We made a one-day stopover in Huanchaco, Peru to break up the bus trip from Cuenca, Ecuador to Lima, Peru. Here we found a lovely hostel that starts their day with an 8am yoga session on the top floor of the building overlooking the ocean. We rented surfboards and wet suits for the day. The waves were pretty inconsistent and a little lame so it was a tough practice day. We’re slowly learning that conditions (wind, waves, break, etc.) vary wildly and finding the right spot is half the battle! However, the sunset was something special to behold.
We enjoyed some nice meals while in Huanchacho including a sushi restaurant that had ceviche style rolls! Yum. Coons was all about the street food, although his fruit and granola bowl was probably the most delicious breakfast he’s had thus far on the trip!
After Huanchaco, we had three days in Lima, Peru before our flight to Patagonia. There are so many different districts to see, but we mostly stuck to Miraflores and Barranaco. Our hostel in the Miraflores district was walking distance to the Kennedy park which is full of twisting trees and beautiful red, yellow, and orange flowers. It is also said to be home to hundreds of cats!
Kourtney was particularly excited to go to Parque del Amor, an alcove overlooking the ocean with colorfully tiled walls covered with romantic sayings. In the center of the park is a statue of two lovers embracing in a passionate kiss. There is a bridge nearby where lovers place locks and throw away the key. It was a beautiful sentiment celebrating love!
After we had been walking a couple of hours, we decided to stop at a cafe near the water for some refreshments. Coons ordered a smoothie and Kourtney ordered a coffee frappe. From our view was the ocean below where we could see children swimming and surfers enjoying the waves. Maybe we would have had better luck with the surf in Lima? Continuing on our tour of the city, we headed to Plaza de Armas where we saw the famous yellow government buildings, the cathedral, and guards standing outside the governor’s palace. The architecture never gets old!
We spent the evening at the Parque De La Reserva where we enjoyed an impressive Fantasia light show from the park’s large water fountain. It is so fun what you can do with water and light! Walking around the park were several other fountains that kids were splashing around in. Lima’s temperature is quite warm, so this must be the place to be most days of the year!
Since we were in the capital of Peru, we obviously had to have more ceviche! So we went to Barro Maretazo to enjoy another decadent dish of fish, onion, cilantro, chili pepper, and lemon/lime juice. After, we walked around the rest of Miraflores, watching an intense outdoor chess match, and sampling some local brewpubs.
On our last morning in Lima we headed to the Barranco neighborhood, one of our favorite districts due to its bohemian feel. It is a small area overlooking the water with tons of restaurants, bars, and street art.
In the city center is a nice sized park with trees, flowers, fountains, and a library. The walls are covered with street art, so there is no shortage of stuff to see. Disappointed in the Miraflores bar scene, we were really excited for a hipper district. We walked to Barranco Brewing Company looking for some shelter from the hot sun. Google says that the place opens at noon, but when we opened the door, a woman told us to come back in one hour, which didn’t give us much time before we needed to head toward the airport. This was the case for many other bars with the exception of Barbarian Brewing who actually opens when they say they do on Google. We hit the jackpot and ended up staying until the last possible minute we had to spare! We enjoyed blueberry beers, a mango infused IPA, a pizza pale ale, and a coffee pale ale. What an awesome find!
After Patagonia and our time spent in the middle of the continent, we headed back to Peru to explore the south of the country and the fantastic hiking it has to offer. First on our list was Colca Canyon. We traveled to Arequipa after the salt flat tour in Uyuni, Bolivia which meant a bus, then another bus, then a taxi, a border crossing, then a tuk-tuk, and then one more bus. So we were really looking forward to stretching our legs. Before we set out, we stocked up on food (we finally found peanut butter after two long months) and enjoyed the first episode of Game of Thrones — thanks to a VPN and Mama Coons for sharing her HBO info!
On day one of our Colca Canyon trip, we walked down to the Colca River on an overcast but warm day.
The trail was rocky and dusty, but the hike went by fast discussing GoT and our recent reading material. We made it over the bridge and to the first village; we did some shopping around at the two hostels in the town and decided on the second, Casa de Rebelino, because of the awesome view!
