Peru

My GF has been working in Peru on and off for the past 5 or 6 years, and over that time I've never had an opportunity to visit her and she's never really had an opportunity to explore.

This summer I'm going to join her for a couple of weeks and we'd like to do some travelling.

We have a rough itinerary planned that involves spending a couple of days in Lima, flying to Cusco to visit Machu Picchu, getting a night bus down to Arequipa to visit the Colca Valley and Lake Titicaca and then flying back to Lima.

Does anyone have any other recommendations for places we should try to squeeze in? Nothing is set in stone yet so plenty of opportunity for jiggling the itinerary around.

Also, while we are in Cusco/Machu Picchu, we were hoping to do some kind of trek/tour. My GF has found a 4 day tour organised by STA Travel that involves a bit of mountain biking, a bit of hiking and some site seeing etc. It look like it could be quite fun but my worry is that it'll all be a bit touristy and pedestrian. I'm marginally more keen to just do a nice multi day hike, but my understanding is that treks in this area are pretty highly regulated and that you need to go with a guide/group which presumably means we'll be stuck with a load of snotty gap yar students, and that we'll always be caring to the needs of the slowest/whiniest etc. Does anyone have any experience/advice about trips and tours in this area?

Cheers!

I went through that way a few years ago.

From what I gather The inca trail is very highly subscribed and has a big waiting list I think, only x amount of groups allowed to pass each day so is probably pretty well regulated, outside of that there's tons of company's in Cusco that organise multi day hikes ending up in the village below matchu pitchu and then you can get up in the dead early in the morning, walk up and be up there for about 5 minutes of it being pretty chilled. (The gates at the bottom open an hour or so before the bus starts running people up and down)
You can also walk up the other hill next to it if you register early in the day as there's limited numbers allowed up each day.

I'm not really that into organised tourism or gap yah types but I had a nice time on a multi day walk out that way. I think if anyone moans too much they put them on a donkey. No idea where my walk went from but it was nice to be out and about in the mountains and lasted about 3 days, I saw some llamas and some nice views.

I got the impression that all the tourism is pretty rogue out there so even when stuff is organised it still feels like an adventure.

Dis the colca canyon a few years back for the condors that was well worth it but i am not sure how busy that area is now.
Nazca lines is worth seeing if you are travelling south.
But as has been said regarding the inca trail, its a bit more regulated now if you want to walk and camp as basically their is nowhere off the trail to camp and only so many sherpas/cooks.
The train ride to Agua Calienti over the mountains from Cusco is a must see/doo
We came in from Titicaca puno so ticked off another of the worlds highest rail trips on route.

Hope you like pan pipes !!