In and Around Cusco

Cusco is a real hub for travelers and the gateway to Machu Picchu and lots of Ancient Inka ruins. It's also one of the most picturesque cities we've been to in South America so far. 

Cusco has seen us pick up a new travel companion along for the ride. Yen is joining us for a few weeks to indulge in such delights as Machu Picchu, the Ancient Inka Empire and travelling in a car that sometimes works with two smelly backpackers!!

Being the nerd builder that I am, I was particularly impressed by some of the Inka walls around town, huge blocks of stone cut to the millimetre with rudimentary tools (around 500 yrs ago) to interlock with one another with no mortar, amazing! Would struggle to find a tradesman even with today's technology who could build walls like these.

I'm not gonna lie, it was extremely nice to have some comforting food and good coffee!! Pisac markets were pretty good, much haggling done! Even ate Guinea Pig, no photos as it didn't come out whole (probably not such a bad thing), was actually surprisingly tasty, bit like duck. 

Kinda blew the budget a bit here though so while it was a nice splurge, we were also happy to get back on the road.

Touching The Void

The Cordillera Huayhuash in Northern Peru is probably best known for being the region in which one of the most famous tales of human survival in the mountains ever took place (as depicted in the book and documentary 'Touching the Void' by Joe Simpson).

For the past eleven days we've been hiking the Huayhuash Circuit, known as being one of the best three high altitude treks in the world (the others being the Annapurna Circuit and Everest Base Camp, that's two out of three for Mai now!!).

The Huayhuash region is completely off the grid, there's no electricity or running water and campsite facilities are extremely basic. Luckily we did the trek with a great agency who had a really knowledgeable guide, great cook and expert arrerio (also the other clients doing the trek were super nice).

The altitude can make trekking difficult, you're above 4000m for the full eleven days and crossing a high pass everyday equal to or greater than the highest mountains in Western Europe.

The mountains here are definitely the most amazing I've ever seen, some of the highest in the world outside the Himalayas and definitely some of the hardest in the world to climb. At this time of year it's busy season and we didn't bump into a single person attempting any peaks in the Huayhuash, if you've read Touching the Void you'll know why!