Trekkers return!

The main focus of the second half of our tour in Peru was our trek to Lares through the Sacred Valley.

The Trek was as hard as we expected but met our expectation in every way. The adventure was was 44km over 3 days. The most challenging part was on day 2 when we had two mountain passess to cover at an altitude of over 4800 mtrs! As it turned out we crossed the first pass through a snow shower!

We can't complain though because helping us through the whole trek were two horseman to carry our gear (Illias and Ubung) as well as our chef Phillippe, his helper Hector and our local guide Julian. We felt really spoilt because this crew weren't servicing a group of 12 people—oh no—they were there solely for senoritos Matthew and Meredith! We were the only people on this particular trek because all the other gringos were doing the more famous Inca Trail.

You wouldn't believe the set up on these trips. The meals were as good as you would be served in any restaurant and we felt as though we never stopped eating. On the first day for example, lunch consisted of an avocado entree with thousand island dressing, quinoa soup, pasta with two different kinds of sauce and fruit salad! On our last morning, we were even served a decorated, freshly baked cake!!! We still have no idea how they pulled that one off!

Along the way we saw all sorts of great animals and landscapes including beautiful lakes and waterfalls, small hamlets with houses made from stone and mountain grass, llamas and alpacas, all sorts of birdlife and even some chinchillas! We also made friends with local kids along the way and even had a successful game of hopscotch with some keen beans.

Meeting all the kids was a real highlight of the trip for us both. On one day we met a little boy who was walking to school. When we met him he had already been walking for an hour and he still had some way to travel. So he was happy we think to walk along holding Meredith's hand for a while before he went on his merry way. We discovered afterwards that he was only 6 years old!

We crossed several sections of raods with sheer cliffs, but the only hairy event occurred after we had crossed the second mountain pass and thought the worst of it was behind us. We still had to desend another 1000m to reach our camp, and Meredith had more trouble going down than going up. On one of the last sections before nightfall Meredith had a slip and started rolling down the hill towards a sharp drop. Luckily our brilliant guide heard her slip, spun around and dived down the hill after her, securing her after a couple of rotations. Fortunately the only injury she sustained was to her dignity and we all had a good belly laugh after the event.

After conquering the hairy bits, our third and final day culminated in a visit to some hot springs which proved to be a great remedy for aching muscles and weary knees. Meanwhile all our helpers were loading the gear onto the horses and getting ready to turnaround and walk another 40kms back to where they live— in their sandals!

It was certainly a great experience for us to complete the trek and we're proud to say we didn't need the services of the "emergency horse". We're pretty sure the the emergency horse was equally relieved having sized us up against your average Peruvian!!