After hearing from some friends about the Mountain Lodges of Peru hiking trip, we decided to try it.  We were not getting any younger and if we didn't do it now, when would we do it?   Since we were going to be in Peru, we decided we also needed to go to Ecuador and Galapagos Islands.  We left Calgary on October 18th and returned on November 5th, with many adventures in between.   

Our first adventure was having our passports stolen in the airport in Lima, which we discovered missing when we got to our hotel around midnight.  We were able to get them replaced at the embassy in Lima but that meant adding one more day in Lima and missing one day in Cusco before me met up with our hiking group and leaders.  There were 10 in our group, along our two guides, Johann and Julio.  We arrived in Machu Picchu after 5 days of hiking supplemented by bus trips.   We then spent 1 1/2 days in Quito before flying to the Galapagos Islands for 4 days of Zodiac rides to various islands to view the wildlife and geology of the area.