Peru - quickly approaching- plans
It's just over one month until our august 1st departure to Cusco via Lima. We are arriving in Cusco and being picked up and quickly descend from the 11000 foot elevation to the lower Sacred valley.
The sacred valley is the "Tuscany of Peru" or the "Napa valley of Peru" located at an elevation of 8000 to 9000 feet surrounded by mountains on both sides with peaks of over 15000 feet. We are staying 5 nights there in Yucay (Sonesta Posada del Inca) to acclimitize before going back up to Cusco for 3 nights, then descending back into the valley for two nights before the Inca trail hike/run.
I am planning 4 hikes as preparation for the Inca trail. The first will go from outside Chinchero which is over 12000 feet. The actual start town is past lake Piuray to just outside the town of Tauca. It assends to the highest I will be on the entire trip 14700 feet at the pass, then descends to Huchay Cusco a Inca site which is the "goal" then descends back to the town of Lamay.I am going to take Diamox to help me with this quick acclimitization.
We will also do hikes in Pisac and two in Ollytaytambo.
Here is the elevation profile for the inca trail
We will be doing one very short day from Km 82 to the first dot on the left of the profile Llactapata. (6-7 miles) followed by the whole rest of the trail as the Inca trail Marathon.
So that would be 27.5 miles with about 8000 feet of uphill if I calculate correctly. There are 40 crazy folks out there doing this, my goal is to take it "easy" and finish in dead last ( Why hurray?) Ha Ha
