After the last cycling trip, Nansen and I are now on a trekking trip again. We are going to hike the Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu – supposedly one of the most beautiful hiking trails in the world. It is less known than the Inca Trail, but also very popular.

On Thursday, we arrived in Lima and spent the first night there in a hotel. Then we continued the next day to Cusco, the old Inca capital. I wanted to spend a few days there before the trek in order to get acclimatised to the altitude. Cusco is located at 3400 metres above sea level. It is a very nice town with a long history. However, since all tours to Machu Picchu Start from there, there are also many tourists there.

Today, we started the trekking. In our group, there are eighteen people and one polar bear, plus our two guides, Susan and Jean Paul. Not sure if that is spelled correctly – they are both Quechua from this region.

On this first day, we left Cusco at 4:30 and started hiking from Challacancha around ten o’clock. After three hours, we reached our first camp, Soraypampa at 3900 metres. From here, we had a nice afternoon stroll to the beautiful Humantay Lake. This was also a good preparation for tomorrow because then we will cross our highest point, the Salkantay Pass at 4600 metres.

Wakeup call is at 4:45.