Arrival, Cusco and Machu Picchu

AH I cannot believe I am here already! I wanted to post before I left, but the month I had at home which I thought would seem like forever actually went by super quickly. It honestly seems like a week ago that my friends and I were sticking tacks onto the map on my bedroom wall, deciding all the places we wanted to go on our South American adventure. Even when we were doing the actual planning for the trip it seemed like it was so far away, and it didn't actually hit me full on that I would be spending the next 6 months here.

Anyway...before I get into the million things we've already done in the past 3 days, I guess I should explain the (two-fold) purpose of this blog. First, I'm awful at e-mailing, but I want my family/friends to know what and how I'm doing down here and I figured this would be a perfect way (plus I can post pictures and blogs are prettier than e-mails). Second, even if no one except myself ends up looking at this, I will be extremely happy to have evidence of this incredible opportunity that I have. I've been really fortunate (largely thanks to my parents!) to have traveled to a bunch of really cool places in my life, and every time I go away I always promise myself that I will keep a journal but I always end up forgetting about it or getting too lazy. So I hope somehow that knowing that this is potentially going to be read by other people will compel me to keep writing about my experience.

Okay, where to start? I guess my departure began on Saturday when I took a bus up to New York so that I could stay the night with Layla (my roommate) who lives just outside of the city. We left from JFK Sunday night and fortunately my perpetual bad travel luck was non-existent and we got through Lima and then to Cusco without any problems. The view of the mountains on the flight from Lima was incredible. When we got to the tiny airport in Cusco on Monday morning we were greeted by (almost) the rest of our group, which included Maggie, Laura and Liz (all friends from school, it was great seeing Liz who's been in Argentina for the past 6 months) and Alex (Maggie's friend from high school who goes to UNC). After being hounded by about a hundred taxi drivers and women selling coca leaves (to help adjust to the altitude) we found the driver sent from our hostel which was only about 15 minutes away from the airport. Cusco is a small city nestled in the mountains. It kind of reminds me of San Jose in Costa Rica (where Layla and I spent a few days last summer), except with these crazy mountains in the background. We spent the rest of the day walking around the city, trying to figure out booking train tickets up to Machu Picchu and ate at some cool restaurants (where you can get a three-course meal for about US$ 5).

On Tuesday we got up very early (okay maybe 5:45 isn't early for some people but it is for us) and took a train up to Aguas Calientes, which is a small town right near Machu Picchu. I wish we could have stayed there for more than one night, everyone was really friendly and the surroundings were absolutely beautiful. Apparently about 15 years ago the town was basically non-existent,but tourism from Machu Picchu has been really beneficial (you can tell, there were about 6 different construction sites in a town probably about a quarter the size of Wyomissing). After eating lunch we asked what there was to do around town, and the owner of our hostel told us that if we wanted to go for a hike we could take a nearby trail up to a view of Machu Picchu from this mountain called Putucusi. We were all up for some exercise so we found the trail even though it was kind of hidden and started up the mountain. About 15 minutes in we got to this ladder hammered into the side of the mountain which was at least a 320 foot completely vertical ascent. And it had just been raining. But, being the young adventuresome people that we are we decided to keep going, only to run into 3 more of those ladders (except they were shorter). I'm definitely not in great shape, but I though I was at least in decent shape. Nope. (although we've decided to blame the altitude for our collective lack of stamina). After about 2 more hours of pretty intense hiking, a few breaks and a lot of thinking about just turning around, we finally rounded the corner at the top to find this indescribable view of Machu Picchu that was more than worth the hike. It was honestly straight up out of National Geographic/the cover of your 7th grade Spanish textbook:

Self-timed of us at the top

After our hike down we took some freezing cold showers before heading to dinner and then going to bed early so we could get up at 4:45 (!!!!) to take a bus up to Machu Picchu. Again, words really can't describe how incredible it was. I didn't know much about the sacred site before we got there, but it was apparently very secretive and exclusive to a certain portion of the Incan population. I was in disbelief as to how an entire city and society could be built in such an obscure place that is literally among the clouds. Later in the morning we did another pretty strenuous/precarious hike up a mountain called Waynapicchu which was made even harder by the insane weather in the mountains (it will go from warm and sunny to rainy and 10 degrees cooler, then back to warm and sunny in a matter of 30 minutes). It was worth it though, since we got another amazing view of Machu Picchu from above as well as got to see some more ruins.

Needless to say we were exhausted afterword so most of us passed out on the train ride back to Cusco later yesterday afternoon and fell asleep pretty early last night. This morning we slept in and then went out and explored the city a little bit, ate lunch at this restaurant with a panorama view of the mountains and found an area of town with lots of artisans. In other words we went into a bunch of little stores where we were tempted to buy jewelery, bags, clothes, etc. ("Oh but it's so cheap in US dollars, why not!?"). Oh, and apparently it's "carnaval" here, so we were attacked (I kid you not) 4 different times by little kids with water balloons. I'm pretty sure it's just because we're a big group of blatantly foreign people.

Now we're about to head out to the center of town for dinner and to meet up with some American friends we made at the hostel who we also hung out with at Machu Picchu. Tomorrow we're heading down to Puno (south of Cusco but higher up in the mountains) which is on lake Titicaca and supposed to be beautiful.

Hope everyone at home/school is doing well, besos!!!