Encounters with the Other Beings... Nazca!

Cuzco, Pisaq, y Mercados Bellos

Cusco, Machu picchu y Salkantay

We can pretty much say that we know southern Peru very well now haha. The past 2 weeks have flown by! Arriving in Cusco, we were immediately shocked at how clean and beautiful (the center) was. We were picked up by this lady in the bus station promising us a hostel for 20 soles a night, an amazing price! We get to the hostel, get all unpacked in our room, and then she demands 20 soles per person! Needless to say, we only staye one night. We had met a really nice 45 year old backpacker who we went out to dinner with and he told us all the stories of his backpacking on 7 continents! Stacen had the most amazing alpaca steak in the world. The guy was very nice, but very clear that he had been travelling alone for way too long...he told us multiple times that he had nothing to go back to in the US.
The next morning we found a cheaper hostel in a 420 year old building with an AMAZING view of the entire city from our room. We spent the day walking around, taking in the sights, and of course, shopping for yet more souvenirs. We had a pretty good day of purchases. But then, that night we created the best 4 topping pizza in the world at this cozy little pizza place: chorizo, garlic, spinach, and avocado! It was an amazing day of food, because earlier that afternoon we had found an all you can eat indian buffet!!
The next morning began our super-touristy 8 days. We had bought a Cusco-Machu Picchu tour package, and so moved to our fancy 2 star hostel, and awaited the arrival of our friends Marissa, Sarah, and Chris. After the hellos were said we took them out to give them a good authentic peru experience. That night we introduced them to Pisco sours, and there are now 3 more Pisco addicts in the world. The next day our official city tour began. We were carted into tourist vans and spoken english to. We were taken to several incan temple ruins, learned how the spaniards really sucked and destroyed everything. One of the sites was called Saksayhuaman, pronounced quite similarly to ¨sexy woman¨. We ended the day with a tour of a silver jewelry making shop and then a tour of the overpriced shop. We were also tought to feel the difference between alpaca, baby alpaca, llama, vicuña (descendants of undomesticated llamas), a mix, and synthetic. The next day was white water rafting! Everyone said it definetly wasn´t the most intense rafting they have ever done, but we all had a great time. Our guide flipped the raft on purpose once, pushed us both out another time, and tought us to literally stand up and dance while doing the rapids. The water was COLD. And all our wetsuits were very used and had holes in them. There was a sauna at camp, which we all had an amazing time warming up in. Then lunch and back to Cusco, where we all collapsed in exhaustion.
The next day began our hiking tour. We took a van into the Sacred Valley and began our hike down a pretty boring road, but the view was gorgeous. We had mules to carry our stuff, so we just had daybags. We had an awesome guide, Alex, and two cooks who were brother and about 4 and a half feet tall. We also had 2 horsemen who also took care of our tents, and never talked to us. That was it. We camped that night underneath several glaciars, and it was COLD. Below freezing. No aliens. We slept well considering, and got up at 5:30 for breakfast and to start our trek, what was to be the longest of the trip, 20 km. We hiked all morning above the treeline until we got to the pass between 2 19,000 ft mountains. We were at an altitude of about 15,000 feet, the highest we´ve ever hiked. Thank god we are already acclimated! We witnessed 2 miniature avalanches, and tried unsuccessfully yodelled to create some more. The whole afternoon consisted of us walking downhill, ending up in the rainforest that evening! The rest of our trip was in the Amazon. We camped that night in a much warmer and greener place, full of very annoying roosters. The cooks served amazing food, especially the popcorn snack every afternoon. We were such pampered hikers it was a little ridiculous. At least we hiked the thing. Day 3 was thankfully flat, lots more jungle. Sadly, we witnessed some rainforest destruction by way of roads and cornfields. We had a break in a place with an extremely aggressive and ugly rooster. We camped that evening in an actual village that had a shower! We got clean, hung out by the river, and by far the most memorable experience of the night, witnessed the slaying, gutting, preparing, and cooking of a pig to feed 2 adjoining campsites. We watched the first 3 steps right before our own dinner, which we didn´t eat very much of. It was even warmer here, and we didn´t need to sleep in our sweaters!
Day 4 we, Sarah, and Alex started up this massive hill covered in coffee and yuca farms. After 3 hours up we got to the top, the truly incredible untouched rainforest, hiked a little more past incan ruins that were enveloped by the forest, to a clearing where we got our first view of Machu Picchu! After a break, we hiked down through intermittent sugar cane fields to the river, and met up with Marissa and Chris at the hydroelectric plant that is right next to Machu Picchu. They had taken the road around the mountain, and a 2 person non-mechanized cable car 150 feet over the river that we still haven´t seen the pictures of yet. We decided to hike the 10 km more to Aguas Calientes (Hot waters), the town everyone who goes to Machu Picchu spends the night in. As you can guess, there wasn´t a single authentic thing there, it was tourist world. We took a HOT shower, ate dinner, and passed out at 9. We had hiked 45 miles in 4 days, all above 8,000 feet!
And then, Machu Picchu! We didn´t hear our wake up call because it consisted of a single knock on the door so as ¨not to wake up the other patrons¨. Nicole got very Latina mean when she found this out, which caused the poor reception girls to be extra nice to us the rest of our stay. We took a bus up the mountain and at about 7, we arrived...in a cloud bank. You couldn´t see a thing. We actually did the famous picture of Machu Picchu with the clouds so you could see. But Alex told us the clouds came and went, took us to the best spot, and we waited while he gave us a history lesson. 15 minutes later the clouds cleared (sorta) and we got the famous picture! We descended the steps and spent the next 4 hours touring the place. It is HUGE, and the reason it is so famous is because it was never found by the Spaniards, so it is in amazing condition. The city was not a regular city, only adults lived there, and it is thought that it was either religious or astronomical (Machu Picchu is perfectly lined up with the sun and stars on certain solstices). But our question is, why would they choose such a cloudy place for astronomical observation? No one knows for sure why it was abandoned, but some amazonian disease is suspected. And of course, they have llamas up there, who pose for pictures!
That afternoon, back in town, we found out that the aguas calientes were not so hot, and the water was kinda gross, so we didn´t go in. We hung out in a restaurant all afternoon playing cards before our train/bus back to Cusco. And thus our fancy tour ended. We have spent the past 3 days doing yet more souvenir shopping, eating amazing food, going to an incredible happy hour that had a classic rock cover band, and digesting. Our friends left this morning, and we have moped around all day trying to figure out where to go next. That is all for now. The trek has been our favorite part of South America, so we aren´t sure how to top it. We´ll be in touch!