Hola, Cyber Travel Buddies, I know I have been offline for a few days. I went to Bolivia, to the Isla del Sol, the island in the middle of Lake Titicaca. I´ll post second blog about that trip, but I need to finish this one that I started when I arrived in Puno. On this computer the photos look dark, and the keyboard definitely is challenging with a sticky´è and I can´t get some symbols, so be flexible when you read this text. I can´t catch every mistake. I´ll add some more photos to this blog, that fit the theme about [View Full Entry]

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I am not sure if I will publish this blog as it will have several complaints and moans. I can leave it as a private journal entry or hit ´publish´and share the travel tips. Yesterday was a complete struggle to get flight out of Peru to Argentina. It turns out that if you are a traveler in Peru you cannot purchase a cheap flight with Air Argentina online, nor can you use the telephone to give credit card numbers. You have to go to a travel agent and pay the extra fees. This is infuriating when you spend hours online, walking [View Full Entry]

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"..on the road again..." I can hear Willie´s twang in my head as I drive up the mountain and over tabletop fields of corn and potatoes. I am in an old car with a driver who knows all the back roads. We nearly get stuck in mud twice, but his zippy sense of direction cuts off a few kilometres I suspect. With great sadness I left Ollantaytambo and headed for the Inca site, Moray. I left the rain in the mountains for the first part of the day. We drove past Urubamba and turned right, over the river and up the [View Full Entry]

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There was a cold rain this morning and that meant coming to Internet Cafe to wait for sunshine. I see it now, but the trails are probably still soaking. Best use of time is to upload last photos of village before I take my leave and return to Cusco. I suppose I should pay to see the official Inca ruins in Ollantaytambo this afternoon. Shame to spend all this time here and not do that T-shirt moment. [View Full Entry]

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What is it with Inca ruins in February? First sun, then clouds and rain and shelter in a thatched cottage.... Tip, get there before two o´clock because that is when the fleet of tour buses arrive and you will share a thin path with a dozen people and guide going the in opposite direction. I got the partial ticket for 70 soles, which is about $25, I think. I have two days, today and tomorrow to see four attractions. I will settle for these ruins and the ones in Moray if I can get a taxi there tomorrow. The first bit [View Full Entry]

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Life is filled with irony, isn´t it? Yesterday I took the local bus to nearby Urubamba to find hair conditioner. The stores in Ollantaytamba are more like corner shops and none of the ones I visited had conditioner. On the walk to the bus stop I noticed gangs of children in large scale water fights. Hmmmm, must be what they do on a hot day in the weekend. School should begin for them soon, so maybe this is a last hurrah. As soon as the mini-van filled with people we were on our way to Urubamba, which means "Flat land of [View Full Entry]

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I lost my watch along the way and really do not need it here. I´m not sure what day of the week it is, and I view this as a good thing. Life is slow here, for those of us who visit. Today I wore a hat and long sleeves to protect my sunburned skin, and walked to nearby village. This series of photos will show some of my day. I get up and shower and enjoy the view. Then I step out to the street and walk around the corner to the restaurant. Typically I get the Continental de la [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday I decided to climb up the mountain behind the town to where you can visit Inca ruins for free. The clouds were undecided about the weather for the day, so I took jacket and short-sleeved top for rain or sunshine. I need to get rid of this ´farmers tan´that I got when I went up MachuPicchu in a t-shirt. I was curious to see the view from above. When walking through Ollantaytambo, you see walls and doors and not the houses and courtyards. I was about to get a bird´s eye view of this Inca town and peek inside the [View Full Entry]

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It is days later, and whenever I meet travelers we continue to share stories of our impressions of Machu Picchu. A lady from Argentina sat at my breakfast table and with her few words of English and my fewer words of Spanish we managed to commune about visiting this world wonder. She had read about it and been there when she was a child, but this time, she was moved to tears when she got up there. I met some people from Austria and they were going tomorrow. Everyone admits that you haven´t visited Peru unless you make that pilgrimage up [View Full Entry]

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There are many blogs on this site about Machu Picchu. I should know, I read plenty of them last summer when researching about upcoming travel. Sometimes, when you see photos of a wonder of the world, you think ´nice, but it can´t be that nice when you get there´. Not so about Machu Picchu. I felt estactic when I boarded the train in Ollantaytambo and headed towards the Machu Picchu town. There were a few snags about hotels which didn´t bug me too much because I knew I would be on top of the world later. Tickets into the site and [View Full Entry]

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