Thought I would share some recent photos of my SM 300 and Speedy Apollo 11 45th enjoying some well deserved R&R with the wife & kids in Galapagos + on a romantic ("no-kids") trip with my wife to Machu Picchu in Peru. PS. I also took my Rolex Polar Explorer II 216570 along on both trips, but I forgot to take shots...as this is an Omega forum...no harm done Cheers!
Wait, is there a hotel up there now? Granted, when I was there the Shining Path was still menacing. Nice shots. Gotta get to the Galapagos myself.
@flyingout - the hotel is the Belmond Sanctuary Lodge...I would certainly recommend at least an overnight stay. You are only 100m from the entrance of Machu Picchu and can get there before the first wave of tourists arrive by train in the morning and also hang around until 17.00 after many have left to catch the last bus down to Aguas Calientes. I would also strongly recommend chilling out and getting used to the altitude at the Rio Sagrado (Valle Sagrado - 8000 ft) before going to Machu Picchu (8000ft) and Cusco (11.000ft). Some people go straight to Cusco and stay there at 11.000ft, get altitude sickness symptoms and it ruins the rest of the trip. Also drink lots of coca tea in the morning.
Oh, I did. But the altitude didn't hit me too hard. When I went, there wasn't a huge throng of tourists. The Shining Path had bombed the Cusco-Machu Picchu train (if I remember correctly) a few years before and maybe the public was still skittish. What was so striking about that site was that there was nothing there but nature and the ruins. Hope the hotel is not too conspicuous. Did you do any diving in the Galapagos?
Everywhere we went in Peru I felt quite safe and Lima is full of police guards watching out for tourists. I think they have reduced the Shining Path to a very specific part of the country in the Amazon rainforest. No diving in Galapagos...this was a very kids (7, 9yrs old) focused trip so we had snorkeling fun and animal sightseeing. We thought the water would be quite cold so we even took wetsuits/short johns for the kids, but El Nino had raised the temperature of the water and it was very comfortable to snorkel, although water visibility was not ideal. Unfortunately El Nino will have impact on marine life, probably around September onward, impacting marine iguanas and sea lions. The the cold currents are fundamental to keep the ecosystem healthy.