We had a delicious dinner of alpaca, rice, and avocado (which grow on the property) with lots and lots of fresh herbs for our tea. We highly recommend this place because of the friendly owner and all of the fun animals running around! The next day we headed towards Sangalle, nicknamed the Oasis, which is the most popular destination on this trek and gets its name from the lush green setting and pools at every hostel.
It was a quick hike, but we were surprisingly sweaty despite the cloud cover, so we immediately changed into our suits and enjoyed a beer in the pool. We spent a lot of time reading and trying to update our Instagram blog with our Salt Flat adventures when we could get enough WiFi.
The third day was the big day — we needed to get back to our hostel in Cabanaconde, repack, and make it to the town square before our bus departed at 11am. We left at 7am and headed straight up, 3,000 feet over 2 miles, to reach the top of the canyon. Of course, the sun showed up and the clouds left, leaving us to bake on the way up, but we made it back to town in good time — just in time to wait around until noon for the bus to leave (🙄). Two back-to-back buses and a comida typico meal of soup, chicken and rice later, we arrived in Cusco, Peru.
Cusco is an old city rich with history and very popular with tourists. It used to be the capital of the Incan empire, but now it’s nice to look at and easy to get around with lots of bars and restaurants to satisfy the hordes of gringos. Since it was our anniversary we decided to go to dinner at a Mexican restaurant as is our tradition on all special occasions; the food was muy bueno!
We also got a chance to meet up with Cally and Luke again for drinks and dinner; again there are no pictures as there was so much talking! Miss you two!
The next day we started our first of five days on the Ausangate trek, our longest unsupported and most remote hike of our trip. The Ausangate mountain is the second highest mountain in southern Peru at 21,000 feet and completely covered in ice and snow. The trek is a circuit around the mountain and all takes place above 14,000 feet. On the first day, we started with a relatively easy walk to Upis where we linked up with two Norwegian guys also looking to do the loop. We arrived around 4pm and set up camp. Immediately a gentleman came to welcome us and collect money. We pulled out our cooking equipment and started preparing our nightly meal of pasta with tuna, onions, and peppers in a mushroom sauce — fancy, right?!
It smelled so delicious that a couple of perros got into a fight over who might get our scraps. It tasted so good we ate the whole thing — sorry perros! When it turned dark, we retreated to our tent for a podcast and a long night’s sleep. Two more gentlemen would approach us looking for money before we left that camp the next day (snooze you lose, amigos). When we woke the next morning our tent was completely frosted over!
We set everything out in the sun to dry, but we definitely got a later start than Coons would have wanted — Kourtney, however, was ecstatic for the chance to enjoy a mug of coffee.
The next day was the toughest as we had to cross over two high mountain passes. Along with the high altitude, it also started to rain, sleet, and then eventually hail during our hike.
However, the day did yield some beautiful views of waterfalls and bright blue lakes.
Arriving at our second campsite, we had views of rainbow-ish-looking mountains and a big glacier on the opposite side which we listened to calve all night.
It was tough to determine which of us had a better view from the tent window.
The third day was probably our favorite, despite starting straight up for an hour and a half over the tallest pass of the trip. It was tough but totally worth it at the top, standing a little over 17,000 feet. The coolest thing about the view was that the mountain ranges were completely different in every direction; there were mountains covered in ice and snow, dry desert mountains, and mountains with shrubbery and rocks.
The rest of the day was fairly easy and brought great views, llamas and alpacas galore, and later in the day, mucho, mucho rain. It rained so much that we had planned on continuing on to the next campsite but had to turn around; we cooked in the tent, and Kourtney didn’t leave the tent for almost 15 hours. Please hold your applause until the end.
The fourth day was tough with the cold, wind, rain, and snow. It was a slow, steady walk up the final pass of the trip. The top was filled with cairns and neon green grass unlike any we have ever seen. Unfortunately, due to the weather, the views were not spectacular, but hey, when you go where the clouds go, you can’t always get the best views. After the pass we descended through the clouds and were treated to views of lakes and one last look back at Ausangate.
