Your professional guide and the tourist transportation provided by Machupicchu Andes Tours will pick you up at 3:00 am from your hotel in downtown Cusco (for shared tours, if your hotel is far from the center, the meeting point will be the Plaza de Armas). You will then travel for 5 hours to the high Andean village of Phinaya, where you will make a brief stop to enjoy a homemade breakfast carefully prepared with local ingredients. Here you can also use the restrooms and shop at the small stores. Afterward, continue your journey for another hour through a beautiful Andean valley filled with alpacas and llamas.
From the bus parking area, walk for about 20 minutes along a flat trail to reach the enormous ice blocks of the Suyoparina Glacier, which is a small part of the Qelqaya Glacier. Here you will see a massive mountain covered in perpetual ice, with ice blocks over 20 meters high. You’ll also see beautiful ice formations, such as crevasses and caverns of green crystal, and penitentes (long, thin ice columns, like swords, blades, or columns). After enjoying the incredible scenery and taking some great photos, return to the village of Phynaya, where you’ll enjoy a delicious homemade lunch.
After lunch, explore the small village of Phynaya and visit the little church whose interior walls are covered with beautiful religious paintings. Then, take your transportation back to the city of Cusco, but before embarking on the 5-hour journey, make a short stop at the viewpoint overlooking the immense Sibinacocha Lagoon to admire its majesty and the incredible landscape that surrounds it. This lagoon is one of the largest freshwater reserves in the Cusco region, providing drinking water to 54% of Cusco’s population.
Afterward, return to the city of Cusco. Arrival is approximately at 8:00 pm (Plaza Regocijo, one block from the main square).
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