Sooo sorry that I have been slacking on my blogging! The week after being back from Machu Picchu I had a lot of school work and even some more traveling to do. Luckily, I wrote down my adventures as they happened over spring break so I'll try not to miss a thing.
Day 1: We flew in to Lima and has our connecting flight to Cuzco shortly after. We almost missed our connecting flight because the gate wasn't listed correctly on our tickets and we boarded at last call. We got to our hostel around mid afternoon and it was pretty nice. Each room had two beds and a private bathroom with hot water. Yes, these amenities have become a special thing for me now while hostel hopping. The caretaker made us coca tea when we got there because it's supposed to help with altitude sickness. The tea is made from the coca plant and you all know what the coca plant is used to make??? If you are thinking cocaine, you're right! Don't worry, the leaves are harmless and are used for a variety of things. Apparently to extract the stuff to make cocaine you have to break down all the other substances in the leaf and just get out the one ingredient you need.
On to things that don't make you think I'm going to turn in to a drug dealer... We went to the local markets and I saw SO MUCH that I wanted to buy. Peru uses soles as their currency and one sol is equivalent to 2.6 dollars. They overprice everything to make up for the difference. Example- one bottle of water was 5 soles. We had a meeting at 6pm to prep for our Machu Picchu journey and then we called it a night since our biking trip started at 6am the next morning.
Day 2: BIKING!
We drove for about 2 hours to the place where we started biking. It was all down hill to get to the base of the mountain that we were going to hike the next day. The biking lasted for about 4 hours and was relatively easy. A few parts so very rocky and a river overflowed across the road a various points. I was soaked after riding through the river but it was hot outside so it felt nice. My butt was very sore after biking the whole afternoon [sorry for the TMI]. We ended up in a little town called something I don't remember [Santa something]. Our hostel was pretty normal; communal rooms, shared showers, cold water... blah blah. We ate dinner and all hung out in the hostel.
Day 3: DIED HIKING
This day was our 22Km (12mile) hiking day. This first part of the morning 9after the foot path) was uphill through the Inca train [that actual Inca messengers used to run on] and it was pretty tiring. The view was incredible! We found some wild maracuya (passion fruit) and it was the best tasting fruit I've ever had.
Next we stopped at a house that sold snacks and water and there was a tied up monkey. Even though I love monkeys, I refused to play with it because the family literally kept it tied up on a three foot leash. It was obvious that it had been tied up for a long period of time because the fur around where the leash was had fallen out. I felt really bad for the monkey and I was kind of mad during this portion of the day. As long as dumb tourists like us keep showing local families that they can get more money and attention at their stores for having wild animals, then they will continue stealing these animals from their homes and keep them tied up. Okay I'm done with my animal activist rant...
At the end of the day we arrived at hot springs. I really needed the soak in the hot springs after walking all day. After this we drove to another small town and checked in to our hostel. The hostel was entirely communal and there were some sketchy other tourists there. The second part of my group got a better hostel so my friends and I switched to their hostel. The second hostel was much nicer and I felt very safe there.
Day 4: ZIP LINING
We were in the town Santa Teresa. We woke up early to prepare for zip lining and headed out to the area. There were 6 zip lines that we went on and there were no rules. You could start upside down, twirl around as you zoomed through the air etc. I love not having any rules to follow! Sorry mom, I don't mean to freak you out! It was completely safe though, I promise...
We then had a 3 hour hike to the town of Aguas Calientes below Machu Picchu. It was an easy hike on a footpath and the town is beautiful!
Day 5: MACHU PICCHU!
We woke up at 4am to head out for our hike up to Machu Picchu. It was rainy and a bit chilly. The walk up consisted of 1000+ stairs and I was so tired by the time we got up to the ruins around 6:15am.Unfortunately, we missed the sunrise and it was very foggy and cold when we got up there. Since pictures were a no-go, we sat around and drank hot chocolate while waiting for the fog to go away. At about 9, it finally cleared up and we began to warm up. We started our way around the beautiful ruins.
After seeing the ruins we got to hike up the mountain next to the site called Machupicchu Mountain. Only around 500 are alowed to climb it a day and we were the lucky ones who could [after paying $10]. The hike lasted about 2 hours and it consisted of even more steps at an even higher incline. The view from the top was breathtaking. Being Good Friday, I broke away from my group and got to pray while looking over the landscape. It was a very moving moment and I was so lucky to be able to be there.
I was all up for riding the bus down to town after we hiked back to the ruins but we didn't bring enough money. We basically ran down the stair filled path so we could eat lunch before our train left at 6. My feet were killing me at this point and my socks were bloody from my blisters.We made our train and the ride was very nice. We ended up back at our first hostel after a bus ride.
Day 6:
It was a seemingly normal day. We did a little more walking around the city, ate lunch, came back to our hostel to double check that our plane was departing at 6pm. Turns out they changed our flight to leave at 3:45pm. We saw this change at 3... needless to say, we got the first taxi to the airport and hoped for the best. When we arrived at the airport we told one of the airline employees what our problem was and he told us that the flight was done boarding but he'd see what he could do. Without boarding passes and without going through more than a metal detector, he led us to our plane. As we were boarding the man took our not-so-checked luggage and told us to sit in any open seat.
We had two short layovers but stayed on the plane. I started to feel wired in the air of the last leg of our trip and even worse when we landed in Lima. After feeling the "oh no I'm about to puke" feeling, I ran to the nearest guard and asked ever so quickly where the closest restroom was. I was so close, yet so far. To my horror, I vomited at the entrance of the restroom... After drinking water it happened twice more and for the rest of the 9 hour layover I was running to the restroom for the opposite reason. I was pretty miserable and exhausted when it came time to board our flight to Quito at 5:45am.
The flight was quick and we got picked up at the airport. When I got home I slept for about 10 hours, went to church with my host mom [it was Easter] and then slept some more. I have no idea what made me sick since I ate the same lunch as other people who were fine. Even with the sickness, it was still the most amazing trip! I am so happy and blessed that I have been able to go on so many adventures during my trip.
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