Cachora (Peru)

During your trip to Peru, you'll undoubtedly end up visiting Cusco and the local region. This is widely agreed to be one of Peru's must-visit destinations. The star attraction in the area/country – in fact on the whole continent – is, of course, Machu Picchu. However, there is also another truly impressive yet slightly less well known archaeological site (though it is on its way to becoming THE place for adventurous tourists to visit), namely Choquequirao.

The snag (or not, if you enjoy walking) is that it's only possible to reach it on foot currently. The hike involved is quite exceptional, though a bit on the difficult side, it has to be said.

The village of Cachora serves as the starting point. Having no guide with me, I decided to stay overnight here and try to find a local mule-driver. You don't have to do the trek with mules, but considering the amount of height you'll be covering and the ascents and descents involved, they can certainly be more than useful. The village is a quite charming place and has plenty of accommodation of all different kinds to offer. Finding and arranging a mule-driver turned out to be quite difficult: it took some hard negotiatiion to finally arrive at prices everyone was willing to accept.

It's also possible to rent a horse and have the freedom to go wherever you like. This wasn't something I did myself though, so I can't give you any further information about it!