Before I left to Cusco, we were able to create our first successful introduction between the two capuchin monkeys we have. This is not always easy and really a good start for the future!

After a long bus ride and a flight from Lima to Cusco, I had to wait one more day to meet up with Louisa, this because of some major strikes and blockades in-between Cusco, Puno and Arequipa. The blockades are caused by the indigenous people of Peru who mostly complain about the government selling their resources (oil, gas, mining, wood and water for a hydro electric plant), earning a lot of money with it, but leave almost nothing for the inhabitants of the areas where they get these resources from. Even worse, the big companies which exploit these resources often leave the area highly deforested and contaminated with all kinds of poison. I have to admit that I feel a lot of sympathy for the complains of the indigenous people, I only disagree with their, often violent ways of protesting. For example, they literally used machetes to slaughter 15 members of a police office in the protest area. Not very good for their image and cause…

Luckily Louisa found her way around and after nearly two months going our own ways, we met again in Cusco.

We decided to do the Salkantay trekking before the Inti Raymi festival, so after we would be able to go to Puno and maybe even La Paz together.

We planned to do everything by ourselves with rental camping equipment in our own backpacks and a tourist trekking map of the area.

On the 19^th of June we took a collectivo for the 1.45 hours from Cusco to Mollepata. From here we started our beautiful hike through the highlands between Cusco and Aguas Calientes. We had great weather, good mood and so much energy that we decided to sleep the first night on our own little campsite 45min. away from the official campsite at Soraypampa and with a great view of the Nevado Tucarhuay mountain!

The next day we had to climb a steep 500m to go over ‘El Paso’. It was a difficult start, but the late breakfast and great view of the Salkantay Mountain on top (4650m) of this pass, made everything well worth it!

After this we walked down for hours until we arrived in the jungle, at the back of Salkantay. Again we passed by the official campsites and put out little tent next to some natural hot springs. We arrived here just before closing time at 17:00h, so we could relax our muscles in the warm water. But the best part of sleeping next to the hot springs is that we could sneak inn at night and ‘swim’ under the stars with some distance lightning in the sky. What more can you wish… Maybe not getting anything stolen? But the thief only took a bottle of Coke and a cooking pot with rice and beans, which saved us washing it in the freezing cold river, so no, no complains at all.

On the 3th day we walked all the way to Santa Teresa, the so called ‘backdoor’ of Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu. On the whole trekking there weren´t many tourists, but we were surprised to see that from the ones we met it seemed that everyone took the bus for the last 14km of the trekking. Some people had even arrived by car to Soraypampa, so basically they walked only half of the trail, which feels to me like cheating.

Louisa and I had already decided that we would do the whole trail on feet, like the Inca´s would have done 500 years ago. Having this said, we walked the 4^th day to Aguas Calientes, refusing to go the last 12km by train and on the 5^th day we even walked up from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu. In total, according to our map, we walked about 108km in 5 days. The total trekking was moderate, very beautiful and recommendable!

After ‘delivering’ Louisa at the entrance of Machu Picchu I went back down to check on our train for the next day. We were suppose to leave the next day at 5am in the morning on the 24^th of June, but when I arrived at the train station they told me that there would be a major strike/blockade on the 24^th, so there would be no trains. Luckily I was still on time to change our tickets for an extra train, leaving the same night. On the 24^th we joined the free part of the Inti Raymi festival, but obviously didn´t pay 100 US$ entrance fee each to see the last part at the ruins of Saksayhuman.

After the Inti Raymi most of the blockades in the direction of Arequipa and Puno continued, so to make a long story shorter, we ended up staying the whole time together in Cusco, visiting some touristic places, using the internet, watching movies and drinking cappuccinos and cuba libres… Not the easiest thing to do for two active people, but we managed and I used my time to prepare some tours for our new agency, look for more information about hydro-electric systems and to look for sponsors for Merazonia.

On the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th of July there was finally a break in the blockades, so I could leave back to Ecuador and Louisa went to Bolivia. Just on time, because already on the night of the 6^th they started with new blockades and on the 7^th and 8^th there would be national blockades and strikes. Next to the indigenous, also the transport and school sector would strike that day. It all makes Peru look like Bolivia…

Back in Merazonia I met the two new tamarin monkeys, did some more research for the hydro-electric and preparation for my new tour in Mexico.

At the moment I write this it is Saturday the 18^th of July, 10:15h in the morning and I´m sitting in Starbucks in Playa del Carmen. My group of two Belgium families arrived yesterday, so more about this in my next story.

Martijn

P.s. On the photo site I put a copy of the trekking map we used. We also put some improvements on the map, because it wasn´t to accurate. Hopefully this info can be usefull to some of you.