Incas and Iguanas
A Trip to South America, June - July 2004
We went travelling in South America between June 11th and July 9th. This website is a personal record of the journey, aimed at letting family and friends share photos from the trip.
The journey got off to a bad start when the Qantas plane arrived so late from Sydney that we missed our connection in Auckland. We had planned to fly to Peru via Santiago de Chile, but got rerouted through L.A. An extra 24 hours.
But eventually we arrived in Cuzco and were met by the Tambo Treks rep and set up in a nice hotel, which had been converted from a monastery.
Cuzco is a tourist town, as the capital of the old Incan empire. It was particularly busy in the buildup to the annual Inti Raymi festival.
Our official World Expeditions trip began on June 14th and we got shown a range of interesting things. There were four others in the party, two youngish american couples. We visited Chinchero and the Sacred Valley, before the Inca Trail trek began in earnest on June 19th.
It was hard, but spectacular. We had trained by climbing hills for a while before-hand, and the preparation paid off.
It was certainly hard work climbing up to 14,000 feet. It was cold sleeping under canvas in the middle of winter. But the views were fantastic and the arrival at Machu Picchu was a great triumph. Very rewarding.
We returned to Cuzco by train, and the next day there was the annual Inti Raymi festival. It was colourful and interesting.
After that we flew to Quito, capital of Ecuador, and the ancient northern capital of the Incan empire. We spent three days touring around with two guides, and saw the famous Otavalo Market. We also stayed at a hacienda and went horse riding on the slopes of a volcano.
Next to the Galapagos Islands.
There we did a 7 day cruise on a motor sailer called 'Samba'. There were 13 passengers, who all got on well. It was fascinating to see the rare and unusual wildlife, which was amazingly unafraid.
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