There was more sneaky uphill before finally, we started down until we reached the first bit of civilization we’d seen in days. This small town had hostels with beds and hot springs…. like really hot. So we decided to splurge on all of the above. It felt luxurious to bath in the warm water and sleep in a bed (and not wake up with a frozen tent).
On the last day, we got up and walked on the only road back to Tinke. On the way, we walked with two little girls on their way to school for a little bit and chatted with them before they were picked up by a friendly parent. We arrived in the city square and our bus back to Cusco arrived probably five minutes later. Yahtzee! We had one more full day to relax and prepare for our next five-day trek to the Salkantay and finally Machu Picchu. The night before we set out, we decided to try cuy, or guinea pig, a local delicacy. We went to the best restaurant, KusiKuy. You have to order ahead of time because it takes an hour to cook, and Coons’ barber said we ought to have it fried. The owner brought it out head and all so we could snap pictures, and kindly took it back to the kitchen to cut up into four chicken-wing-style pieces.
It was pretty delicious — tasted like salty chicken — but that’s what they all say, right?!
Feeling well fed and slightly rested, it was time for our final adventure in Peru, the Salkantay trek ending in Machu Picchu. Fresh off carrying our gear and cooking all of our own meals for five days, we decided to splurge a bit on this trek. We got what we paid for, our Salkantay trek was swanky! Staying in accommodations best described as glamping, we carried small day packs and horses/vans carried the rest of our belongings. Our guides’ name was Hermo and he led us to comfortable sky domes and jungle huts each night and would wake us up with coca tea every morning!
The first day was relatively easy, and we made it up to gorgeous lake Humantay surrounded by a glacial mountain.
That night we had a feast with our group including the chef’s version of bananas foster with pisco! The next day was a little more strenuous — almost 15 miles up the “gringo killer” trail over the Salkantay pass and down to the next campsite. We got peeps of the mountain when the clouds would move, but the weather was a little hazy until we got down to lower elevation.
Coons wasn’t feeling well on the tail end of day two and had a fever overnight, so on day three he took the bus with the cooks and Kourtney did the hike with the rest of the group which led to a coffee farm near the end of the day. The coffee was insanely sour but she still enjoyed the experience.
Coons probably shouldn’t have hiked the next day, but determined to tough it out, he walked the 14 plus miles to Aguas Calientes. We had dinner and drinks at Machu Pisco to celebrate the tough day (well one of us did) and get ready for the final day, Machu Picchu.
We arrived at Machu Picchu at 6am the next morning when it was still relatively quiet and listened to a short history of its discovery from our tour guide.
After an hour or so walking around with Hermo, it was our time to hike Mount Machu Picchu which is over 2,000 Inca stone steps up to the top! Let us tell you — the Incas are the original stair masters!
We got our pictures and hurried back down to walk through the rest of the archeological site. Seventy percent of the site is still original and you can tell where it has been restored because the restoration looks worse than the original (😂). No one can do it like Incas can! Saving the best for last, Machu Picchu was one of the things we were most excited for in our Peruvian travels, and it was an incredible experience being in this sacred place hundreds of years after the Incas.
At this point, probably all 3,267 people admitted during the morning where there and it became quite crowded; we were running out of time to follow the slow, single track out, but we made it out in time to get back to our hostel, grab a quick bite to eat, and catch the train at 1pm. The day went by very quickly — Kourtney wanted more time — and Coons wanted a bed and a bathroom.
Because Coons was feeling so ill, we decided after 10 days of hiking, we really ought to take it easy, so we extended our stay in Cusco another five days. Coons got some much-needed rest and Kourtney continued to enjoy the food scene. It also gave us a chance to meet up with two friends from the salt flat tour, Yeoibom and Dean.
They were cooking Korean BBQ for a brewery they were volunteering at, and they invited us to join them before our … you guessed it … night bus out of Peru. The food, craft brews, and company were delightful, and we always enjoy catching up with new friends made along the way! Thanks you two!
