Aargh, no... We were so careful before we started the trek, because we know that Boliva and Peru are dirty countries, but we finally got food poisoning on the trail (we believe it was from water that wasn't properly boiled). Both of us more or less at the same time. It was quite bad, so for me it did not make sense to keep walking further, so I had to stop the trek and return to Lares. Petra noticed it a little bit later, so she had already started the day tour a...

We met our tour guide Marco, who is a really nice and well-educated person. He talks in a very clean spanish, which is great because we can practice the language with him. The party is completed by one driver, one cook and two horsemen - while the two of us are actually the only guests on this trek. So they outnumber us 5:2. Feels strange, but in a very exclusive way. Before we start hiking we visit a Condor project. I didn't quite understand the point here, bec...

From Cusco we make a day tour to the sacred valley, which includes three places with Inca history. I recommend to do the tour, especially because the inca site in Ollantaytambo is really impressive. Ollantaytambo is also part of the Lares and the Inca trails, but on the Lares trail you won't have much time there, so it's worth going extra. After Ollantaytambo we went to a tiny place in the mountains where we met women weaving Alapaca wool and producing clothes. ...

Cusco was the origin of the Inca Empire, and it is where our Lares Trek starts that will finally end in Machu Picchu. The city is full of tourists which have the same goal, and you can see that Cusco has quite a bit more money and is much nicer and cleaner than the other Peruvian cities. We buy lot's of Alpaca clothes and run into serious compression problems (see foto). How will this ever fit???

We stayed two nights in Puno before moving on to Cusco, where our Trek will start. After having passed the "border" between Bolivia and Peru (that hardly deserves such a name - I guess we could have simply walked passed immigration unnoticed), we reach the city southwest of Lake Titicaca. Puno is a typical Peruvian city - mostly dirty and run-down - but has one single nice street in which all the money went. There, you can find nice restaurants and bars. We mak...