Forks and Jets

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No Walk In The Park

March 16, 2009 Peru

8 Comments

We aren’t really planning on our trip, which isn’t to say that we just want to laze around, but just that we want to see what happen and what opportunities present themselves organically. Still, there are some important highlights that we’d be sad to miss out on. Motorcycling in Vietnam, The Great Wall in China, Cooking School in Southeast Asia/India, and hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu are the milestones we’d like to include in this coming year. Since we have been doing all this by the seat of our pants in the last two months, we haven’t really made any itineraries or done research yet. Today we stopped into STA Travel to pick up some HI Hostel Cards and I glanced through the GAP Adventures Tour offers for Latin America. Turns out that their prices are pretty decent by the way, not particularly for Peru, but pretty low for some other countries on my list, notably Turkey and Indonesia. I know that travelers on the Inca Trail are supposed to register for a spot to be allowed on the Trail (Peru restricts access for preservation purposes). Figuring that maybe now might be a good time to secure our spot, we asked about GAP’s availability on some of the Inca Trail-only trips. No deal! Nothing until mid-June!

This bad news is truly a shame. I hope that it turns out there are other ways of getting access, or through other groups. GAP suggested another trail (Lares Trail vs. Inca Trail) which would give us a similar experience but the trip is only available as part of a longer itinerary which isn’t cheap (all in about $2K for the two of us) and doesn’t exactly jive with our other plans in Peru. There are only 11 spots left.

I can see that tonight is going to be a lot of last-minute Machu Picchu research!

Comments

  1. Gillian says:
    March 16, 2009

    Eva, thanks forthe comment on my site. Without that I may never have found your fabulous site! This is one of the best designs I’ve seen (and I’m addicted to travel blogs!!). You must be insanely excited to be leaving so soon - I would be vibrating!!

    I’m also glad I had a read as I have not yet booked our Inca Trail trek - just hadn’t gotten around to it. I am now going to do it tonight before it’s too late for us too. Thanks for the heads up!!

    Well, have a fabulous start…i’ve added you to my reader and you can bet we’ll be following along!

    Congratulations and Cheers!!
    Gillian (www.One-Giant-Step.com)

    Reply

  2. Jillian says:
    March 19, 2009

    Hey! We haven’t booked anything for the Inca Trail either. I know there are other trail outfitters from Cusco, but I’m not familiar enough with them to point you to one or the other. We looked into doing the other trail to MP (starts with an S, but I can’t think of it right now), you don’t need reservations, its a harder climb and less ruins, but you apparently go higher than MP and look down on it which is cool. Keep me posted on what you decide to do, looks like we might have to finalize our MP plans sooner than later! Also, I think today is your launch date, if so good luck! hopefully well meet up in CA somewhere! Bon Voyage!

    Reply

    • Team Rees says:
      March 19, 2009

      I think we booked that trail — Salkantay?!
      There are lots of other great sounding treks, even trek/bike/raft adventure deals. We contacted lots of tour organizers and settled on llamapath.com. They are one of the top 2 tour agencies it seems and I really liked how communicative they are. We are doing a trek starting the 27th of April. Maybe you two should hurry down to Peru & join us? :)

      Reply

  3. Gillian says:
    March 19, 2009

    I booked with LlamaPath too! Couldn’t find a bad review!

    Good luck starting out today - how exciting!!!

    Reply

    • Team Rees says:
      March 21, 2009

      Yes, I absolutely found cheaper tour groups, but after reading all the reviews I just got sucked in. If I’m going to be camping for 4 nights out in the Andes I might as well be content! :)

      When is your trek with them scheduled for?

      PS. Thanks for the good wishes!

      Reply

  4. Geoff says:
    March 21, 2009

    The Salkantay trek is supposed to be amazing, I very nearly chose to do that instead of the Inca Trail as it’s supposed to be so spectacular. Can’t wait to read about your experiences

    Reply

    • Team Rees says:
      March 21, 2009

      When is your trek scheduled for?

      I really wanted to do the Inca Trail! I’m happy with the trek we chose and I’m sure it will be an amazing experience. I’ll just have to come back and do Inca Trail next time! I wonder if it’s crowded?

      Reply

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