Machu Picchu Planning

Machu Picchu is a different planning and preparation experience than other trips I have taken. First of all I am not going to be leaving the basic vicinity of the city of Cusco aside from the actual hiking tour I am taking through the Inca Trail into Machu Picchu and then the return ride to Cusco, so I will not really need to do a lot of research on what is in the area. This means the days I am not on the tour will have a basic wing it approach but also will have a lesser degree of activity than I normally work with because Cusco is at approximately 11000 feet and I will need to adjust to the altitude.

I have booked my tour through http://www.sastravelperu.com/ on the recommendation of a friend of George's from Denmark who used this company last year. The process is a bit odd as they do not have direct online booking and for those who are squeemish about such things it may not be the answer for you. I was told the tour company was very good and attentive and checking their reviews online it seems to hold true overall. It seems like it would be a crap shoot to pick any tour company without recommendation so this seemed like my best option.

Of course booking was an odd proposition. The site has the instructions on how to book and most of it really wants you to download a Word document and fill in the information including your credit card number in order to get things processed. I am a bit squeemish about that and I dug around until I found a way to authorize the payment with a Visa card (and only a Visa card) though a site that several peruvian business seem to share for purposes like this. I was foiled later on in this process but we'll get to that in a bit.

I am taking the 4 day Inca Trail with special 5th day Option tour which includes three full days of hiking the Inca Trail followed by a short run to Machu Picchu before sunrise on the fourth day. The total hiking distance is about 27 miles. The tour of Machu Picchu is supposed to last about 2 and a half to 3 hours I think then from there you have the rest of the day to either hike further (there is another trail through Wayna Picchu or just hang about the area. After that the 5th day option has you staying later in the local area where they will get you to an overnight stay in Agua Calliente then get you to Cusco the next morning. It all looks very fun and of course strenuous but I am pretty sure I walked over 100 miles in France (and definitely certain I walked over 80) so I should be able to handle it.

To mention about researching Peru I should state the obvious. Don't drink their water. Bottled drinks only. They say not to drink alcohol at altitude unless you are used to it already. They say to drink lots of liquids like sports drinks the first day or two and to not do anything too strenuous or you could end up with altitude sickness which sounds unpleasant. They also say to be very cautious about what places you eat. I assume their health and safety board is a bit suspect if it exists at all. In any event I intend to ask the hotel which places are ok to eat in the area for the couple days I am there before the tour.

Speaking of the hotel I am using the Los Marqueses Hotel which appears to be run by the same people as the tour company or at the very least they work very tightly together. In this instance I had to fill out the Word doc and send it back as a PDF in order to reserve the room for my stay there so I ended up doing something I didn't want to do anyway. They said I needed to get it done fast as they only had one single person room left. I should also mention the responses from both the travel company and hotel to emails was a bit slower than I enjoy but I am sure they are busy and perhaps a bit more relaxed than we northeasterners. Either way everything appears to be confirmed for both the tour and hotel at this point.

Lastly, I had to book the flight on my own. I booked through Orbitz as they listed the best prices through LAN Airlines which caters to Central and South America. The flights from and to Boston are operated by American Airlines to Miami. From Miami I fly to Lima and from Lima to Cusco. The whole operation is 14 to 15 hours in either direction. The flight to will operate overnight and the flight back will deposit me in Boston near midnight. Not ideal and there will only be the shift from DST to not DST and back because Peru lands on the same time zone as Boston but doesn't follow DST changes. Amusingly DST ends the night I get back. I booked through Orbitz through Bank of America's Add It Up program so I should get $5 back from them somewhere along the way. Also through Orbitz they have a price guarantee if someone books for lower prices. We'll see if it matters but it would be nice to get a couple bucks back.

So that is the basic planning in a nutshell to this point. The follow ups will be about what I will have to purchase or borrow to manage the hike appropriately. I will likely get those in after the Denmark trip.