1. Expect to pay a A LOT for vaccines and meds to take with you. It's worth it of course. We used our med for traveler's diarrhea and of course who wants to get Malaria or other such stuff and where we went on our trek we could have been exposed. That said though, go to the right travel nurse at a health department. I called the health department in Rawlins clear back in the spring and they said we had to wait till our trip was closer in case diseases on the ground change frequency, location etc. So I waited and then called the health department in Evanston after we moved, made an appt to meet with the travel nurse only to find out that they only had one vaccine available there (which Leo and I already had) and to get Yellow Fever and Malaria and other such stuff we had to drive to Utah. That was so worth it because that nurse in UT knew what was what but because of all the delay we almost didn't have enough time to take all the meds we were supposed to before leaving. AND we had already been to our family practice doctor and had requested a prescription for Malaria meds to take prophylactically and a prescription for traveler's diarrhea. He did give us prescriptions and we spent $180 on the Malaria meds only to be informed by the travel nurse that it was the wrong kind of medication because the mosquitos/disease in the area we were traveling to had developed resistance to that kind of med. So then we shelled out a lot more to get the right kind. Anyway, just find a travel nurse that knows what they're doing. Simplifies everything. And when I say it costs a lot, Leo and I spent around $600 at the health department. Yikes! That had not been calculated in to our budget. Oops.
2. Packing Cubes are the bomb. I saw them recommended on tons of how to pack videos, and although I was dubious, I went ahead and bought some. I bought these ones. Leo was not really happy with my purchase due to unforeseen costs (like above) but by the end of the trip he was totally won over too. They're worth every penny.
3. Two weeks is about the perfect time to spend around Cusco, any less (like us) and you won't be able to see even all the major things. We didn't really go anywhere in the North Valley--that's where most everyone spends all their time. I would love to go back and visit those sites too.
4. Go to the Southern Valley! Yes, I know I can't really compare the two, but almost every site on the southern side of Cusco had pretty much no one there and that, in itself, made the ruins much more enjoyable to explore. I really don't like crowds though. But really, I LOVED Tipon. So beautiful.
5. Bring baby wipes. I started out by carrying toilet paper with me--almost nowhere has toilet paper-- but you're not supposed to flush it anyway so every toilet has a garbage can sitting beside it. So really baby wipes can be thrown in the garbage, and they are faster, more effective, (especially if you do get Traveller's diarrhea) and can be used for a lot of other things as well, like wiping down the toilets that never have toilet seats on them.
6. Other favorite purchase--my Pacsafe purse. You have to take your passport to Machu Picchu, which made me worried about carrying it around. So I started shopping. Crossbody bags were recommended in one of the videos I watched that specifically was about packing for Europe because in a lot of the museums there you can't carry in backpacks anymore. Plus you can rest your arm on them which makes it hard for pickpockets, etc. The Pacsafe also has a number of safety features and I love that I can carry a water for Leo and I in it. We did carry a backpack with us most of the time (to carry our rain coats mostly) but I carried all our cash, passports, credit cards, my camera, Leo's phone, baby wipes, and our water in my purse. I love it and it will be perfect for when I travel in Europe someday.
7. Hiking socks. How did I not know how wonderful hiking socks are??!?? Oh yeah, I had no money for such things. But I love, love, love my hiking socks. And we did use hiking sock liners too, and no blisters even though our toenails turned black. And I love my Keen hiking boots. Best boots ever. But now I wear my hiking socks everyday.
8. Other purchases included: water filter bottles--used less than we expected but nice for brushing our teeth; silk sleeping bag liners--for our rented sleeping bags; microfiber towels--definitely used on our trek; good quality packable neck pillows--used as our pillows on our trek, on the overnight buses and on the planes, so nice!; and really effective rain coats--which we used daily almost. All came in super handy and I'm very grateful we had them.
9. I did spray our clothes with mosquito repellant that lasted through several washings (and we did have our clothes washed twice while in Peru) and we had no mosquito bites. We did get bit by nasty midges on our trek which are the worse than mosquitos though. I got eight midge bites on one foot (I was wearing sandals on our trek at the camp site) and I still have them over a month later. We bought mosquito repellent too but it was packed in our checked luggage which was lost so we bought mosquito repellent again in Peru which wasn't as good of quality. I tried to be prepared, sometimes things just don't work out.
