, just in case we needed anything. The hike we did took us from 13,150 feet up to 14,200 feet and the group we were with all did great with the high elevation. The vista we hiked up to provided beautiful views of the mountains, lakes and villages in the valley. 
 
I was not prepared for what our arrival to Viacha was really going to be and was pleasantly surprised when I was several tables covered in local textiles and filled with a home-cooked meal offering quiches, salads, quesadillas, yucca chips, desserts and of course a cooler full of beer. Before we sat down to enjoy lunch, the man who brought along the donkey, his wife, her mother and their children all demonstrated their farming techniques (even though it wasn't quite time to plant the potatoes). They use tools that are very basic, but get the job done and Lars even had a chance to give those basic and primitive tools a shot. We learned so much about the cultural events around these farming practices, such as when it's time to farm the whole community gets together to help one another out, of course. But, the best part to me is that all of the single men get all dressed up in bright colors and head to the fields to impress and attract the single ladies. The single women search the fields for the best-looking man and for a man that can work hard, as she wants to find someone who can provide for the family in all of the right ways. 
 
After this demonstration and our lunch, a few of us continued down the mountain side to the archaeological site of Pisaq. This was one of our favorite sites during the entire trip purely because it was empty of tourists. We met up with the rest of our group at Pisaq and then ventured back to the Lamay Lodge for the evening. Here, the chefs and kitchen staff were prepping a Peruvian BBQ where they cooked all of the food in the ground using coals, foil, dirt and wet hides. They fixed us up a feast of potatoes, corn, various veggies, cheeses wrapped in banana leaves, chicken, lamb, beef and guinea pig - it was delicious!
 
One more soak in the hot tub under the stars with a Cusquena beer (local beer brewed in Cusco) pleasantly ended our evening.

 

Today we decided to opt for the cultural event instead of the hiking activities. Our entire group headed up a winding mountain road in the comfortable van to the archaeological site of Ancasmarca for a guided tour of the ruins. It's amazing to me how the Incans and pre-Incans built their food storage sites, homes and religious buildings on such steep hillsides. How did they do it?!? 
 
After the tour of this site, we continued up the winding road to another small village called Choquecancha, where we exited the van and wandered up the narrow pathways through the village. Most of us felt pretty carsick, so the walk was greatly appreciated. 
 
One of the things I truly came to appreciate about the tour operator we were with, Mountain Lodges of Peru, is that they try and find small, intimate, not-crowded places for their travelers to visit along the trip. This was a great example of one of those places. We entered through a doorway and was greeted with a smiling face from Maria, and a flower ceremony, where Maria kissed each of us on our cheeks and dropped flower pedals on our heads.  It was so memorable. From here, Maria, her daughter and her granddaughter showed our group how they get the wool from the sheep and alpaca and turn it into a yarn. Then they used local plants to dye the yarn - we saw her make a red and a blue yarn. They took us into their workshop, where Maria teaches the local women (yes, only women, no men) how to make scarves, purses, blankets, etc. to sell. It was all beautiful and I had no idea how much time was spent in making such items. 
 
After this demonstration we enjoyed another homecooked meal before heading off to our next lodge for the next two nights - Huacahuasi Lodge. The last lodge was stunning, but maybe this one was more stunning - is that even possible?  Huacahuasi Lodge is located in a small mountain village and is partially run by the local villagers who have a true investment in the success of the lodge. Each and every room had a private hot tub and the stars were the brightest we had experienced throughout our trip. And how could they not be - we were in the middle of nowhere!

 

It was a nice change of pace today, as we didn’t have to travel from one village to the next and instead it was a day to do something close to the lodge. We opted for the more challenging hiking activity today and went to explore some land about 30 minutes away from the lodge. It was a beautiful hike and we saw several locals checking in on their llamas, alpacas and sheep throughout the mountains. Our guide brought fruits to pass out to the locals instead of giving them candy. He also brought cocoa leaves to give to the adults, as a thank you for letting us wander throughout their land. 

We ended up finishing our hike early (since we are just so darn fast) and made it back to the lodge just in time for the cooking class, which was great because we were cooking up my favorite dish called Cuasa. This dish is basically a layered cake of mashed potatoes, avocado, chicken or tuna salad, with more layers of mashed potatoes, and then anything else you might want to add – shredded hard-boiled eggs, crispy chips, etc. Lars and I had such a fun time cooking with the group and dancing to some Peruvian tunes! 

After we finished our Causa, which was only our appetizer for lunch, we sat down together to enjoy our creations and then our lunch of lomo saltado…another favorite of mine. Lomo saltado is a salted tenderloin, which is pretty basic and includes beef tenderloin, onions, tomatoes, potatoes and soy sauce. Super easy and basic, and so very delicious! The rest of the afternoon was ours to do as we pleased – I took a nap and soaked in our private hot tub, while Lars went off to explore the surrounding mountains independently.

