October | 2019 | Life in Peru

About an hour’s drive up from the Cusco airport is the small rural community of Punacancha. Like most rural communities that are not on a main highway or near an established tourist attraction Punacancha is relatively unknown by outsiders.

Every year our kids’ school organizes a family run/hike event and this year Punacancha was the location for the hike. The school calls it a “run” but nobody runs except for one tall lanky teacher and a few family dogs, everyone else walks. The run/hike started in the community of Punacancha, up to the rock formation forest just outside of town and then back.

I’ll spare you the details of how our rescue dog who is supposed to be an Andean shepherd/collie is apparently scared of sheep now and the story of one of the modern mamacitas in our group who forgot how many of her kids were supposed to be with her (all 2, to be exact) only to say after a brief search the other kid showed up with his friends about 10 minutes behind.

The hike to the Punacancha rock forest formation is beautiful, relaxed, authentic. Highly recommended.

No more than about 10 miles as the crow flies from the Plaza de Armas in Cusco you can find a perfectly quiet spot with not a tourist in sight. By taxi Laguna Qoricocha is about 1.5 hours from the Plaza de Armas, up a fairly steep mountain side behind the small town of Corao.

Laguna Qoricocha is at an elevation of just over 13,000 feet (~4,000 meters). The dirt road up to the laguna reaches about 13,500 feet at its highest point but in dry season it’s a relatively decent road. You won’t find any modern world things to do at the Laguna Qoricocha but it’s a nice place to stare at clouds, take pictures of llamas or just think about God and love.