Advertisement
Published: January 21st 2010
Santiago Friends
Me, Thomas and Paul (two good friends of mine from Santiago, well from france but studying in santiago), in Machu Picchu.After a few nights in Lima, Karly and I headed to Cusco... such a beautiful place! My roommate in Santiago is also traveling in Perú and had recommended me a hostel though he wasn´t going to be arriving until a few days after us... or so we thought! I heard a fun sounding group of people in one of the rooms while I walked to our room and decided to pop my head in and introduce myself (ya know, gotta make some new friends in each country!). It ended up being my roommate, a friend of mine and four argentenians they had met along the way. It was really great because Karly got to meet some people I talk a lot about and we headed to Machu Picchu with them. In order to get to Machu Picchu you have to go to Aguas Calientes (a crappy, expensive little town)... that was quiteee the adventure. The poor backpackers that we are, rather than the train which was about 70 bucks, we decided to take a bus (hilarious ride that stunk like cow crap and blared romantic latin rock for 8 hours through the rainforest) to Santa Maria. In Santa Maria we talked
Paul
...and part of Machu Picchu to some locals and packed into a bus that took us to Santa Teresa. That is where we split up, some walked 5 hours to Aguas Calientes while Karly, Thomas, Joaquin, Nadid and I decided to take a timeout in the thermal baths and then grab another bumpy busride to the end of the Hidroelectrica (basically a train). Rather than spending the 40 bucks on the train we followed the train tracks for about 3 hours in complete darkness and pouring rain to Aguas Calientes. By the time we finally got to town we were EXHAUSTED! We grabbed the cheapest hostel close to the plaza... badddd idea! There was no water. We were smelly, hungry, soaking wet and sore. They said the water was going to come but it didn´t until about 2am... and since it´s the high season and they knew we wouldn´t get another hostel easily, they refused to give us a discount!!! I was nottt very happy but was so tired that after much arguing in spanish, decided to hit the sack and forget it. We got up the next morning at 3am to hit up Machu Picchu and Waynupicchu!!! We got up super early because they
Machu Picchu and Waynupicchu
Machu Picchu means Old Peak and Waynupicchu (the big beautiful mountain in the backdrop) means New Peak... we climbed to the top of Waynupicchu!!! only 400 people a day into Waynupicchu, the mountain over looking Machu Picchu that you see in all of the pictures, (which is way cooler then Machu Picchu). Of course we didn´t have a flashlight so we felt our way up the hour hike (all steps by the way) through the forest and pouring rain, yes once again, until we got to the entrance to Waynupicchu. We then hiked up Waynupicchu, a really tough but fun hike that started out in the clouds and ended in a clear, beautiful day. After that we headed back down and into Machu Picchu. Ok, enough typing... check out my picturessss!!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.098s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 18; qc: 58; dbt: 0.0618s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Katie
non-member comment
What an adventure!
Mac! I am so happy you are keeping us all updated. We are so thrilled for you to have this experience. You are doing trips of a lifetime! I'm a bit jealous as I always have the travel bug, but now is not quite the time for us! Calvin Lucas is adorable and 2 months now and growing fast. Joni is loving on him everyday and has been a good little helper to me. We just redid our livingroom and I was going through all these old picture books and I found the cutest shot of you and I at uncle Paul's wedding. You were around 3 and I was 19. Joni was like "Oh my Gosh I love MacKenzie, when do we leave for Santiago?" Happy travels to you! All our love, Katie