<!-- @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> The Inca Trail and Machu Picchu FAQs I'm writing this in retrospect to approximately two months (10th February 2009, in Las Lajas Panama) after completing the Inca trail, I've left blogging about this experience so long as I wanted time to really examine my thoughts on the trek rather than coming straight out with a response that has a lot of negativity. I think Machu...

Leaving Cusco after a couple of days acclimatisation in the ancient Inca capital (~3,400m) we travelled toward Ollantaytambo to spend the night there as a jump off to the Inca Trail. In the morning we entered the Altiplano the massive high altitude plane that runs in the Andes from Peru, through Bolivia into Chile and Argentina, we stopped in a traditional Quechua village (the Quechua are the people that the modern world refers to as Inca's, Inca was actually th...

Managed to make it to Arequipa keeping it all together. The bus had a toilet so I did feel I always had a plan B, it was a good thing that I didn't hear our guide, Chilly-Windy, tell everyone that it was only for 'number ones' when I boarded. Felt a lot worse upon arrival to Arequipa so made a plan to see a doctor. The doctor took one look at me and performed some tests which later showed that I had a pretty bad bacterial infection of the digestive tract. Lots o...

Travelled south from Lima along the coast to Pisco for a night, then into Nazca to see the famous Nazca lines. The thing that has amazed me most about Peru so far is the landscape....all coastal Peru seems to be desert. It isn't a desert with occasional salt bush like home or grasses and the occasional tree link around the Northern Cape of South Africa, it is a desert with rock, stone and nothing more. I expected jungles and mountains and it been like the Nallab...

Lima like most major cities in Latin America is full of colonial charm mixed with modern chaos. At one stage Lima was Lima was a relative back water until the Spanish took over the region that is Peru. The Spaniards decided not to use Cusco the traditional capital as their head quarters as it is located inland in the Andes and didn't offer a quick route of escape if the natives revolted. Hence Lima developed and thrived as the Spanish colonial capital of south A...