Friday, November 28, 2014

Cusco and Machu Picchu

From Ica, we hopped on a night bus to head to Cusco. We got into Cusco mid-afternoon and found a good hostel. That night we went out for the final stage of my birthday celebration (I really milked it for all it was worth.) We went and got sushi in the tourist district and it was so good. South American sushi is my favorite kind of sushi because they don't care much for authenticity and the sushi is usually filled with cream cheese. Delicious.



We got the "Dragon", it did not disappoint. Awesome birthday dinner!



The next day we booked our Machu Picchu tour and explored the city. My favorite thing in Cusco is this big indoor market on the outskirts of the tourist area. The market has some tourist shops, but also a meat section with gross dead animals, and a juice section where you can buy freshly-made fruit juice for about $1. (Literally the lady will peel the fruit and blend it right in front of you.) At the back of the market are the food stalls. A full plate of really tasty Peruvian food will run you about $1-$2, it's awesome. Needless to say, we ate here several times. 

Plaza in Cusco

Market in Cusco

Our third morning in Cusco we woke up before 6am and hit the road for Machu Picchu. There are lots of ways to get to Machu Picchu and the more you pay the faster and more comfortable your journey will be. Of course, we spent as little money as possible and the journey took all day.  Step 1 is the van ride. It takes about 6 hours and the road is not paved. About half of the kids in our van got car sick, which made for an unpleasant journey. We stopped for lunch half way and the food was good but I got attacked by sand flies while we ate (they never get Keegan! Just me!) Around mid-day we arrived at the end of the road. From here the van drops you off and you hike for about 5 more hours along a trail. We are fast hikers so we got in while it was still daylight. The hike takes you through a valley surrounded by amazing views on both sides. It is really incredible. The town at the base of Machu Picchu is called Aguas Calientes and it is horribly touristy: the food isn't very good and it is all super expensive (like the cheap beer at every restaurant costs $7, not having that!) But no matter, it is surrounded by gorgeous, dramatic mountains and a river cuts the town in half.

The mountains are so sheer and the clouds and rain make everything look green and mysterious

We hiked mostly along railroad tracks that don´t run trains anymore


Kind of sketchy, but the river was pretty!



Just before we arrived in town

After dinner we pretty much immediately went to bed. This being my second time at Machu Picchu I knew the “trick” to doing it right. There are two ways to get from the town up to the site: 45 minutes hiking which is free or 20 minutes in a bus which is about $25. You can probably guess which one we chose. The next morning we woke up at 3:30am so we could be one of the first in line when the bridge opened to let people on to the hiking trail. The bridge opened at 5 and we hurried to the top. The “trick” is that if you are fast enough up the trail you can beat the first bus load of people and you have the park to yourself for the first 20-30 minutes. We made it up in 30 minutes and were 2nd in line (one cross country runner from Arizona State beat us!) When the park opened at 6 we were the first ones in.

We had a beautiful view once the sun rose

Look at all the suckers in line behind us!

We stayed in the park for 8 hours and Keegan took over 400 photos (don´t worry, only the best make the blog!). I think Machu Picchu is one tourist attraction that can never be over-hyped or quite captured in a photo. It is so stunning, you can sit for an hour just taking in everything.

Pretty cool to get to see it with no people 



We were supposed to take a tour but we were having so much fun exploring on our own that we never bothered to find our tour group. I did remember a lot of stuff from the last time I took the tour, although I'm pretty sure the tour guides just make a lot of it up anyway. We did spend some time eavesdropping on other groups and learned a lot that way.

Rock terraces



Machu Picchu actually wasn´t finished, on the left you can see the rock quarry





Huyana Picchu in the background

The rock walls were so impressive

Windows are really important here because the most sacred god was the Sun God

Keegan really liked the rock walls

they were some llamas roaming


Not everything has been restored yet.




Since we had so much time, we also hiked out to the Incan Sun Gate, which was the original entrance to the city. Definitely not for those fearful of heights, but the view was pretty awesome!

A typical thing to do in Machu Picchu is to climb Huyana Picchu which is the tall mountain in the backdrop of the photos. We tried to get tickets, but they sell out about a week in advance because only 400 people are allowed per day. As a consolation we were able to buy tickets to climb Machu Picchu Mountain, which is actually taller than Huyana Picchu but doesn't have any ruins on it- just a great view from the top. 

