So when my parents got here a few weeks ago, we hung out in Lima for a few days (I still had to go to classes since I was going to be missing the entire next week.) and they did some tourist-y things like the Mira Bus, which is kind of like the double decker tourist buses in London. They are a really good way to see the sights of Lima without having to pay 10 different cab fares to go to each place on your own. Plus it just has a fun name. :) My parents also took a few days to go down to Ica and Paracas (the trip our group did at the beginning of our time here) and they went to the Ballesta Islands and to some wine and pisco places.
So. They got here on a Sunday night and we were busy busy busy all week with all of that.
Then early Saturday morning, we headed off to Cusco. It was a super early flight and in an atypical Peruvian fashion, the cab driver showed up to my house about 30 min. early. Which meant I got to my parents hotel 15 min. early...which meant they hadn't woken up yet! But that was ok because they were all ready to go and just had to get dressed and wake up a litte. :)
We arrived in Cusco mid-morning and got right out of town...there was a car from our hotel waiting to pick us up. A really nice girl, Kelly rode along with us because the driver didn't speak English. (Which actually wouldn't have been a problem but they didn't know I spoke Spanish.) Anyways, it was cool to talk to her...she is studying to be a tour guide in Cusco. There is probably an abundance of jobs available to her in that particular area! They took us to our hotel in a small town called Pisac, which is in the Sacred Valley. All along the way at the pull-outs there were people dressed in traditional clothes, selling things and posing for tourist photos.
We stopped to take some pictures along the way....the Sacred Valley is simply stunning.
After arriving in Pisac, we had some Mate de Coca (Coca Tea) to combat any altitude sickness. My parents walked around a bit but I was feeling the altitude a little, so I just hung out and laid down for awhile. That afternoon, we went to the Pisac ruin site and Kelly, the girl who brought us from Cusco, showed us around up there. It was a really really cool and pretty well preserved site. There were these enormous sun dials and buildings that are thought to have been used for astrology purposes. There were also a TON of tombs on the hillside across from the ruins...they were basically just a group of holes in the side of the mountain but they covered the whole thing. It was impressive. It was really neat because earlier in the day there were some people at our hotel getting ready for a wedding...a Swedish woman and a Peruvian man were getting married and we saw them leaving. She was dressed in traditional Peruvian clothes and they were going up in the mountains to get married. When we were walking around the ruins, we looked back and heard music and saw that they were getting married right there in the middle of the old buildings and stuff. It was really picturesque and cool. I didn't get a great picture but this gives you an idea...
So we walked around the ruins for awhile and took our time walking back down into the town of Pisac. In the main square, which our hotel was on, there was a kind of tourist market. We had heard that Sundays were the big days for the market there, but it seemed pretty busy on Sat. My mom and I did some shopping for gifts, etc. I bought a really amazing table runner type thing from a little Quechua woman who very enthusiastically explained to me what each color dye was made from and what all of the symbols she had woven meant. I absolutely LOVE the focus on textiles here...as a knitter I feel like I really appreciate the fineness of the work and the amount of time that these people put into making things. (Not that non-knitters can't appreciate it too!!! I just mean that I am EXTRA interested because I love knitting/fiber arts so much.)
Anyways, most of the market was pretty tourist-y and not necesarily the best quality stuff, but I found some good jewelry and other presents so it was a success!
That night was really cool because we were just hanging out in the hotel and all of a sudden heard music playing out in the square. We went to check it out and a bunch of teenagers were gathered around, doing traditional dances. It was so fun and cool to watch...I just wanted to jump in there with them. We watched them for a little while and then things kind of dispersed. People were taking down the market and going home...only to put it all up again in a few hours for the next day....
On Sunday, we woke up and the market was CRAZY. It was about 5 times bigger and extended onto all of the side streets and there was a whole huge section of it devoted to food! It was so cool to just walk through that part and see all of the different fruits and types of potatoes (!!!!!) and other exotic food items.
We did a bit more shopping but then we took off, leaving the craziness of Pisac behind.
While in Pisac the ATM Situation started. Neither my mom's nor my atm card would work in the machines in Pisac. So we had to drive back to Cusco to get money because otherwise we wouldn't have been able to pay for our hotels for the next few nights...
