Day 3 For our second full day in Ollantaytambo, we decided to do a much shorter but much taller walk up to the Inca granaries that cling to the mountain that rises right from the backside of our AirBNB. The steep trail up the mountainside begins right from one of the stone-paved streets in the… Read more…

Day 2 Our 5-day push from Abancay to Ollantaytambo was comfortably-spaced, meaning that we didn’t arrive too exhausted, and were able to immediately do an exploration the day after arrival. It would be an easy one though, a 4-mile walk back to the junction where we had entered the Sacred Valley yesterday, where Rett had… Read more…

This morning’s breakfast was even more of a challenge than yesterday’s; when we walked out to the main street, we couldn’t find any open restaurants or street vendors. We walked back and forth a couple times, getting increasingly frustrated with each other and the town, but that gave time for my hypothesis to be proven… Read more…

Since no yogurt existed in Limatambo for Rett to have a no-cook breakfast in our room, we got our bikes all packed and loaded but left them in the hotel courtyard while we searched the main street for breakfast. (Despite there being a dozen shops in town, it’s funny how undifferentiated their stock is…like, what… Read more…

Every pair of pass-and-valleys in these enormously-folded Andes is unique, but our days have definitely been following a pattern. This day was another one where we would finish with a big climb out of a deep hole, and thus needed to get to that bottom as early as possible, before the heat and the bugs… Read more…

Inside the tent in was 48°F when we woke up, significantly warmer than the 42°F when we went to sleep. Climbing out revealed that the once-clear sky had clouded over (and under), so it presumably was a genuine overnight warming, and not just our bodies cranking up the thermostat. We had no disturbances once the… Read more…