Trek to Valle de Lares 1 - the warm part

As with everything else, we'd planned well and were overtaken by events as far as this trek was concerned. Originally scheduled for 4 days, we left a day late due to Sarah's being laid low by a stomach bug.

"Glueck im Unglueck", we were able to find 2 more people to go trekking with us on account of that delay.



Ours was an expensive trek and one that was accompanied by a huge amount of logistics, compared to the 3-day affair to Ingapirca in Ecuador: 8 horses, 1 cook, 1 cooking tent, 1 latrine tent, 3 sleeping tents, 1 guide, 1 "ambulance" horse, 4 porters and arrieros... yep, we went out in style!



We'd picked this particular trek (Lares Valley) with this operator (Andina tours), since it had been recommended to us at South American Explorers. The trek was to be expensive, reliable, very well organised, free of crowds (as opposed to all the other treks to be booked from Cusco), comfortable, closer to nature and to the indigenas.



The first couple of hours toward the hamlet of Cancha Cancha were relatively warm, bathed in sunlight with a steady climb.



Horses abounded in the lower parts of the valley we were travelling along. Most people here lived off maize culture in this region.



That's what an almuerzo (lunch) stop looked like for us: we'd get to the site and the arrieros would have pitched a tent under which we ate and another one for the latrine.



We'd started questioning the usefulness of such a luxury organisation when we'd booked the trip, however we learned that Andina Tours was investing quite heavily in local communities along the trek route - as far as hiring local helpers, paying for teachers' salary at the schools etc. Cutting any one part of the organisation out of the package would cut out one local person's income whereas his neighbour would still be in our employ.



The almuerzo was light but muy rico - guacamole, bread, mate de coca, juice and fruit.



Somewhat shy but still smiling, this young girl was minding her flock of sheep in the valley.



Our "ambulance" horse: just in case someone was affected by the altitude or just plain tired. Since we did cross a high pass at 4700m AMSL, the danger of altitude sickness was quite real.



Every one of us had an Andean bonnet, but only Benjamin managed to wear it with such panache



Crossing the little stream that travelled the length of "our" valley.



That's the way real men cross a creek: barefoot and pulling a horse.



At this point, things became distinctly chilly, making it necessary to kit up and break out the coca leaves (for some).