Machu Picchu

To get to Machu Pichu, we took an hour and a half bus to Ollantaytambo and then bought train tickets to Peru Rail. They wouldn’t let us take our luggage on the train with us. Instead, we had to pack a small bag and then keep our luggage in storage. The train ride through the green mountains were beautiful, and after an hour and a half we arrived in the town of Aguas Calientes. The location of the town is beautiful; it’s a small valley surrounded by tall mountains with a river running through the center of it. The actual town itself was not too lovely. It is now completely a tourist destination for people going to Machu Pichu. The few streets are tightly packed with hostels and restaurants, and every few feet some one is trying to get you to eat at their restaurant. All the restaurants are the same, selling a wide variety of horrible food. We ended up eating at a little Chinese place that was all right. Now one tried to get us to go in and we only saw locals there.

The next morning we woke up at 430 am to catch the first bus to Machu Pichu. It was definitely hard waking up so early. There were no places open for breakfast, so we grabbed a couple of granola bars and a banana. We got to the bus stop at around five, behind a few other people, and quickly a long lined formed behind us. AT 530 we were off, and we made it to the entrance 30 minutes later at opening time. Silently, everyone walked up the steep trail to the hill over looking Machu Pichu, and it was absolutely breath taking. Since we arrived at opening time, there was no one walking through the ruins, so we got a really mesmerizing view. It was a cloudy day, so there were always clouds rolling through the ruins and around the mountains, which made it even more beautiful. At the top of the hill there were a bunch of llamas! Being in Peru has given me a newfound love for llamas and alpacas. We went up to pet them, but I was a little scared of being bitten because they seemed to be giving me the evil eye. We spent the next few hours walking through the majestic ruins. After getting our fill of the ruins, we went on a 20 minute walk through the woods to the Inca bridge. This bridge is now closed because a few years ago a tourist slipped off to their death. Seeing the bridge, I could definitely understand why people were not allowed to walk across it any longer. It was a narrow bridge built along the side of the mountain, leading to an even narrower trail on the other side. The trail was barely visible, and looked just like tuffs of grass growing on the side of the mountain. I can’t believe anyone would walk across it!

That night, it was hard to sleep because everything in our room seemed wet due to the rain and the humidity. We had thick blankets, but they just felt damp. Plus our room lacked windows and had a moldy smell. At least it was cheap and we had cable! I had a hard time falling asleep that night, so I ended up getting only about 5 hours of sleep. No bueno.

Walking up steep, scary steps

Climbing through a narrow passageway

Nate looking into the abyss and scaring me

The next day we woke early again to catch the first bus. This time we arrived at about 515, so we were behind around 50 people in line for the bus. We bought tickets to hike up Waynapichu, the tall mountain visible in the background of the Machu Pichu pictures. They only allow 400 people to do the hike each day, and it had sold out the day before so we had to turn Machu Pichu into a two day excursion, which I think worked out for the best since the hike was pretty tiring. When we arrived at Machu Pichu it was pouring down rain, which made us grateful for the great weather we had the previous day. Luckily by the time we walked to the entrance of the hike the rain had stopped, but Machu Pichu was so packed with clouds that nothing was visible. The hour long hike up the mountain was quite steep, luckily there were hand rails at the steeper areas. There were ruins built right on the top and sides of the steep mountains, and narrow stairways going everywhere, which just seemed terrifying to have to walk along, I can’t even imagine how they were able to build them. Besides building them, I can’t imagine having to walk up and down the mountain all the time. When we got close to the top of the mountain, we could not see Machu Pichu because of all the clouds, which gave an eery feeling of being on the edge of an abyss. To get to the very top, we had to walk through an extremely narrow passageway through a boulder. I used both hands when I walked along the stairs and the ruins when we were up here because we were so high up and I was a little freaked out at some parts. 

 

Finally, the clouds parted and we got an amazing view of Machu Pichu.

After walking up Waynapicchu, we took a second shorter hike up a closer, smaller hill. This gave us more great views of Machu Picchu from a closer viewpoint. On the top of this hill was insect heaven! There were tons of beautiful butterflies, but there were also tons of tiny black bugs flying around. We didn’t stay up there for long. After hiking around mountains for four hours, we were definitely worn out and glad that we had been able to explore the ruins the day before. We headed out in hopes to make our way back to Cusco. 

Angry llama

Cusco

Cusco is a fun, albeit very touristy town. There are lots of locals dressed up in traditional clothes trying to sell their wares or get you to pay to take pictures of them. There are even people walking around with Llamas. No matter what you tip though, they seem to want more. We spent a day walking up cobble stone streets to the San Blas area, where we went window shopping and got a great view of the town. We noticed a little boy squatting next to a fountain to go the bathroom, when he saw us he looked at us, smiled, waved, and said hola! It was an odd sight!

