adventures.worldnomads.com/destination/168/itinerary/23.aspx

Might reverse your journey to adjust to altitude save

see more and have the best finish (MP)

Cruz Del Sur best bus driver guides from $50/ half day

work well also if budget is good

casa-andina.com best hotels everywhere

www.peruvianairlines.pe cheap flights CUZ LIM from $80 for me

review travel.state.gov Peru and insuremytrip.com always wise

Have fun,

both itineraries sound very good to me, just depends on if you want to do colca canyon or titicaca. I did titicaca and loved it. I would say that I did not care for Puno; there is not much to "touring PUno, imo". I did the two day overnight tour of the lake and loved it. You could fit this in if you fly cusco to Juliaca/Puno the night of day 7 so you are positioned to start the islands tour which leaves at 7 am.

Also, getting up early for Huaynu mtn means 4 am. If you miss it, you can climb machu picchu mountain instead. It is 30% bigger if you are up for that but also with beautiful views. Only about 50 climb MP vs the 400 that climb HP.

I tend to agree with ncounty i.e. canyon or lakes. That said, for a number of reasons, we didn't make it to Colca instead we stayed in Arequipa for 4-5 days and loved the town - Santa Catalina convent is wonderful and the chances are you will see some sort of fiesta going on.

Titicaca is definitely one of the wonders of the natural world and the bus trip to Puno on the Inka Express is a great trip on its own (8 hrs with stops along the way).

I too was not overenamoured with Puno but there are some nice squares to wander around and the occasional decent restarant but the town is not the reason for going. if you could squeeze in an extra couple of days you could even do a circular trip by getting the bus from Puno to Arequipa (5hrs)or vv. beware tye altitude in Puno (4400m) also see mlgb post re current unrest in the area.

Thanks for everyone's responses! I think we're going to skip Puno/Lake Titicaca and just add Arequipa/Colca Canyon on to our trip -- I think we'll be rushing too much if we try to see it all, and we're more interested in the Arequipa/Colca Canyon area.

I have two follow-up questions:

1. If we don't feel up to the scramble to get the Huayna Picchu permit, does it still make sense to devote two days (1 overnight in Aguas Calientes) to Machu Picchu? I'm inclined to say yes, because I think we could still hike to the Sun Gate, try to be in Machu Picchu on the second day to see the sunrise, etc., but was hoping to get someone else's input on this.

2. Should we add in a trip to see the Nazca Lines/Islas Ballestas, and if so, what should we remove from the schedule to make this possible? We only have 10 full days (plus two travel days to/from Peru) and our tickets are already purchased, so our time is fairly limited. I've read that Peruvian Airlines is hoping to start service to Pisco in July, and that you can catch flights to fly over the Nazca Lines now from Pisco (as opposed to traveling all the way to Nazca); if so, this could, perhaps, make it possible to add the Nazca Lines and a boat tour of the Islas Balletas in on one day of the trip. Is it worth it to do this, especially if it means that we'd have to subtract, say, a day in the Sacred Valley or one of the days at Machu Picchu to make it possible?

Thanks so much for your help!

If you spend a full day at MP you don't need to go back, you can fit in a hike to the Inca Bridge. Another guest at El Albergue took the same train I did (first one from El Al) and she was done by mid afternoon. When I went you couldn't see anything in the morning anyways it was all fogged over til about 9am, but I went in January (wet season).

Thanks to everyone for all of your helpful suggestions!

>>Yes, it does make sense to devote two days to Machu Picchu. You´ll be able to stay after the tour groups leave and see the lovely sunset.<<

Can you really see the sunset over MP? Doesn't it close around 5pm, which is way too early for the real sunset? And it's not like you can hang around near the compound around sunset time anyway. Maybe if you stay at the next door hotel ...

Correct, unless you stay at the Sanctuary Hotel, you have to take the last bus down (assuming that the run until the park closes) or walk, just like everyone else.

Perhaps Kuoda isn't aware that there is scheduled train service from Machu Picchu to Ollantaytambo as late as 7 pm and 9 pm. Kind of strange to hear this from an agency with such a good reputation.

We suggest the following itinerary:

Day 01: Lima
Day 02: Lima/Cusco/Sacred Valley
Day 03: Sacred Valley/Machu Picchu
Day 04: Machu Picchu/Cusco
Day 05: Cusco
Day 06: Cuzco/Puno
Day 07: Puno
Day 08: Puno/Colca
Day 09: Colca/Arequipa
Day 10: Arequipa/Lima

This tour we did in the past and was very good, we contacted to www.intrandes.com they gave us all the information that we need, maybe you contact them to organize your trip.