Travelling Again - The New Continent

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Hola gentes!

Shock horror, another blog so soon after the last one, what next, the wheel?!

We arrived safe and well in Cusco after a mammoth 34 hour journey from Auckland, which included three flights, one delay and many cheap and cheerful fast food meals to keep us upright and coherent (barely). We were keen to put our Spanish lessons into practice and kicked off at Dunkin Donuts at Santiago airport, where we successfully ordered a cappuccino and a sprite without insulting anyone or starting an international incident (gracias profesor Nico!). Anyway sufficient to say that with our confidence building we are loving speaking Spanish to anyone who will listen as we will detail later when Ricardo tortured a poor old security guy at Machu Picchu.

Upon arrival in Cusco (and immediately feeling the 8000 feet altitude) we muddled our way through the airport (accidentally picking up a guy attached to a trolley, thats another story) and made contact with Frank our city guide who whisked us off on a head spinning, vomit inducing whirlwind tour of the city en route to our hotel (oh yes, nothing but luxury for now while we get used to travelling again, just wait till we hit the hostels).

The Cusco Plaza (number 2 no less) is a really nice place just around the corner from the main Plaza de Armas and we will be sure to get some photos of the interior. Settling in quickly, we had a power snooze and then set off in search of various things we've seen in our travelling bible (Lonely Planet - South America on a Shoestring). Little did we realise that this would involve us climbing a hundred steep steps (strangely enough our map wasn't 3D so we had no idea until we got there). To cut a long story short, after lots of huffing and puffing and hearts trying to claw their way out of our chests, we got to the top only to discover the map was not comprehensive enough for us to find what we were looking for! The rest of the day and the next were spent taking more leasurely walks around the city (see we do learn our lessons sometimes).

After being notified of an upcoming strike the night before, our trip to Machu Picchu was brought forward, so on the last day of Feb we got up at 5am and set off on the 3 hour train ride to Aguas Calientes. To say the train ride was spectacular doesn't do it justice (although Viks managed to sleep through some of it - Ricardo was bouncing round like a child at the prospect of finally realising a life long dream of getting to Machu Picchu). We arrived at about 10 and then were herded straight onto buses for the hair-whitening trip up the mountain to the site.

Machu Picchu itself, is without doubt the most incredible thing we've ever seen in our lives (bearing in mind we've seen some awesome things on our travels). From first entering the site, you are just struck by how incredibly majestic it is with its advanced architecture and the everpresent dusting of clouds that play on the tops of all the surrounding mountains. This may sound pretentious, but it really needs to be seen to be believed (we will be posting some photos when we get back to Cusco and there are lots to choose from - we took well over 100 pics and lots of camcorder clips). We started off with a tour guide, which was nice, but after lunch was better, exploring by ourselves. We ventured to the highest point overlooking the city where we had an amazing view, but also found a small herd of Llamas, none of which spat at Ricardo, much to the disappointment of Viks. In the city itself, we visited temples and other sacred sites too numerous to mention, however the one we will mention is Intihuatana - the sun stone. This is the place where an accident took place during the filming of an advert in 2000 and part of the sacred stone was chipped by a crane (bloody foreigners eh). This is also the place Ricardo chased the poor old (and we mean old, he probably helped build the city) security guy trying to ask him a barrage of questions in Spanish about how it was broken and how much was broken off and how big it was before it was broken. The main floor in this was neither Ricardo nor Viks knew the word for broken or crane, this led to the old man trying to describe a piece of security rope to us. After much hand waving and Spanglish back and forth he pointed out a small chip on the top and we went our separate ways, both satisfied at the resolution.

The weather for the day was a mixed bag. It was very cold on setting off, then it rained heavily, and then the sun came out strong enough to burn both our faces a very fetching lobster red. We were treated to an amazing double rainbow though halfway through the afternoon, which led to us scampering through the ruins looking for a suitable spot to take yet more snaps.

All in all it was an incredible day, especially when the site gets quieter later in the afternoon, but now we're exhausted and heading out for supper (we're thinking mexican).

So here we are, signing off for now, hope you enjoyed it (oh and now we're writing again, we expect comments and messages in return hehe).

Hasta Luego!

Rik and Viks

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Comments

[Scott from Sydney]

hey
Aweomse stuff! How long are you guys in South America for? See you in January! :)

[Jayne]

Rik, you describe things very well! I can just picture you tormenting a poor old security guard and Vik being a lovely shade of lobster and falling asleep on a spectacular train journey! Sounds fantastic, you are both much braver than me - I love my 2 weeks holiday but could never do what you guys are doing.x