It was kind of out-of-the-way, but it turned out alright and we got money and then headed to Ollantaytambo, a little town that is kind of the stopping point for pretty much everyone who is headed to Machu Picchu. It is a really gorgeous town...the streets are all still paved with cobblestone-y rocks and there is an amazing water system that has survived for hundreds of years and people are still using it!
The main attraction in Ollantaytambo, though, are the ruins. There are some really well preserved ones on the hill right above the town.
We also went to some ruins nearby. The site was called Moray and it was supposedly used to experiement with different elevations for growing different plants. There are some people though who really don't subscribe to that theory. Its interesting to talk to people who are from Ollanta or have studied a lot about the Incas because they often have really different ideas and theories than the ones that are presented to tourists.
After spending two days (I think...) in Ollanta, it was off to Machu Picchu. But we decided to go the "back way" there, which not many people do. The owner of the horal we were staying at is actually from MN and he moved to Ollanta about 6 years ago and now has a hotel and takes people on mountain biking trips. So. He drove us up to a pass that was a little ways from the town. At the top the pass was about 14,500 ft. and it was COLD (a sensation I hadn't experienced in a long while...) and there was snow! It was really foggy and eerie because you couldn't see beyond the next curve in the road. We started mountain biking on the road from the top and planned to go all the way to a town called Santa Maria at the bottom of the mountain. The first section of the road was really really eerie, like I said....there was all this fog and I just could not believe that I was flying down a mountain on a bike!!! It was scary but exhilirating and really really fun. The first third of the road was paved, which was really nice. The only REALLY scary thing was that there were a ton of huge tour buses and trucks that would come along the road and they aren't very respectful at all of bikers. They kind of drive in the middle of the road and come around curves at insane speeds so you have to be really really careful as a cyclist. But luckily we didn't have any problems with that and there wasn't much traffic on the morning we were doing it. So we biked for a few hours and eventually the pavement turned to dirt road. Which would have been fine...except that it was really washboard-y. We finally made it to our lunch spot, which was another ruins site and we ate lunch there, along with a lot of other people who were also biking down. WE had dropped about 7000 ft. from the beginning of the ride at the top of the pass!!! Ourguide, KB, said that the bike ride between the ruins and Santa Maria wasn't that exciting so my mom and I decided to get in the van (there was a van that followed us all the way down so we could stop and take off coats, etc. and not have to carry them.) and we rode to Santa Maria while my dad biked there.
When we got to Santa Maria, we split up with KB and the van drove us on to a town called Santa Theresa. This was supposed to be a quick 45 minute drive....that ended up taking about 2 hours. It was on one of the most scary roads ever, just a little dirt road with room for one car clinging to the side of a mountain. I was really thankful we had a very good driver...
There are some thermal baths in Santa Theresa that we wanted to visit, but it was getting dark and starting to rain so things weren't lookig good. When we finally got to town, it was pouring and totally dark out. We pulled up to a hotel (which apparently is the only decent hotel in town.) But it wasn't the one my mom had made reservations at. After asking around a little, we found out that my mom had made reservations at a place by the thremal baths, which were 20 min. outside of town and we would have had to walk 20 min. from the baths to the hotel. In the dark. And rain. (Its really too bad because it probably would have been a really cool place to stay.) They luckily had one more room at the hotel we were at, so we just decided to crash there for the night. We were sort of bummed about not getting to do the thermal bath thing...but it was ok.
So then we were trying to figure out how to get to MP the next day. We'd heard about 5 or 6 different stories about when a train ran from Santa Theresa to Aguas Calientes (the town right below MP) but when we asked we found out there was only one that they allowed tourists to take at 3 in the afternoon. We wanted to get to MP early so that wasn't going to work...instead, the next day, we had to get a taxi to a hydroelectric plant(where the train station is) and we walked along the train tracks to Aguas. It only took about two hours and we started right when it was light out, so we got to Aguas at about 8:30 in the morning. It was actually a really fun an gorgeous hike, although a little hard on the feet because we were walking on rocks and railroad ties the whole time.
