Ticket to Peru is finally booked - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

bakwoi · 06-20-2007, 10:24 AM

Finally after 4 hours of yelling at airplane ticket websites over the phone since they charged me 5 times for my ticket, i got my ticket to Peru.

im leaving july 10th and got around 35 days to have some fun. Since i didnt have the forsight all the inca trail hikes to machu picchu are booked. oh well, i still got the train but i do want to do some mountain and amazon trekking. Does anyone have any reccomendations on guides or trails to take???

**maracle** · 06-20-2007, 11:29 AM

I just got back from Peru 2 weeks ago...I went to Machu Picchu through Santa Teresa, which doesn't involve a ton of hiking but has a fun local flavor to it (and its really cheap if you're on a budget). You use a local bus to Santa Maria, then find a collectivo to take to you Santa Teresa (the whole time you're on this really narrow dirt road switchbacking along the mountains with a 500m droppoff about a meter away). From there you hitchhike or arrange a ride to a hydroelectric plant on the Urubamba river, and then walk for a few hours down the train tracks to Aguas Caliente. It takes about 12 hours and costs 20-30 soles as opposed to the train which is about 200 soles. And its a lot more fun!

That route doesn't involve a lot of hiking though. There are 3 or 4 alternative trails to hike to machu picchu, and you can actually do some hikes within the ruins once you're there. Wayan Picchu is a mountain that overlooks Machu Picchu and is a really tough climb but totally worth it. They only let 400 people per day do it though so go in the morning. On the same trail there is a turnoff for a longer hike to the temple of the moon, which I guess is a cave on the other side of that peak but we didn't do that part (its hard to see everything in 1 day!).

Elsewhere in Peru...there's a lot of good hiking in the Colca Canyon near Arequipa. If you go to Lake Titicaca you can cross over into Copacabana Bolivia and take a boat to the Isle Del Sol, where the Incas believed the sun was born. The boat drops you off on one end of the island and there's a nice hike along a ridge for about 3 hours to the other end where you get picked up. You pass some ruins on the way as well, nothing spectacular though.

But the best hiking is supposedly around Huaraz, though I didn't get there personally...

If I ever get my pictures into flickr I'll post them to give you some ideas.

bakwoi · 06-20-2007, 11:48 AM

Thanks for the info
that Santa Teresa route sounds cool. Were able to drop your pak off somewhere before hand or did u need to carry it the whole way??

any other reccomendations on hostels or cities??

**omisan** · 06-20-2007, 12:13 PM

Awesome... ¡Buen viaje!

**freespiritz** · 06-20-2007, 01:30 PM

I don't have any good advice to give you, but I just wanted to wish you good luck and I hope you have an awesome adventure!

**maracle** · 06-20-2007, 01:57 PM

This all starts in Cusco, so what we did was just have our hostel store our backpacks and we took enough stuff for 2-3 days in a day pack...basically just a change of clothes, water, camera, toothbrush, etc. You probably could take your whole pack if you wanted to, the only actual hiking is on the train tracks and thats fairly flat for only 2 hours. Then in Aguas Caliente you'll need to get a hostel for the night and they'll probably hold your stuff during the day while you go up to machu picchu.

One thing I forgot to mention is it'll be nearly dark when you get to Santa Teresa, so you can either spend the night there or hike the tracks at night using flashlights. We went at night because the first busses up to the ruins are at 5:30 am and you want to avoid the mid day crowds of tourists that take the trains up. I got lucky, there was a full moon and we didn't even need flashlights to see the tracks after dark

The Loki hostels in Lima and Cusco are pretty cool if you like westerner backpacker type places. Really good hot water and lots of fun. They're about $8 a night for a dorm and they usually fill up so its best to call ahead...

**mooloo** · 06-20-2007, 02:10 PM

ohhh can you say jealous?

Have an awesome time and don't forgot to take heaps of pics to show us TPunks when ya get back! :D

**maracle** · 06-20-2007, 02:14 PM

here's a good description of this whole thing from a blogger by the way. It has details I probably forgot, like you should get an early bus (preferable 8AM) to santa maria to make sure you can get to Santa Teresa without a big delay:
http://travelvice.com/archive/2006/1...shoestring.php

**joe7f** · 06-20-2007, 07:00 PM

Wow good info Maracle! Machu Picchu is one of those places I have to see before I die.

WWM: Comment?

--Joey