Day 1 - Salkantay trek

Our lake dive was the high point, literally (and figuratively for some of us) of our first day on the Salkantay trek.

The day had begun much earlier, with a taxi driver arriving at our hostel sometime after 4 a.m., to walk us up to the taxi waiting on a road a few "blocks" above our hostel location. (The hostel is on a pedestrian only cobblestone pathway, see below.)

Stairs leading to our Cuzco hostel.

Once all 4 teammates were in the van, we proceeded to drive for several hours, trying to nap as we went. We stopped at one point to pick up a man who would be one of the horsemen. A breakfast and bathroom break was made in a small town - Mollepata. While eating breakfast, we got a bit acquainted with our two other teammates, as we were all starting to wake up. Then, it was back in the van for a winding drive up on a quite narrow dirt road, unloading at a small farm.  This is where we started our trek. After a brief overview of what the next several hours of hiking would be like, Rodger told us we were now a team and a family and we needed to have a family name. He gave us several name choices:  "chicken," "puma" (and I don't recall the third). Perhaps, a chicken has a higher status in Peru, but that was a no-brainer choice for this quartet of Americans and European. "Team Puma!" was born.  Team Puma consisted of: Rado, a Swiss man who worked in a bank, and was engaged, but whose fiancé apparently hadn't been interested in joining him on this trek; Leslie, who lived in New York, and was an editor for reality television shows; my niece Carie, who had just traveled in Chile, Argentina, & Antarctica for several months, celebrating her recently earned doctorate; and me.  Coincidentally, my three companions were all 30, and our guide 32; so at 52, I dubbed myself "Grandma Puma." 

"Grandma Puma," Rado, Carie, Leslie. (Our destination is the valley below the mountains  in the background.)