16 days in Peru
 

well chitlens, it's become that time... time to chisel out the Peru itinerary and make some reservations, since my trip is in less that 2 months!

I'm so behind. I doubt I am even going to get to do the Inca Trail hike because it's so late, not that I have any money after Europe to book it anyway, but I'm going to try.

anyhoo, I'll be there the 2nd to the 17th (but I get back on the 18th)...

lesson learned in Europe... too many cities is exhausting! I was ready to torch my backpack if i had to pack up and move one more time.

So for a 16 day trip, I am limiting myself to 3 or 4 cities. I'm going to do Lima for 3, Cuzco 4 days (this is dependent on the Inca Trail hike, if I can score a slot somewhere then this will be more like 5-6 days), then I wanted to head down to the Lake Titicaca area...Puno/whatev for 3-4 days, then Arequipa til it's time to head back to Lima...

So I guess if I get into Lima on the night of 2 Sept (shitty flight time, but it was cheap as hell) then...
-Lima: 2-4
-Cuzco: 5-9
-Puno/Lake Titicaca: 10-13
-Arequipa: 14-17 (then back to Lima on the 17th)

is this reasonable?

if I do the hike on the Inca Trail then I will do Cuzco for like 6 days (to include the hike) then shit can Arequipa all together.

ahhhhhhhh all the permits are sold out for September for the Inca Trail but I am thinking about doing the alternate Lares trek to Macchu Picchu which is also 4 days... there are dates open there..........

Yeah, Mike & I were worried you wouldn't get a slot now. As you stated though, there are alternatives. It'd be a shame if you went to Cusco & didn't make it to Machu Picchu. Even if you can't do the Inca Trail. You don't want Mike & I to say we got there & you didn't :p. We'll just miss each other too. You're flying out of Lima the same day we come in. We may even pass each other in the airport since you'll probably be taking the same plane back that we fly in on.

From what I've heard, Lima can be easily skipped. Instead of Lima, we're going to spend a couple days in the Nazca area. That way we can fly over the Nazca lines.

Your timeline sounds pretty reasonable to me. However, I'm not the seasoned traveler that others on here are. Are you flying between cities or busing it? Those are some LONG trips between cities by bus.

generally I book so early with everything but I dropped the ball big time on this one! I was so preoccupied with this scholarship thing and now work that I nearly forgot I was going to Peru if that's possible.

Macchu Picchu is a definite, regardless of how I get there. I don't wanna do the crowded tour that comes in on a bus at 10:30am though. The Lares trek is the same timeframe and gets me there at like 5am to experience it, so that looks like the one I'm prolly gonna do. I want to research it a little more, it says it's the 2nd hardest trek, but I wanna know what the first hardest is first... the Inca Trail? If so then I'll prolly do it, but I'm not trying to have a heart attack and die in Peru lol.

hahahahah I'd be pissed if ya'll made it and I didn't to Macchu Picchu, but probably not as pissed as you and Mike (especially Mike) would be if I made and and YA'LL didn't... hehe.

I heard the same thing about Lima. I was going to fly Lima -> Cuzco, then train or bus it to Puno, then bus to Arequipa, then I don't know how I'm getting back to Lima.

god, this is so disorganized. my Europe trip was sooooo chisled out 5 months before I left. maybe if Celine were going to Peru too I'd be a little more on the ball....:p

ps Jenny/Mike: who are you guys going with for the Inca Trail hike? I have sorted through all sorts of places and I think I'm settling on either Llama Path or Q'ente for the Lares Valley one...

Your route is just about exactly what I did. Lima-Cuzco is a long ass bus ride so I would really recommend flying, it was about $60 one way with all the fees when I did it. You have to book it either once you arrive or through an airlines .pe website to get the good rates though.

You're right that you want to make sure to get up to the top of machu picchu early...so definitely pick a tour that has you spend the night in Aguas Calientes. If you get the first bus up in the morning you'll have several hours with hardly anyone around (tons of people will be going up at that same time, but the site is really big so just wander down to the far side and work your way back, or go climb Wayna Picchu since there's a daily limit for that).

On the bus for my Machu Picchu via Santa Teresa route there were a bunch of people on a Machu Picchu tour that combined mountain biking with hiking. They jumped off the bus with a bunch of bikes in the mountains and I guess after a day of that came a few days hike. So there are a lot of cool ways to get there.

4 days at Lake Titicaca seems like kind of a lot to me but it depends what you want to do. Puno + the Uros Islands is about a day. If you go to Copacabana on the Bolivia side of the lake the Isla Del Sol is pretty cool, that takes about a half day and there are a few little hikes near Copacabana you could do as well. Beyond that it's all travel time, Puno is pretty far from everything else and even going between Puno and Copacabana takes hours on the road.

The nice thing I found in Peru is that transportation is a breeze, you don't really need to plan ahead much.

great cos that's always my #1 worry... how am I gonna get there.

and I speak Spanish at a pretty confidant level so I won't have the issue I had in Poland.

I originally wanted to see Iquitos but it's a huge hassle to get there.

4 days in the Lake area is too much?

Is border crossing over to Bolivia difficult?

WOW. That's helllaaa cool!
http://www.world-mysteries.com/mpl_9a.jpg
You must check out Sacsayhuaman and Lake Titicaca has some ancient spiritual significance.

No, the only issue is that the border closes at some point so if you haven't timed it right you'll have to spend the night in a town near the border. There seemed to be plenty of busses crossing the border which I would assume were coming via Puno. I personally just got on a collectivo to the border town and then the next morning there were plenty of taxis to the border and bolivian collectivos ready to take people from the border to copacabana.