IT’S ALL BOOKED!…. part one.

During the last few weeks, I have been busy making Peru plans. Each day was a day of researching of what to see and where to stay. Finally yesterday, I finished all the booking and planning!

My boyfriend and I are going on an 11 days adventure to Peru! We are going from Oct 5th to Oct 15th. Since my time off work is limited, we had to make our trip a fast pace backpacking adventure. I first started planning our trip by researching the best and most inexpensive way to arrive in Cuzco. I had no plans to see Lima, since we are time limited. I thought it would be best to fly directly to Cuzco. Although, all flights from Toronto to Cuzco do connect in Lima. After a few days of hunting for the best flight times and pricing I finally came across a great deal. With only two connections, one in JFK and another in Lima our flights came out to $1100 each. We leave mid-afternoon on the 5th and arrive in Cuzco at 9am the following day. The way back is an over night flight with the same connections. The booking took some time to find, but after going back and forth between many websites, we finally found the best flight. On average a flight from Toronto to Lima is usually over $1100 CAD, so I thought the price we got to Cuzco was amazing! After booking the flights, I started to get even more excited, and that’s when all the other bookings came into place.

I knew our first stop would be seeing Machu Picchu. Due to our time we aren’t planning to hike up to Machu Picchu, so the train and booking the hostel in Aguas Calientes was the next booking step. With a bit of searching I came upon the best price for the train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu). Booking the train was a bit tricky and surprising too. I had no idea how many tourists see Machu Picchu daily. The train for October 7th – 8th was almost fully booked and the hostels in Aguas Calientes were already starting to book up fairly quickly. So we were lucky we started to book now, rather than later.

The transportation route to Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu) is a little confusing due to the many train options you can take. We moved forwarded with deciding to book the train in the later evening on Oct 7th to Machu Picchu, so we could spend the day at the Sacred Valley. And arriving in Machu Picchu for around 9pm. Once we arrive in Machu Picchu it will time for bed. Only reason for that is because we will be waking up at 4:30 am to get on that bus to climb Huayna Picchu and watch the sunrise at 7:30am. I was told over 400 people try to make it for sunrise, so the line ups will be incredibly long and there is only one bus that leaves on time to make it for sunrise. It will be a mission to wake up that early, but how often will I have the chance to see the sunrise in one of the most beautiful sceneries in the world. The entire day will be spent seeing the historic village.