Tracing Inca Trails: An Adventure in the Andes

(Paperback)

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Description

Eddy Ancinas and her friends set out on on a seven-day horseback trip that takes them over Perus rugged terrain to 20,574-foot-high Mt. Salcantay, along an ancient Inca route, and then down into the jungle. During this journey, these fifty-something travelers are challenged by events they never imagined possible: a fall from a horse that results in serious injuries, a train strike that leaves them stranded in a remote village, an eight-hour trek on railroad tracks along the Urubamba River, and a moonlight ride in the back of a truck with questionable brakes on a dirt road over a 14,000-foot pass, among others.

It is a journey full of mishapsand yet Eddy is enchanted by the culture and places she experiences along the way. As she and her fellow travelers explore Lima, Cusco, and the markets, villages, and ruins of the Urubamba Valley, they are deeply touched by the people they meet, fascinated by the clues to an ancient civilization they learn to respect and admire, and enthralled by the spectacular setting where it all takes place: Andean Peru.

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2022 Best Book Awards Finalist in Travel: Guides & Essays

Author Bio

Eddy Ancinas grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and on a nearby cattle ranch. A non-fiction writer specializing in Latin American travel, she has published articles on Argentina, Chile, and Peru in the San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe and LA Times, plus six editions of Fodors Argentina Guide. Her story of a cattle roundup in Elko, Nevada, won the 2010 Nevada Magazine Writers Contest. Her award-winning book on the history of two ski areas (now one: Alpine Meadows and Palisades-Tahoe), Tales from Two Valleys: Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows, was first published in 2013; a 2nd edition came out in 2019. Eddy has an Argentine husband and is fluent in Spanish. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area.