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Published: September 27th 2009
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Cusco
The view from our hostal....first night in Cusco. Hola,
This has been one of the best trips I have ever had. I had almost forgotten what real Peru was like. Outside of Lima is a very different Peru. I have come back with 360 pictures, a slight tan, quite a few mosquito bites, some Inca power, and quite a high from the trip.
Everything started Tuesday (9/15) with my flight to Cusco. I went on this trip with a fellow exchange student from my school, Thea. We ended up being great traveling buddies.
When I got off the plane, I could immediately feel the change in altitude. It got harder to breathe, I had a slight headache, and I was huffing and puffing up every staircase. We found a nice hostel in Cusco that night that had a great view of the entire city. Cusco is a really cute city of 500,000 people filled with narrow cobblestone streets, plazas at every block, and lots of tourist stores. I had never felt so safe in Peru before.
After spending Wednesday exploring Cusco, we were off to Aguas Calientes, which was quite the adventure. First we took a 2 hour bus ride through the mountains to Ollanta
Cusco
one of the many mazelike streets.... (cost $1.50), then we took the train to Aguas Calientes. We had heard from friends that Aguas Calientes was a horrible city and were very interested to see what it was really like; especially because Thea and I were pretty easily amused by anything. The city is only really there for tourists on route to and from Machu Picchu, and besides being really empty, was not that bad.
Thursday we woke up at 3:30am to set out for Machu Picchu. By 4am, there were already more than 30 people ahead of us in line for the 5:30am (and the first) bus to Machu Picchu. We were on the site at 6am and super excited for our plans for the day. We got to the site so early to get a permit to hike up to the top of Wayna Picchu, which is the mountain in all the Machu Picchu pictures. At 6am, it was cold, raining, and completely clouded over. Between 7-9am we had a guided tour of the ruins. It was pretty sweet. Our guide, Edgar, actually went to college for 5 years to be a guide specifically for Machu Picchu (who knew that was a major). We
Tourists?
They were selling these masks everywhere.....haha. have a lot more respect for the Incas now after hearing about how they had to drag all the stones to build Machu Picchu from about 20 miles away and seeing all the work put into Machu Picchu.
At 10am we started the grueling trek up Wayna Picchu. It was a vertical climb up what seemed like a million stairs. Just about every 10 stairs we had to stop to catch our breath. But getting to the top made it all worth it. The whole hike took about 4 hours and by the end our legs were shaking from all the stairs. After our trek, we went to the top of the ruins to take the “traditional” Machu Picchu picture and just sat down and enjoyed the scenario for a while. It was just amazing looking out at all the mountains around us. We even managed to stumble upon a wandering llama and took some pictures with it. Machu Picchu was all that I expected and more. Hopefully you can get a feel from my pictures of how gorgeous it was. After spending 10 hours at Machu Picchu we went and ate some well deserved alpaca burgers and pisco
"The Book"
Lonely Planet ended up being our constant companion. sours (national Peruvian drink).
Friday we woke up at 4:30am to catch the train back to Ollanta. From there we went on to Salinas and Moray. Salinas is where a fountain of salt water from the side of a mountain fills hundreds of salt pans that the Incas used to get salt from. And Moray is a ruin filled with circular terraces that were used by the Incas for agriculture. We were told that if you lay in the middle of the circles that you get Inca power, so we made sure to do that. These two places ended up being a lot more interesting than we had thought. We eventually made our way back to Cusco for our night bus ride to Puno.
After bargaining down the price, we finally found a local from one of the islands on Lake Titicaca to take us on a boat tour of the lake and let us stay in his house on the island (Taquile) for the night. The first stop was the floating islands, which are hand made completely out of reeds. We even got to try on some traditional Andean outfits. Then we were on the boat again
Cusco
the main plaza for a 3 hour ride to Taquile, where we would be sleeping that night. Apparently Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world. It was huge! Taquile was one of the most peaceful and quiet places that I have ever been to. There were lots of friendly people and no distractions (we didn’t have running water and only had candles in our room).
After our night in Taquile we headed back to Puno to hit up the main plaza and the coca museum. We learned all about the cultural aspects of coca leaves and that Coca-Cola was actually named after their first drink that was made out of coca leaves. I survived off coca tea the whole trip for altitude sickness. That night we headed back to Cusco.
After this trip I am just itching to go out and see more of Peru. You really learn a lot about yourself when you are traveling, and I was really able to realize how much I can do without. Only traveling with a backpack and having limited access to showers can be difficult at times, but makes the experience a lot more interesting.
More pictures to be
Cusco
another view from the hostal.....i love the mountains. added soon!
Cuidense,
Megan
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Cynthia Schmitz
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Wow...what a trip
Wow, Megan. I love the pictures. Looks like a trip of a life time. I'm so glad you and Thea got along so well. You are quite the adventurer getting around so well, figuring out the plane, train, and bus schedules to get to your destinations. I'm not sure I would have been so savvy at your age! Way to go. Talk to you soon...Love, Mom