Cusco - Settled In At Altitude

The altitude at our hotel by our GPS device is a little over 10,700 feet. The scary part is that it is located at the bottom of a hill that even Adventure Pam was sizing up but not quite up to right away. Maybe tomorrow.  We arrived in Cuzco at 11:35 after 27 hours of travel from home to Seatac to DFW to Miami to Lima and finally Cusco. I managed 3 hours of sleep on the flight to Lima, Pam says she didn't get that much. We'll do our best to catch up tonight before a tour of the Sacred Valley ruins tomorrow and off to Machu Picchu on Saturday.

We went right to acclimating after a much needed shower we walked over 6 miles around Cuzco. What a great city.....and finally great food too!


Pam with locals & week old alpaca(?) .




Cusco Cathedral (mid-day)



Bad Paully! Bad Bad!

OK so here we are in Lima safe and sound except for the two pair of hiking boots and my sandal which I had strapped to the pack in a clear plastic blanket bag. That part is either in Seattle, Dallas or Miami. Luckily we are wearing our low cut hikers so we will only miss a little ankle support and I will miss my sandals. I wonder if they sell sandals in Peru......

The Adventure Begins - A little early....

There I am full into short timer mode when I check the email and one of the legs of our flight tomorrow has been cancelled due to the tropical storm on its way. My heart stopped for about six minutes while I was holding for the next available operator at Alaska Airlines. It was actually an American Flight that was cancelled (1688 from Dallas to Miami) but the trip is on Alaska Air miles.
It turns out there is no harm done as they were able to put us on an Alaska flight to Dallas earlier and an earlier flight to Miami so other than a little more quality time in Miami's airport and an earlier than expected shuttle ride to the airport we are still golden. Pam's half day at work tomorrow is also a goner. I'm sure she feels terrible about that....

Owey Owey!

We are still in prep mode for our trip to Peru and Ecuador. We have one thing out of the way now - shots. The cost of the vaccines recommended by the CDC for travel to Peru and Ecuador ended up being close to $1300 for the two of us, and we didn't get the rabies vaccine! We did get Yellow Fever, Tetanus, Hepatitis A&B, Typhoid, Polio, and the pills for Malaria which we begin taking before the trip and take through the trip and a couple of weeks after. Our insurance paid for the bulk of the Tetanus and the rest was on us. We will likely spend less on hotels while we are down there just over a month.

I have been packing and repacking my backpack for the trip. It looks like the final weight will be about 35 lbs. I was going to be a good 10 lbs heavier until I researched tripod fees for Machu Picchu and found that they charge for tripods and any lens at or over 200 MM so no tripod - 6 lbs and no 70-200 lens - 5 lbs. The fee for those is $300 as they think you are a professional if you carry these. All of you who've taken a photography class know that the first thing the instructor does is tell you to get a tripod and remote so your pics will be "tack sharp." I guess noone told the Peruvians....

Our dog, Athena, has noticed the packing and is not happy about it. She is a Shar pei Pitbull mix we adopted from the pound last December. She loves to hike and is always ready for an adventure, but she would definitely cause an international incident with a llama or some other critter so she stays at home with Pam's dad for the month. We've had dogs for the last 20 years and Athena seems the easiest to make up with after a long trip away. We hope that continues...

Only 9 days until we leave now! I better rework my pack again. I think I'm suffering from "short timers'" disease.