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While recently in the Cusco region, I took the opportunity to hike the lodge-to-lodge Ausangate trek. This is an incredible high altitude 5 day trek, staying overnight at authentic and comfortable mountain lodges. Walk along a miraculous trekking route that passes beneath the snow covered peak of Ausangate amidst other wonders. The Lodge-to-Lodge Ausangate Trek combines core Aracari values:  authenticity, sustainability and adventure complemented by comfort and good taste. Lodge-to-Lodge Ausangate Trek Day 1: Cusco to Chillca Tambo (4,368 metres asl) Distance: 3.3 km Within about 20 minutes of being picked up from my hotel, it quickly became apparent to our group that the Ausangate lodge to lodge trek would be an out-of-the-ordinary experience. Our guide, Jeremy, jumped into the van where we had been waiting with a bag of coca leaves; “they’re fresh” he told us excitedly, going on to enthusiastically detail the small farm in the high rainforest, from where he had just arrived, and from where he had acquired the leaves. “We’ll need them for the walk” he continued with a wry smile that could not contain his glee. This was quite clearly a guide who was up for an adventure, and his sheer excitement at going to Ausangate with us certainly made us very much more excited about the prospect of what on earth lay ahead of us. Jeremy would later explain why coca is sacred, why it has been such a vital plant to Andean communities for millennia, and how it is a mediator between man, the earth and the gods, but there was no time for that now. We drove out of Cusco on the road to Puno for a couple of hours, all the while hearing Jeremy’s detailed, animated and, at times jovial, insights into the Cusco region, everything from the population and the economy to the awful bout