Day 114: Ups and Downs

I'm high in the mountains again, making my way toward Lima along the old Incan trail.  Ups and downs like I haven't seen since the Atlas Mountains along the Moroccan coast.  It's beautiful here, and more densely populated than the area southeast of Cusco.

The only adequate map I was able to find in Cusco lacks the detail necessary to find a route each day, so I'm still asking the locals.  It's inefficient, but really pretty on the verdant mountains with the steep patchwork of fields ripening with corn, wheat, potatoes and other veggies unknown to me.  I rise and fall thousands of meters every day along footpaths and dirt roads with locals toiling in the fields, plenty of livestock - though now too low for alpacas - misty humid valleys, windy crisp mountains, afternoon thunderstorms... Try as I could to avoid the inevitable, guinnea pig is the most common food among the mountain families.  Not at all like chicken.  The pilgrimage continues happily, though slower than I sketched out, so Lima is weeks away.  Beautiful.