We ended the night by going to a dance recital where they demonstrated several different traditional dances in various brightly colored outfits. I loved the skirts the girls would wear; every time they spun around they would spin up.

The next day we went to Pisoc, in the sacred valley, which is known for a large market they have every Sunday. The market was huge! We spent about three hours walking through all the stalls, shopping, and taking pictures with the local kids. The poor little kids running around definitely tugged on my heart strings, and we gave a few of them money for pictures. I really loved everything being sold in Peru. Lots of stuff was made out of Alpaca fur and was extremely soft. There were lots of stone figurines of llamas, pumas, etc.

Cusco has an elevation of 11,200, and we could definitely feel it. No matter what we were pretty much always short of breath, and any exercise would get me winded and shoot my heart rate up. I walked up the one flight of stairs to our room and my heart rate shot up to 120 bpm! 

Cuenca, Ecuador to Lima, Peru

We stayed a couple days in the little town of Cuenca and explored a couple neighboring towns. The highlight of this area was again the dress of the locals. Instead of felt hats like in Quito, all the ladies wore straw hats, and they also wore brightly colored skirts.

From Cuenca we had four days of extreme travel to get to Cusco, Peru. We started our travels on Wednesday the 27th by taking a bus to Loja and then another bus to the border town. When we got to the border, we noticed a drastic difference in temperature. In the mountains it was cool, but the border was incredibly hot and humid. We had to spend the night here, and we woke up early on Thursday to cross the border, which was definitely our easiest crossing yet. No one trying to haggle us, trying to get us to change money or be a guide or get money from us. From here we took a taxi to Sullana, as there wore no buses. The taxi was a colectivo, meaning it picked up other people as well. There was a man and his teenage son in the front passenger seat, Nate and I wore in the back with a lady and her daughter, and in the hatchback was an older lady and her two kids with our luggage. Definitely crammed full! And the whole time people are driving fast and swerving around other cars.

Pigs!

When we finally got to the bus terminal in Sullana, the taxi driver attempted to charge us double what he originally quoted. He said he meant $15 per person not $15 each; luckily we knew enough Spanish to call him out on the scam. From here we had to walk around for about an hour to find an ATM to get some soles in order to pay for the bus to Piura. The highlight of this bus trip was that in front of the bus were a couple bags of pigs! I’ve never seen anything like it. The negative part was that Nate’s backpack got placed in dead fish slime, and proceeded to smell horrible for the next few days. ick!

When we got to Piura, we decided to walk the few blocks to the Itsa bus terminal. Unfortunately, our map must be outdated because we walked for about 30 minutes with our heavy packs in the heat and didn’t come upon the place. We decided to catch a tuk tuk, which turned out to cost only 3 soles, a little over a dollar. Definitely worth the expense in that heat! After buying our tickets for the 530 pm bus and storing our luggage we decided to head to the mall and get out of the heat. In the food court I had to pull up a chair to the one tiny fan to try to cool off, I felt like I was overheating so badly I was almost panicky. We spent the afternoon watching a crappy movie (My Boyfriend’s a Vampire), but we got to enjoy the air conditioning, which was amazing. Since we still had a little time to kill after this, we walked around the outdoor market of Piura. At 530 Thursday we boarded the bus, and we got into Lima at 10 am the next day – that’s 16 and a half hours on a bus! The seats were luxurious and comfortable though, like a lazy boy that leaned back 160˚. They also played movies, but in Spanish, and they did serve us some food. I spent most of the time reading and trying to sleep.

Nate on travel day, with his 2 hats

In Lima on Friday we had two hours to kill before the longest bus trip of my life – 25 hours! We again had luxurious seats, and they were able to have English sub titles on the movie which helped. We made a couple pit stops for horrible food. The last half of the trip was winding through the Andes mountains, it was nauseating! Two little boys on the bus ended up throwing up all over the floor, but luckily it didn’t smell at all. After getting up to go to the bathroom at one point, I felt so insanely nauseous that I could barely hear Nate talk and I felt like the blood had drained form my face. I fell asleep clutching a plastic baggie that the steward had previously handed out. Also, like much of South America, the bathrooms were bring your own toilet paper. Most restrooms require you to pay and then the attendant will hand you some toilet paper as you’re walking in. Free restrooms, however, are not stocked. Luckily we learned this early on so I was usually lugging toilet paper around with us.

Nate the dog whisperer

Finally, at around 1 pm on Saturday, we arrived in Cusco! We took a cab to our hostel (after making a quick trip back to the bus because I left my glasses on board –oops). Our hostel was super clean, in a school, and run by extremely friendly nuns. I immediately took a nice, long, hot shower. It was amazing, and after almost four whole days of straight traveling, definitely necessary!