Everything is stairs there, we probably hiked 1000 steps by the end, my legs were dead on the way down

We made it to the top! Machu Picchu Mountain

It looked small from way up here!


By 2pm it started to get cloudy. We really didn't want to leave, but we also didn't want to hike down in the rain. We hung out a little longer and then finally headed back down the mountain. We grabbed the cheapest dinner we could find (pizza) and fell asleep early.

Clouds brewing over the guard house

Last look on the way out

The next day we hiked back down and met the van. Keegan is convinced our driver thought he was trying out for NASCAR because he drove like a crazy person. There was also a landslide on the road at one point so that was a bit precarious. Overall, Keegan was certain we were going to die and I took a nap. 

We made it back to Cusco safely and spent a day resting and organizing before jumping on a night bus bound for Bolivia!

Peru was great, but too short. I would have liked to spend a little more time there, but we really want to make sure we have some time at the end for Argentina too so we only hit the highlights. Compared to where we've been, there were SOO many tourists, it was kind of shocking (compared to, say, Colombia where we hardly ever saw other foreigners.) We still saw and did some amazing things and met some great people along the way.. Time for Bolivia! 

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Ica, Huacachina, and Birthday celebrations!

Wow, I am reallllly behind on the blog, but determined to catch up! 

We were pretty dead when we finally arrived in Ica. Like Trujillo, Ica is really just a dirty city but a few kilometers away there is the tiny tourist town of Huacachina. The first day we were so tired we just crashed in a cheap hotel for the night and passed out. The next morning we grabbed a cab and headed over to Huacachina.

Huacachina is kind of a strange place. Ica is squarely in the middle of the desert, but Huacachina is built around a little desert oasis. The town is tiny though. The whole thing could probably fit on a big city block. Hostels and restaurants surround the oasis and otherwise there is just sand dunes as far as the eye can see. Unfortunately, there is nothing but tourism so everything was kind of expensive by our standards.





The first afternoon we decided to book a sand buggy/sand boarding tour because that is kind of the main attraction in Huacachina. We didn´t have the highest expectations for the tour, but it turned out to be incredible. The tour agency did a great job of placing similar people in the buggies so families and kids were in separate buggies and we were paired mostly with the other 20-somethings. We didnt realize it at first, but this meant that our driver could really let loose over the dunes. We dont have many pictures from this because we were holding on for dear life. To give you an idea, it was like being on a roller coaster that was controlled by a 25 year-old adrenaline junkie that was trying to give us a good thrill. Keegan and I managed to grab front row seats which made it even better. There were defintely a few times we thought we were goners, but the driver knew the dunes really well and kept us safe.

So much sand

In every direction

The dune buggy




it was also really windy

The first sandboarding hill was enormous, they sent us down on our stomachs so we didnt die

I think riding on your stomach is actually more fun. Falling on sand is not nice.

Keegan getting ready to ride

Keegan was way better than me sadly

Probably not a textbook position



I never looked this cool because I always came down covered in sand


The sandboarding was really awesome. I´ve sandboarded in the past, but never with a tour agency. There is one really big difference on a tour. When you are by yourself, you have to hike back up the dune each time, when you are with a tour, they drive you back to the top. As it turns out, I prefer the tour method much more.

We left the tour totally wiped out of adrenaline and fully covered in sand from crashing on the sandboards. That night we got milkshakes to celebrate that the next day was my birthday!

For my birthday we just laid low by the oasis and drank coctails. We hiked up the dunes behind town for the sunset and had really amazing views. (One thing they don´t tell you is that for some unknown reason, bees bury themselves in the sand so it is a really bad idea to walk barefoot. We didn´t hear about this, so I pretty much immediately got stung on the bottom of the foot. I have not had good luck with insects!!) That night we jumped on a bus bound for Cusco.

View from the top of the dune of the tiny little town

Sunset on the dune made for some beautiful photos



It was windy though!






We weren´t in Ica very long, but it was a nice stop over to break up a long bus journey and we also managed to have a ton of fun.