From San Pedro, we were again on a bus.  This time heading to Cusco to visit Machu Picchu on our way to Lima.  First we had a 10 hour bus to Arica, Chile (along the Peru/Chile) border.  From there we jumped in a shared taxi to drive across the border to Tacna, Peru.  Determined to make it to Cusco ASAP, we then took two different buses to get to Cusco through Arequipa (another 16 hours).


After spending the day walking around town, we setup our excursions with our hostel for our 4 days in Cusco.  First was a mountain bike excursion through a part of the Sacred Valley and then a two day trip to Machu Picchu.


Elizabeth and I had never done mountain biking before and we both enjoyed the challenge.  Well actually Elizabeth really only enjoyed the first half.  After we made a stop for lunch, we started off on a downhill trail towards some salt mines.  The trail was very primitive (lots of rocks and gravel) and after Elizabeth's first spill off her bike she was left petrified.




In the middle of our trek, we made a stop at the Salt Mines of Maras.  This mine is run by the government of the region but each of the 5,000 individual platforms are owned and "farmed" by a family.  They operate only during the dry season and they flood the platforms every few days from drilled wells.  It takes about 2 days to completely dry each platform before it is scrapped into a pile and bagged.