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Published: April 27th 2008
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Cuzco Market
Grains, anyone? Cusco (or Cuzco, it has many different spellings) is a beautiful little tourist spot in central Peru. Chris and I spent a total of about 9 days there and loved it. At times the super "touristiness" of it all was a bit overwhelming, but Chris and I usually tried to get out of the center and walk around the outskirts of town, or hike the hills beyond, which were incredibly beautiful, and much less crowded. Cusco had some really exciting markets, great little restaraunts, fun casinos, and we stayed in a hostal the literally felt like "grandma's house." It was just a tiny house with a few bedrooms and every morning we ate breakfast with the family that owned the place. It was quaint and comfortable.
One of our favorite experiences in Cusco was a tour we took through the Sacred Valley. We didn't have the highest of expectations for the tour since we hadn't heard much about it, but it turned out to be majestic! We were on a bus with about 15 other people and we traveled to two different ruin sites, a famous market, and an old church in an area called the Sacred Valley, a perfect
name for the beautiful rolling hills with the river running through. We hiked up to the ruins (in two different cities) with a guide explaining the significance of all the different areas. It was amazing and very photo worthy. I never thought about all the other ruins aside from Machu Picchu that existed around the Cusco area.
Just a few days after our Sacred Valley Tour we left to start our Machu Picchu excursion. I think this was the most astounding four days of my life. Our "hike" started with a 3-hour bus ride to "km 84." After a hearty breakfast along the way, we were ready to start the Incan Trail. We hiked for 8 hours on the first day, passing one ruin site, and 8-hours worth of extraordinary scenery. Our guide was a local Peruvian guy who had a masters degree in archaeology and spoke Spanish, English and Quecha. He was an awesome person to have on the trail with us because he explained the significance of everything we saw and was incredibly knowledgable about the Incan history. By the end of the first day we were pretty exhausted. Chris and I ended up being the only
two people from our group who didnt hire a porter, everyone in the group had a daypack and a camera while Chris was carrying 20 kilos and I had 16. We made it, but at times it was a struggle to keep up! Every night, when we arrived at our campsite there was a tent set up for all of us to have a "happy hour" which consisted of mate de coca ( a yummy Peruvian tea made from the Coca plant), popcorn and cookies. So after taking off our wet and muddy boots, tossing the backpacks on the ground, we would relax with tea and popcorn and play cards until dinner. Our group was an interesting mix of people. There were 5 guys from Ireland, 3 from Australia, two girls from the U.S., on girl from Holland, and, of course, Chris and I. Everyone had been traveling for months and we were all able to swap some pretty fun stories.
We slept like rocks after the first day of hiking and woke up to a 5 a.m. knock on our tent and a peace offering of tea. Although we were camping in the jungles of Peru, it really
was pretty luxury. Tea in sleeping bags every morning, happy hour and great dinners every night. Camping Luxury! The second day was the most difficult day of hiking. We had to cross to passes, the highest-"Dead Woman's Pass" was over 4,300 meters (over 12,000 feet) and the other was about 3,900 meters. We hiked for almost 10 hours that day, and boy, was it cold! At the highest point I swear I felt flakes of snow, or just the coldest rain drops in the history of time. Climbing down the pass we were caught in some torrential rains. We were all wearing our cool rain ponchos, but still soaked to the bone ( I have some great pictures!) Luckily, lunch every day consisted of hot tea, hot soup, and an excellent hot meal. We had a great chef with us and the food was some of the best we've had in South America (like I said before, luxury camping!) The second day we went through two ruin sites, both beautiful and breathtaking. That night we camped at an incredible site too. We were literally on a cliff looking over a gorgeous valley and in the morning, we saw the sun
Cuzco
City Streets rise over snowcapped peaks.
The third day was an easier day of hiking, I think it was only about 4 or 5 hours, and we ended up at a major campsite where all the different groups meet. There was an actual clubhouse here and facilities for showering, massages, and a bar where you could buy beers, gatorades, etc. We also went on a short walk from our campsite to visit the WhinyWhina ruins. Next to Machu Picchu, these were my favorite (also, the only other ruins that weren't discovered and destroyed by the Spaniards).
The last day hiking we had a 3:45 a.m wake up call (without tea!) It was pouring buckets of rain this day and we actually didnt start hiking until about 5 a.m. We hiked with flashlights until the sun came up and then continued on through the mud and rain. This portion of the trail was the first time it felt crowded and we were bottlenecked into a single file line until we reached the Machu Picchu viewpoint. We got to the vantage point where all of those wonderful Machu Picchu postcards pictures are taken from and we pushed our way through to get
to the viewpoint and there it was...a big white wall of fog! We couldn't see 3 feet in front of us and litterally were in a cloud of fog. We took pictures anyway, and then hiked for about an hour down to the entrance.
Machu Picchu was by far and away the most impressive thing I have seen in my entire life. The city is so much bigger than it looks in pictures. It is huge and incredible and all on the face of this mountain, hidden within the jungle. When we first arrived in the city it was still quite foggy and drizzling rain, but as we started walking through the ruins, the fog started to lift and we were struck by utter enchantment. Our guide took us on about a two hour tour of the city and after we were able to spend the late morning and afternoon walking around on our own. Don't worry, we took hundreds of pictures!
After walking through every square inch of the grounds, we took a bus to a local town called Aguas Calientes. As the name suggests, this town is famous for their thermal baths. So, after a hearty
lunch, Chris and I walked up to the thermal baths (right below a waterfall) and soaked our sore muscles in the beautiful little hot spring. It was quite the ending to such an extreme excursion. We decided to stay an extra day in the town and spent the next morning wondering through the markets, drinking coffee, playing cards, and watching movies, at the couch bars that served us, pizza, wine, and popcorn while we sat on a couch watching a movie (totally awesome!)
From Aguas Calientes, we took the 4 hour train back to Cusco and from the train station, walked back to "grandma's house." We spent one more day in Cusco before taking the bus down to Puno, in South Peru, where we had some entirely different adventures!
(Please go to http://picasaweb.google.es/Karibeaner/PeruAwesomeness to see TONS of great photos!)
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