Altitude, Attitude, and Alpacas

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I had a lot of bad dreams last night for some reason. Brett said the same thing. I am thinking it’s because of the lack of oxygen up here and our bodies not fully acclimated to the surroundings. I had to use the bathroom a few times during the night and it isn’t as close as our last hostel so it was a cold walk to the bathroom since it is very chilly at night. My leg was still bothering me a little but I woke up and it was much better. There were two dudes who left at 5am to go to the Inca trail today and then there were about four Icelandic girls and Argentinian girls in our room who came back here at like 4-5am as well so it wasn’t all that pleasant of a sleep for the last few hours. I had a dream that Candace told me she was pregnant again, not that that is a bad thing but she told me how much she wanted to drink for Stef’s wedding!!! Brett had a bad dream about Mattcam! We were ready to wake up I think. When I woke up Brett had already showered, something I have yet to do, however it’s only 1500 so it’s not too bad. We got up and spent some time on the internet in the hostel since the Wi-Fi still doesn’t work and I can’t post this stuff to the blog unfortunately! I talked to Mayra a bit; she is going to Ica, a place south of Lima where you can surf in the sand which is pretty cool. Afterwards she’ll come here so I am looking forward to that whenever it happens. Brett and I had some breakfast and chilled out a bit and then decided to go explore a little of the city. It was chilly this morning however it got hot pretty quickly since we are so close to the sun here. We went to find the office of the place that is taking us on the Inca trail hike because when we booked it over the internet, although it seemed very legit, we still had our doubts hahah. We ended up ducking into a hostel type place to ask for directions when we thought we were right on top of it and the guy was like, yeah it’s here. Haha, hilarious. It was legit and we have a pre hike session on Saturday night at 1900. Walking up and down these narrow and often steep streets was a workout in itself. My leg still wasn’t 100% but honestly it was so much better than yesterday. Although it’s not as dodgy as Lima when it comes to traffic, these little streets leave no room for error as you can see in the photos how small the sidewalks are. When a car comes you have to hug the wall! It’s pretty wild but hey, everything takes some getting used to here. Brett and I were joking about how we are dealing well with the travel adversity we have faced thus far haha. There are some ruins outside of Cusco that include Saqsayhuaman which is a pre-Inca ruin site that dates back to well before the Incas and clearly before the conquistadores. We walked up what seemed an endless amount of steps through these small winding, quiet streets lined with bodegas and apartments until we finally reached the top, or the entrance to the ruin site. We met a guy there who owned one of the bodegas, he offers horse tours into the ruins and we get to see three other sites as well. We decided with him that we’d come back tomorrow and do the horse tour then, I wasn’t prepared to be on a horse for three hours today, we had no food or water and I just hadn’t mentally prepared for that type of excursion especially on our second day up in this ancient mountainous oasis. We took some photos and Brett got his cousin an alpaca hat and his mom got a little souvenir also. I still have to do some shopping here for gifts. On the descent from the top of the mountain, we stopped at a very old church that was being repaired out of the current state it was in and we could sit on some benches and overlook the entire city and the surrounding mountains. We talked about how probably not even 1% of the world’s population had done what we were doing just then. It was a pretty cool feeling. After we drank the scenery in for a while we made our way down to the main plaza and thought it would be a good idea to go check out the menu at the restaurant we ate at yesterday since it was so cheap at only 5 soles. They had a different menu today which delighted us and we ate, I had some lamb and Brett some chicken Milanese. Afterwards we walked back up the small street we came up on and realized that the wall we were walking next to was the former Inca palace wall that still stands in the city. The gigantic stones are secured with no mortar, no cement, nothing but extremely precise and delicate workmanship. We took a photo next to the 12 sided stone that remains in the great wall and it was certainly something to see. I bought myself a bracelet from one of the ladies on the street, we talked for a while about how they were handmade and she asked where I learned my Spanish and told me that I spoke very well which is always a great thing to hear, she wanted to know about Chicago and what life was like in the US but as we were doing this the British girls from the condor house came walking up and we bs’d with them for a while. We went on our separate ways after a while and Brett and I took a road that led us right through the middle of an elementary school getting out for the day. Talk about craziness, we were two gringos in the middle of hundreds of little Peruvian children and parents! Definitely something I’ve not experience before, they all wore their uniforms, it was pretty cute. We came upon a Pharmacia where we got some multi vitamins because we were talking and realized that we hadn’t had nearly any calcium or vitamin C since we’d been here. I felt like I should eat some pine needles Bear Grylls style to get my vitamin C count up. We took one right away and made our way back to the hostel to chill for a bit and unload some of the wares we’d picked up along the way. So this is where I am now writing. I’ll update soon and hopefully you all can read this shortly if this GD hostel gets its internet situation together. So we took a little nap and then I woke up and there was a pretty bad thunderstorm happening. I took a hot shower again which was amazing while the rain pounded the roof of the hostel. Afterwards I made some mate de coca, which I think when I leave here I am going to have a bad coke habit, just kidding, this stuff is pretty mild but still helps with the altitude sickness. I drank my mate while I stood on the balcony overlooking the main street. People running from here and there to get out of the rain and when I looked up, the sky cleared to my left and the sun shone a bit, and a huge rainbow formed across the entire skyline!! It was beautiful to say the least. The Wi-Fi in the hostel still isn’t working so we came to this small pizza place on a dimly lit street that is playing the best of the 80s in Espanol and it’s pretty funny. I am not sure what we are going to do tonight but hopefully lay decently low since we have to go on horseback tomorrow to see some ruins. A little side note, and I am not sure why this is the case, but here there are people all over the streets that solicit you for, get this, not drugs, not sex, but massages! There are tons of women handing out cards for massages. Why here? Who knows? I am going to start uploading these photos so the computer doesn’t die. Talk to everyone soon. Love you all.

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Comments

[Tavia]

hi!
thanks for sharing, it's great to see and hear about all that is going on. glad you guys are having an amazing trip! xo.

[Carmen]

Love to Cusco! Enjoy every moment, it's the most radiant place! Live it up, I miss it every day. Thanks for inviting me to the blog, have some ceviche and potatoes for me :) and...a pisco sour