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!