Cusco and Machu Picchu!

We left Chile for a morning flight to Lima on Thursday, Christmas Eve. After landing in Lima we had another flight right out to Cusco, and we arrived in Cusco around 1pm. We had booked a nice hotel to spend Christmas in through my sister's credit card points, and it was beautiful. It was so refreshing to have comfortable, big beds! After resting a little in the afternoon to get used to the altitude we walked around Cusco. There were a lot of people in the city for Christmas, and the Plaza de Armas was filled with vendors selling last-minute Christmas gifts. After walking around we met up with my friend Anna Maria, a fellow exchange student from Finland who lived in my house during the semester. Anna Maria and her family arrived in Cusco that same day and we had plans to do our 3-day treck to Machu Picchu with them. We had a nice dinner of Al Paca steak and then Christy and I walked back to go to bed in out nice hotel. Soon after that we were woken up by tons of fire-works being shot off at midnight! In Peru, we were surprised to find out that Christmas Eve is almost comparable to our celebration of New Years Eve. People celebrate the turning of midnight drinking and setting off fire works, and they open presents and party with their families until dawn!

The Cathedral in La Plaza de Armas, Cusco

The streets were quiet on Christmas morning but Christy and I woke up and headed to mass in the cathedral. There were so many people inside the church, and masses were being held every hour! Outside of the church groups of people where dancing in costumes. Inside, Christy and I luckily found a seat. The mass was really interesting and all the families brought the baby jesus from their manger scene in a basket to be blessed by the priest after mass. After mass, Christy and I called our parents and brother to wish them a Merry Christmas, had a nice lunch and explored the city a little more. We shopped around and found the 12-angled rock in a stone-wall that was used by the Incas. We also met up with our guide for our treck to Machu Picchu to start planning for the start of the treck the following day. After a nice dinner of my favorite dish, ají de gallina, we went to bed early to rest up for the upcoming 3-day treck.

The treck was nothing short of an adventure! We got picked up around 8am and met Anna Maria´s family again in the van as well as 3 hikers from Switzerland who would only be with us for the first day (they were being brave and doing the 4-day treck). I was a little worried before even beginning the treck about our guide, since some of my friends had already done the treck with her and said she was a little unorganized and unprofessional. Nevertheless, after loading on about 11 mountain bikes on the top of the mini-van we started the long, scenic drive through the mountains. We stopped in Ollantaytambo for a bathroom break, where I accidently left my phone in a little shop! Luckily, though, the wonderful woman who worked there came out of the store with my camera looking for me. It was quite a close call! We proceeded on up the mountains and stopped two more times to give some food and old clothing to very poor children and their parents. At the top of the mountain, in the freezing cold, as it began to rain, is where the treck begins.

The children gathering around the van for food on the way up the mountain

We all got on our bikes and rode down the entire mountain. The first 2.5 hours was winding around the mountain on a little highway, staying to the side of the road so that we wouldn´t get hit by a car. It started to rain harder, through my poncho and soaking my jeans. Just about every time the rain slowed up, we would come across a small waterfall coming down the side of the mountain that passed right over the road. The first time spotting one I hesitated on what to do, but those in front of me yelled ¨Just pedal quickly and lift up your legs as you go through it!¨. As you can probably tell, my pants never dried! After the highway ended and turned into a bumpy dirt gravel road, we stopped for our packed lunches and continued down the new path. It was a bumpy ride but after about another hour and a half we made it to a tiny town where we got in the van to drive to Santa María. We dropped off our new Swiss friends since they were to spend the night in Santa María and eventually got in the van to try to make it to our next destination, Santa Teresa. Here is where the real problems started.

After driving for 5 minutes we reached a backup of cars and realized that the road was being worked on. Since it was the rainy season and the rains that day were clearly strong, part of the road was covered in a huge pile of gravel and rocks since part of the cliff of the mountain had fallen down. There was a bulldozer trying to plow through the mounds but it was making barely any progress. After waiting for almost two hours and listening to our guide tell us the road would be cleared soon be retreated back to Santa María to figure out what to do next. Our guide had really only been speaking in Spanish the whole time, even though she originally had agreed to speak in English since Anna María and I were the only Spanish-speakers of the group. She continued to tell us that our only option to get to Santa Teresa was to take the ¨alternative route¨ which would be going up over a different mountain and that we could choose to go that night or wait for morning. After talking it over we chose to wait that night, which was the worst decision we could ever make!

We left soon after with a young boy driving, who probably was about 15 years old. The route was winding around a mountain on a dirt pathway literally on the edge of the cliff with no fence or guard-rail. We had to repeatedly ask to slow down and had to get out of the car twice, fearing out lives as the driver was stuck in the mud and had to back up to the edge of the cliff. On one of the stops we encountered another car coming towards us and had to let the car go past before proceeding on. After the first stop we realized how completely crazy it was to be driving up this road in the middle of the night and after the second Anna María and I started to yell at the guide, telling her that the ¨alternative route¨ was never a real option and she was crazy to take us on it! Interestingly enough, neither the guide nor the driver were too concerned and we continued on. Tied with the experience stuck in a storm on the Amazon River in Iquitos, this was the closest to death and most frightened I have ever felt! We finally made it up the hill to an area where the road was not wide anough for a car, since some of it had deteriorated away in the rain. All 7 of us got out and crossed the little pathway on the cliff with flashlights and belongings in hand. A car was waiting for us on the other side, and somehow my nightmare ended when we arrived safely in Santa María after the whole 2 or 3 hour process.

