Jeff & Patricia's Peruvian Odyssey, Pt. 1

A whut?

An odyssey.

(ŏd′ĭ-sē) – noun

An extended adventurous voyage or trip.
An intellectual or spiritual quest.
An epic poem, attributed to Homer, in which are celebrated the adventures of Odysseus (this may have to wait until we get back)

How did this come about?

Well, it was unexpected. I mean, we’ve had our biggest travel year ever! But then the February ’23 issue of The Tennessee Magazine arrived in our mailbox, and the cover caught my eye. I mean, I’ve hiked “pert near” all them Smoky Mountains and I ain’t never seen one like this! The feature article talks about a little trekking company near Nashville, TN, that offers some really cool Everest treks. Everest Base Camp and the Annapurna Circuit seemed a bit of a stretch for us, at least for this year :-).

But as we perused the site, we ran across the Peruvian Odyssey! Seventeen days of trekking and touring through some of the most beautiful parts of Peru. Machu Picchu has always been on our bucket list and here was a really neat way to experience it. And you know what? We’re not getting any younger and most of our body parts are still working well, so why not?!

So follow along as we try to unfold this adventure with you. It will be admittedly haphazard, slapdash, intermittent, and probably corny and clunky in spots as we learn WordPress along the way. But we hope to provide short blog posts when we can and then fill in the details when we return home.

We’ve had many adventures over the years, some short, some long, some close, some abroad. But this one is a little different because the fine folks at Hobnail and their Peru team are taking care of most of the logistics for us! And they’ve provided us with some cool tools to use to help us have a great experience. This unfortunately has made us a tad lazy so we’ll see how it goes!

Lazy, you say?

Only in the planning! The truth is, this is going to be a hard trip! Some long hikes with big climbs at elevations we’ve only briefly encountered before. I mean, the town of Cuzco sits at 11,000 feet, an area where we’ll spend a good bit of our time.

So we’re going to share all of our ups and downs, the things we learn, the people we meet, and all the things that might just make this adventure the odyssey it should be.

Let’s get started.

(Twenty days later…)

So much for the plan…

We’re in Lima, near the end of our odyssey, I’m relaxing with an alpaca throw in the window of our room on the 16th floor, watching the city wake up. Workers are already cleaning a rooftop pool on the hotel across the street. We’re in Miraflores, and this is probably the nicest hotel we’ve ever stayed in. Comfort technology abounds. Our room card not only is required in the elevator for security, it’s required to turn on the lights in the room. Thoughtful convenience is everywhere, a motion sensor adds subtle light to the bathroom in the middle of the night and the perfect temperature is just a button press away. The Casa Andina Premium is just that, a beautiful hotel and a tambo, a place to rest in the Quechua language.

Literally 24 hours ago, we’re waking to the light tap on our door by Mama Paula(?)( I still can’t catch the names properly) for breakfast. Her 80-year-old mother is already up, sitting in the floor of the kitchen peeling potatoes. On Amantani Island, in Lake Titicaca, solar power was introduced only 2 years ago. The light switch to the bare ceiling light is part of the power outlet, down low and on the opposite side of our room from the door (and the bed). We slept quite well under the massively heavy woolen blankets and hard bed, especially after the dance party at the community center. During the night, in order to reach the baño, I step outside to walk the balcony and navigate the steep steps down to the small courtyard. Looking up, I see the Milky Way like few people do, milk spilled across the sky, a flashlight is not necessary.

Things didn’t go as planned. I had intended on a short play by play for this adventure. A way to share this journey in real time and then backfill later with the experiences, hardships, travel logistics and funny stories.

But then Ruben, our first guide, walked into our life on Day 2. What started out as Odyssey definition 1, quickly became definition 2, and things (hopefully) will never be the same.

So for now, I’m going to post a handful of pictures (okay, a big handful) with captions, and when we finally land in our tiny home back in Tennessee, maybe the hundreds of experiences and millions of threads rolling around in my overloaded mind will begin to spill out. Stay tuned and wish me luck…

(More posts to come. See the Peruvian Odyssey trek page HERE.)