When we finally got to Aguas, we found our hotel, dropped our bags and ran to get tickets for MP. We got on the next buses up at about 9:30-ish. It was crazy how many people were there. I knew that there would be TONS but it was still kind of insane to see how many people actually do go there. I am happy that people really appreciate these kinds of things, but also a little sad because MP is being damaged by the amount of tourists they are letting in. 2500 every day. I read somewhere that studies have shown that MP should ideally only have 500 visitors a day in order to avoid permanent damage to the site. Obviously that is not happening and I really hope they find some way to control the numbers because it would really really really be a shame to lose such an extremely beautiful and special place.
Ahhhh...Machu Picchu. I wasn't expecting to like it so much, especially given the whole tourist factor and the fact that it is so hyped up...I wasn't really sure if it could live up to it all. But it did.
The main city is just fantastic! Its really well-preserved and just amazing to walk around and think "These walls were built by the Incas! They were built by REAL people hundreds of years ago!" Its one of those things that is kind of hard to wrap your head around. So we wandered around the main sites for awhile and then we took a hike to the Inca Bridge which is this insane bridge on the side of a cliff. Those Incas sure weren't afraid of heights...
After that we started hiking to Inti Punku, which is the Sun Gate. Its kind of the entrance point to MP for people hiking the Inca Trail. My dad wasn't feeling well so he stopped to rest for awhile and my mom and I kept going. After a looooong time my mom turned around to check on my dad but I REALLY wanted to see it, so I kept on hiking. It was kind of misty/rainy and a little cold. The whole time I was thinking, "How ironic! I am hiking to the SUN Gate in the rain. Lovely." I FINALLY got there and it was really cool. Although it was incredibly foggy so I couldn't see much. I was just happy to have made it but also happy to have some alone time. There was nobody else up there and it was great to be able to experience MP without 2500 of my closest friends crowded around...:)
Anyways, so I stayed for a little bit and then decided to head down. Just as I was going down the trail, I looked up and the clouds parted PERFECTLY and I had an insanely perfect and gorgeous view of MP. It was so beautiful....a really magical moment. I was just so happy and amazed to be there! I've never been so glad to have hiked somewhere.
When I got down, my parents and I hung out for a little longer and then took the bus back down to Aguas. Unfortunately, my dad was feeling even worse, so he just slept and my mom and I went out for coffee/dinner.
The next day we took the train back to Aguas Calientes in the am. Its hilarious because in Aguas, to get to the train station you have to pass through the tourist market. They have a HUGE sign out front saying "TRAIN STATION --->" so you follow that into the market and then they have a smaller sign with a more vague arrow direction and then there are no signs at all. So basically they want you to get lost in the market and buy a bunch of stuff before you leave...hahaha.
Back in Ollanta, Dad still needed to rest and just lay low for awhile so Mom and I had more coffee and just kind of hung out, reading, writing in journals, etc.
The next day he was feeling better, so we went horseback riding! Probably one of the most frightening horseback rides of my life. I thought the horse was either going to break a leg or I was going to fall off because we basically rode straight up a cliff. It was a gorgeous ride, though, and at the top our guide showed us some mummies in a cave that he'd discovered. They are just sitting up there on the mountain...it was so weird but cool!
The rest of the time in Ollanta is kind of a blur. We had lots of coffee and watched some of the Easter festivities and just bummed around until it was time for us to go back to Cusco.
We spent the last day there, just walking around and exploring. My favorite thing was the Center for Traditional Textiles, which is a place where they have indiginous people come in and do weaving demonstrations and they have a small museum and you can buy woven things there. I bought 2 skeins of the MOST gorgeous alpaca yarn. Which made me very very happy! :) I haven't knit anything since being here...
We also saw this dance/parade thing that was being put on for Easter. There were all these different groups doing dances from different areas of Peru. It was fun to watch and really really colorful...a beautiful sight.
I really liked Cusco, despite its touristy-ness. There are a lot of really persistent street vendors and you are basically accosted every minute to buy everything from Coca candy to sweaters. Its really the only part of Cusco I didn't like.
The next morning, we caught an early flight back to Lima. The adventure was over! :(
It was a really fantastic trip, though. I'm so excited that I get to go back there in 2 weeks!!!!!!!
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