10. I had a nice water bottle. I lost it. Now I would just buy water and not carry around a nice water bottle.
11. Save your money if you want nice weavings (table runners, blankets, wall hangings) for your trip to Lake Titicaca and the islands down there, fabulous quality and much less expensive.
12. Random, but I tried a shampoo bar (a lot of backpackers use them) and I'm hooked. I sound sort of hippy but I bought a Rosemary Mint Goat Milk Bar from Common Goat Sense on Etsy, Here's a link to their store, and I love it. That's what I am buying for daily use from now on. I don't need conditioner with it.
13. Our headlamps and LED backpacking lanterns were awesome and invaluable on our trek.
14. The changes in temperature on our trek to Choqueqirao really weren't that extreme (at least to us used to WY weather). A hoodie was about all I needed and my rain coat. (I brought base layers and other layers etc, and didn't really need to.) At night I was never cold with just a hoodie on. We traveled in October and the weather was in the 50's in Cusco.
15. Never had a problem with altitude sickness but we live at 7,000 ft. Our guide on our trek said people from Colorado never have problems (he had never met anyone from Wyoming before). And we left on our trek the morning after arriving in Cusco.
16. I fell to trendy trends and bought Buff scarves for Leo and I. My brother Ethan had highly recommended them. We never used them much, but the one day of the hike that was HOT and miserable we did wet them down and drape them around our neck and head and that felt wonderfully nice. I suppose if there had been a ton of bugs we may have used them more. Ethan had said they were great for dust too. I did see them everywhere on all the tourists and Peruvian trek guides. I was kind of meh about them though.
17. We bought 40 L Kelty backpacks--not really ones for backpacking but ones more to use as luggage. They're airport carry-on size and the backpack straps zip up and you can carry it as duffle bag or just by the side handles. They were perfect for our trek since we only needed to carry water, snacks and our raincoats--actually too roomy, but that's not a big deal. But I LOVE them and use it as my go to pack for any traveling we do. We also took a large suitcase that we checked, just FYI. I think if we hadn't been doing the trek and hadn't needed to carry all our hiking clothes/gear we could have packed everything in our backpacks and other carryons. I kind of wish we had bought actual camping-backpack sized backpacks (65 L) (if that makes any sense) so we could use them to go backpacking in the Wind River area, etc. but I guess that remains to be seen if we'll backpack more. As is, these are far more handy and useful to us as luggage.
18. I still took my big digital camera, and I took four batteries with me--one for each day of the trek. I didn't go through that much on the trek, but I'm glad I took them because I lost one, and then because of being out and about and having phones and other things to charge--it took forever to charge things there--it was nice to have a few on hand throughout the rest of the trip. I'm glad I took my nice camera, so worth the space and weight to have excellent photos. Even Leo's phone which takes really nice photos and is the latest model can't compare to a real camera.
19. I watched some tourist packing tip videos and backpacking packing videos on Youtube and bought some other stuff based on their recommendations, like a travel size razor, a compact mirror, creme makeup instead of powder, long-lasting lipstick, (I ended up with Revlon Color-stay Ultimate Liquid Lipstick and I like it so much I wear it all the time now, but I think I was supposed to get Revlon Colorstay Overtime which apparently lasts even better, the lipstick I bought does not last all day although it lasts better than my normal lipstick) and makeup remover wipes. I am not going to not wear makeup, although on the trek I only wore mascara. And while I don't know that they were really worth it for the trip and I think my usual makeup pared down to the minimum would have been just as easily packed and durable, I did like quite a few of the products and I use them all the time at home now too (I like the lipstick-ish blush as well), so I guess it was okay, but not really necessary. I'm a Walmart/Target cheap makeup girl anyway, so nothing I buy is that expensive to begin with.
20. Use Skype to call and then you can skip the hassle of using phone cards, phone plans, and all that junk. That said we did buy a phone plan in Colombia and attached it to a junky old unlocked phone we had and that came in handy to hotspot to my husband's nice new locked work phone. That was all it was good for though. In Peru a lot of the tourist restaurants and hostels have free wi-fi. We never used a plan there or even a phone card and managed just fine to look stuff up and chat with my family.
And those are my tips and experiences from traveling to Peru and Colombia. I read a ton of blog posts and recommendations that I did really learn a lot from, and my post is not nearly as comprehensive as many I read, but these are just the things that stood out to me as really useful or things I tried that weren't as useful.
10 years ago
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