Ausangate Trek, Peru

OK, I didn’t fly myself to Peru.  For the first time in 6 or 7 years, instead of flying somewhere in the Cessna 210 my family went much further than is possible in the plane and we went to Peru .  We spent 4 days in Cusco visiting ruins, doing the Macchu Picchu thing and generally having a good time while we acclimated to the 11,000 foot altitude.

Then we headed out for the 6 day Ausangate trek.  I was very nervous, since the entire trek was above 14,500 feet and some nights would be spent above 16,000 feet.  That’s high and I really didn’t want to run into altitude problems, especially with my 16 and 18 year old kids and miles from help.  But we seemed to have done a good job with the acclimation, and didn’t really have any problems other than generally out of breath.

We made sure we spent one night at the village of Tinki at 12,500 feet before we started out. We also hired horses from a local horseman (thanks to Belyn for negotiating that in spanish!) to carry our packs for the first day up to 14,500.  After that we were on our own, just the four of us.  It was a great trip, with a high point of 17,000 feet,and my son even found a pre-Inca arrow head on the trail.

I try to keep the number of photos down to just a few, but in this case it was hard.  So many alpacas, llamas, mountains and interesting people!