 

While we thought we would prefer to hike again today, we instead decided to take part in a ceremony for the good health of the community’s herd of animals and crops for the next season. We left the lodge in the morning and headed to the small village of Huilloq. It was interesting to share in a ceremony with a family, and very generous for them to let tourists come and see how they celebrate such traditions. This is something that outsiders wouldn’t normally be able to witness, but it was made possible thanks to Mountain Lodges of Peru. Even though it was not the actual ceremony and was instead something that was put on specifically for us, it was still something interested for us to witness. I opted out of taking any pictures, as it seemed odd to me to hold up my cell phone during this practice, so my apologies for the lack of photos. 

After the ceremony ended, we enjoyed some locally brewed chicha beer (fermented corn beer) that a lady was selling on the side of the street in the village of Huilloq. From here, the group drove to the archaeological site of Pumamarka to enjoy a quick guided tour. Then, we all decided to do the afternoon hiking activity, which was hiking from Pumamarka down to Ollantaytambo. This was the first day we experienced rain and it wasn’t welcome in hopes that some of the local farming fires would be put out and clear away some of the smoke we experienced in the valley. 

Once we made it down to town, the van met us and took us to a local brewery to enjoy some tasty beers before heading to our next lodge for the night. 
Arriving at Kuychi Rumi Lodge was somewhat unexpected – we were placed into a casita for the evening…yeah, an entire house to ourselves for 12 hours. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms seemed unnecessary for just the two of us, but it was great.  Our group did a house tour so we could view everyone’s casita and they were all so neat and unique. 

 

After breakfast, part of our group left and drove to the town of Ollantaytambo so we could do a quick hike up to the lower Pinkuylluna Mountain, which is an old food storage site for the Incans. The hike was pretty steep and not recommended for anyone who has knee problems (or something else that would limit your abilities to hike steep terrain). 

30 minutes or so later, once we were done with the hike, we met up with the rest of the group and walked over to the Ollantaytambo archaeological site to start our guided tour. By this point, we had seen a lot of sites and they all started to blend together, but this one was particularly of interest because the size of the rocks. They also moved them from the other side of the valley – that means down one hillside, across a river, then back up another hillside. I just can’t even begin to fathom how they did it.

Up next was probably one of the most memorable and fun experiences of the trip thus far. We boarded the train on the Inca Rail to Aguas Calientes. It’s about a 90-minute train ride and we were magically upgraded from the Voyager train car to the First-Class train car. With this upgrade came complimentary drinks and a gourmet lunch – we enjoyed this upgrade to the fullest. The First-Class carriage offered live music, a fully stocked bar and a balcony to get some fresh air and admire the valley. 

We arrived to Aguas Calientes in the early afternoon and the rest of the day was ours to explore independently. This town was great – no cars allowed, tons of shops selling all the tourist things one might need, hot springs (which we didn’t check out) and lots of options for dining/drinking. Perhaps one of the worst parts about this whole part of the itinerary was the bugs. I was eaten alive in town during the one hour I wore a dress and exposed bare skin. I would NOT recommend doing this – please learn from my rookie mistake.

 

This morning was the culmination of our entire trip – Machu Picchu. I was not mentally prepared for all of the people we were going to encounter. We started off the day waiting in line to catch the bus for the 8AM entry to Machu Picchu, which was about 45 minutes. Then you hop on a bus to drive the 30 minutes up to the entrance. Then, you wait in line to go to the bathroom, as there aren’t any inside the site. Then, you wait in line to get into the ruins. Then you are in a single file line walking from the entrance up to the main part of Machu Picchu. I was not into it, but thankfully, our guide took us to an area with fewer people. Everyone ends of spreading out once in the site, but it was not a great start for me. The views were smoky, but I didn’t think the air smell like smoke, which was appreciated. We sadly didn’t get any permits to hike Huayna Picchu or Machu Picchu Mountain, but that was okay by us, as we didn’t want to miss out on the guided tour of the site. The tour last about 2.5 hours, which was plenty of time from start to finish, even though we had 4 hours to stay in the site.
 

 

 

 

After our group was finished, we got back in line for the bus back down to Aguas Calientes, then had lunch. Around 2pm, we went back to the train station for our train ride back to Ollantaytambo, which last another 90 minutes. This time, we were in the Voyager train car – no First-Class status, but it was still very comfortable. 

Upon arriving in Ollantaytambo, we met our driver and then took the 90-minute ride back to Cusco. A long day of travel, but it was about to be the first of many for us – it took about three days to get back to Missoula. We enjoyed our last night Cusco over a wonderful meal and a few more pisco sours.