Cortlin and Sofia playing with our friend Edwin’s cute puppies at our hotel in Urubamba. We stopped here to drop off our daypacks with unnecessary items before our trek. We will be staying here after we visit Machu Picchu on Monday!
A Peruvian shaman came to invoke the good spirits of the mountain gods, or “apus,” to ensure that we would have a safe journey on our trek.
The shaman spoke Quechua and called upon countless apus to protect us. He gave us each three coca leaves so that we could make the intentions of our journeys known to the apus. We then buried the leaves, giving them to Pachamama, or “Mother Earth.”
There was a whole hoard of llamas just below the drop-off where the two llamas are standing. We have seen countless herds of llamas and alpacas so far. How to tell the difference between the two animals? Llamas are bigger, their legs aren’t as furry, and their ears look more like bananas. Alpacas are smaller, have little ears, and have furry legs and faces.Our SStS group before we set out! You can see our path cut into the mountain on the left. The path comprised of many tough uphill sections on the first day, as we increased our elevation over 1200 feet!
More From Peru '16
Trek Day 3 and Hot Springs
Peru '16
So today we got up after a good night’s sleep on a soccer field in a tiny community in the middle of the Andes mountains. We ate in the breakfast tent, got packed up, and headed out on our last day of the trek. The hike today was mostly on a dirt road down to...
Today was our last day at Munaychay. We woke up at 7:15 and had our usual breakfast of scrambled eggs and bread. At 8:00, we headed down to Santa Rosa and began clearing out a space for farming. About an hour into our work it started raining so we went to the house and chilled...
GOOD MORNING VIET-MERICA! Today was a great day. One of the best at Munaychay. I had a great night’s sleep and a weird dream that I was in a video game. We had hard boiled eggs for breakfast with the always delicious bread and jam. After our yummy breakfast, we headed off to the farm...
