A small journey through our route in South America (Part 3: Peru)

Planning ahead has never been my strong suit. Professionally, I am well organized, but in my natural habitat, home, I usually go with the flow. Exceptions to that rule have been moving into our apartment and getting married, which I have pretty much completely drawn out in Excel. Going on a 10 month adventure however, I was planning (haha) on completely winging it.

Appearently, that is not how it works. We had jobs to quit, a house to rent out, camping gear to buy and some budgetting also seems to come in handy when you stop getting paid. And apart from that, some parts of the route we chose require booking ahead.

Time frames

As Thomas explained, Torres del Paine was a royal pain in the ass, so we knew that if you want something to happen in a specific time frame, you better plan ahead. And there is something that we really, really, really want to do that is very time sensitive. My mom and aunt are coming to visit when we are in Peru! And as if that is not enough, we are all going to Machu Picchu together.

When, how and where

Since they are only there for a little over two weeks, we need to make the most of our time together.

So I started yet another Excel (it fits nicely in the “to do”, “budget”, “route” and “to buy” files in my one drive). I thought that we could take a bus from Lima to Cuzco, get used to the altitude and start hiking. Little did I know, that not only does it take more than 24h by bus, it is also not the safest option. To split the bus drive, we are now visiting Arequipa and the Colca Canyon to our route. Not bad, if I say so myself.

Timing is everything

Due to the altitude my aunt cannot take the hike to Machu Picchu. Luckily, there is also a train that brings you there. So my mom, Thomas and I take the Salkantay Trek and my aunt takes the train. The thing is, we want to arrive over there together. Again, our friends at Kilroy helped us out and made sure that even though we have different ways to get there, as much of our time as possible is spent together. Hooray!

Not there yet

Planning these things also made us realize that we are not there yet, we have no bus tickets and more than half of our accomodation in these two weeks with family is still to be arranged. Ah well, it will be fine, right? We just have to book it as we go.

With this, the last thing that absolutely had to be planned, is crossed off my to do list. We are getting closer to our departure and we already said goodbye at work. OMG. It’s really happening!

♥ Dagmar