Waiting for the bulldozer to try to plow the fallen road

The events of that night put a damper on the rest of the treck and especially annoyed us with the guide, but the next day was better. We woke up and went to the hot springs near the town. The town is beautiful because it is in the middle of enormous, grass-covered mountains. The hot springs were relaxing and were pools filled with naturally hot water from beneath the mountains. After relaxing, we proceeded on to our hike. We hiked a total of 6 or more hours that day, stopping for lunch at the entrance of the Machu Picchu reserve and walking along train tracks for the entire second half of the walk. At one point we tried to board the train while it was stopped, but we were kicked off since you need to buy tickets back in Santa Teresa. We had sent our belonging along on the train, though. We finally made it to Aguas Calientes, the small town at the base of Machu Picchu slightly after darkness hit. The coolest part of the day´s walk was when we got close to Aguas Calientes our guide Abigail pointed out the back-side of the Machu Picchu and Wayna Picchu mountains. Once in Aguas Calientes, we saw our hostel that had clean bathrooms, a step up from the last one, and we ate a nice dinner together. Unfortunately, Abigail was mixed up again and we had to wait until after 10pm to retreive our luggage from the train station. Very frustrated with Abigail, we were relieved to say our good-byes as she left for Cusco the next morning and we would have a different guide scheduled for inside Machu Picchu. We finally were able to shower and went to bed as soon as we could!

Baños Termales in Santa Teresa

About to cross the first of many scary, shaky bridges on the trek, day 2

The next morning we woke up bright and early at 4am to hike up Machu Picchu for sunrise. It was a grueling hike up steep stairs, but it was well worth the feeling upon reaching the top. The view from the gate of the surrounding mountains still covered by the hovering morning clouds was breathtaking. We were one of the first in line for the entrance to Machu Picchu, which opens its gates at 6am. We were allowed in and were among the first 400 to enter and thus received access to hike the Wayna Picchu mountain. It was an unbelievable feeling to have earned the viewing of such amazing ruins, and it was quite a different feeling from the last time I went when we took the train. The clouds were still hovering around the ruins but eventually cleared up and we had pretty good weather for the day. We first had a tour of the ruins, learning they were discovered my an American Hiram Bingham in 1911. We also learned that most of the gold and artifacts collected from the site at on display at Yale University instead of in Cusco. How unfair! The Incas abandoned the site when the Spanish started to invade, and the Spanish new found the site although they had heard of it. The tour was very interesting and we walked through most of the ruins.

View from the hike up Machu Picchu at sunrise

Inside Machu Picchu, overlooking Wayna Picchu mountain

Exploring the ruins of Machu Picchu

After taking a bathroom break and a rest, our time slot came to hike Wayna Picchu! Wayna Picchu is the steep mountain on the other side of Machu Picchu and we were a little nervous of more hiking - especially when we saw an empty body bag and a stretcher waiting at the entrance! We hiked basically strait up for about 40 minutes and certainly felt that it was worth it when we saw the view from the top. The ruins looked totally different, and you could see the many layers of agricultural rows. Hiking back down Wayna Picchu was a process and when we finally got down we rested and finished the rest of our packed lunches. We spent the rest of the day sitting on the opposite side of Machu Picchu were we overlooked all the ruins from the post-card view side. Before you knew it, all 5 members of Anna María´s family, Christy, and I were all napping in the grass. It was the perfect day. We finally left the mountain around 4 or 4:30pm and decided to take the bus down, rewarding our hard work from the day. It was really nice to get to do the hike with Anna María and her family, who make great company.

The amazing view of Machu Picchu from the top of Wayna Picchu

The Finnish family, Christy, and I after our nap

We waited around for a while for the train back to Ollantaytambo since the schedule had changed, and finally boarded the train at 9pm. After some trouble in finding out arranged transportation in Ollantaytambo we found the van and drove back to Cusco. At this point I was really not feeling good and had a sore throat, probably from all the events of the past few days. We finally arrived in Cusco, where Christy and I took a taxi to our supposed hostel for the night. We had made plans with the hostel to stay there Monday and Tuesday night since we needed to switch from our luxurious hotel, but when we got there a different boy was working who told me he had no such plans written down. He also told me the price was much higher than I had been told originally, saying it was New Years prices. Frustrated, we left the hostel and roamed the streets for a little while looking for another hostel. Realizing it was 1am and we didn´t have many options we returned back to the hostel, and I resorted to arguing with the body in tears. He refused to lower the price but said he would call his friend´s hostel. We finally arranged to go there, and took a taxi there. It ended up being the grossest, most over-priced hostel ever! But we slept until 1pm the next day catching up on our rest, aftering being oddly woken up at 7:30am when the man who worked there had to ask us a question.

The next day we decided to relax and have a nice lunch. In the late afternoon we took a taxi up one of the surrounding mountains to where there are a bunch of Incan ruins. We got a tour of Sacsayhuaman, the ruins of an Incan temple that was partially destroyed by the Spanish. We also walked up to the white statue of Jesus that overlooks the city of Cusco. The views of the city were beautiful. Of course, we had to deal with a few more hostel problems when we tried to switch hostels that afternoon. They told us that since we had agreed to stay two nights, we would have to pay for two. After some more arguing (and on the bright side, some more practicing Spanish) Christy and I finally had no choice but to stay there the night. We yet again ran into a problem when the hostel did not have the laundry we had given them ready that night. We waited until they could somehow retrieve it, since our flight left early the next morning.

At the entrance to Sacsayhuaman

The view of the city of Cusco

After almost a week filled of many difficulties and frustrations, the overall experience of Cusco and Machu Picchu was an amazing, unforgettable journey. The next morning, Wednesday, we left early for our flight to Lima. I was relieved to finally be going ¨home¨ and to show Christy my home for the past 6-months.