Lima: The City We Didn't See

When booking our trip, I made sure that we had a couple of days to spend in Lima at the end.  Everyone says to skip Lima, but I think that's a mistake.  Who can say no to the ceviche capital of the world?  Not me, that's who.  So I booked a hotel in the Miraflores District.  Look at how beautiful this is:

(via)

I also thought it might be nice to be able to relax for awhile and be able to drink some Pisco Sours without the altitude knocking me over.  I also saw that there were places to dance, shop, and eat.  Needless to say, I had all these wonderful ideas about what we would do with our two days in Lima.

That was all before Mike and I got hit with a stomach virus.  We have different theories as to what it was that did us in, but our ideas both have to do with the water.  I won't get into the details, but all I'll say is that we were in our hotel room for both days.  We were absolutely miserable.  The only time either of us left our room was to go to a shop around the corner to buy water, crackers, and ginger ale.  So much for a romantic time in Lima, huh?

That being said, our hotel was wonderful and if you are looking for a great place to stay in Miraflores, stay at the Mariel.  The best part of the hotel is that they offer an extended check-out.  So we paid the extra $30 to check out at 6 PM instead of noon, which was great since our flight was at midnight.

The only things I have to say about Lima are this: the Miraflores neighborhood is beautiful and looks like it would be a lot of fun to explore, the neighborhood around the airport is the exact opposite of Miraflores, and the drivers in Lima have a death wish.  There were a few moments when I thought we might die going to and from the airport.  I can imagine the following things were going through all the drivers heads:

• Lanes, what are lanes? 
• Turn signals - ha! 
• No way in hell am I going to let that massive bus that has way too many people in it try to cut me off! 
• You just did something mildly annoying so I'm going to lay on my horn!
• Oh, I just grazed the curb with my tire?  No big deal.

And all this was with the help of police officers directing traffic!  Yikes!  Out of all the places I've been, I think Lima had the most aggressive and nuts-o drivers I've seen.

So that was our trip to Peru!  Would I go back?  Heck yes!  Peruvians are some of the nicest people I have met and I would like to see more of their country, especially the Amazon in the north.  If you're given the opportunity to go, take it!  It's an amazing trip and one you'll remember forever.

Machu Picchu & Huayana Picchu (or How I Spent My Birthday)

Machu Picchu.  The crown jewel of Peru.  I spent a lot of time pouring over books, doing numerous Google searches, and asking people about their experiences in order to figure how to get the most out of this experience.  Now that I've done it, I'd like to share my knowledge with you.

Back in March, Mike and I bought our tickets to explore not only Machu Picchu, but also Huayna Picchu.  For those of you going "huh?", Huayana Picchu is the big mountain behind Machu Pichu.  I've circle it in red below so you can see what I'm talking about.

It's as if I can hear everyone saying "oh!" through the internet.

Only 400 people a day are allowed to hike up Huayana Picchu.  The first group of 200 gets to go up at 7 AM and the second group of 200 goes up at 10 AM.  At Machu Picchu only 2,500 people are allowed up in a day.  So I recommend buying your tickets early.  If their website hasn't changed much from the time we bought our tickets, there will be lots of swearing.  For whatever reason, we couldn't buy our tickets using the English version of the site.  Since we had entered in our information three or four times, we knew what was going on when we had to enter it in Spanish.  Also, fun fact, the "United States" is not listed, but rather "Estados Unidos" for the country that issued your passport.  For those of you coming with an American passport, be aware of that.  Another issue to watch out for is that Chase cards do not work with the site.  You need to use a card that has the Verified by Visa option.  Even though Chase cards are,  I think we ended up going with a Bank of America card because that is what people had the most success using.

You can either hike up to Machu Picchu, which I believe takes about an hour and a half (don't quote me) or you can pay about $15 for a round trip bus ticket.  We opted for the bus.  I had read a ton of conflicting information about the bus before we got there.  One source told me I needed to get the tickets the day before because we would be standing in line for hours the morning of, another source told me that the tickets were stamped with the date so we couldn't get them the night before, and other sources had no information at all.  So I ended up asking the receptionist at our tree house hotel.  She said that we needed to be there by 6 if we were to climb the mountain at 7.  And you know what?  She was right.  The timing was absolutely perfect.  The lesson here is to ask your receptionist when in doubt, and then don't have stress dreams about it the night before (I'm looking at you, Mike).

When we were getting our tickets, Mike and I decided to go for the 7 AM time slot.  I read that it was better to do the earlier hike because the sun isn't beating down on you.  We got there a little before 7 and stood in line for awhile while each hiker signed in.  You're also required to sign out when you're done.  I guess it's done so that they can go looking for your corpse if you don't come back.  Initially, I was impatient that it was taking so long for everyone to sign in but in the end I'm glad it went slowly because it meant that all the hikers weren't on top of each other on the trail.

A map of the hike at the area where we had to check in.

I'm really, really glad we went with the early time slot and here is why: it is NOT an easy hike.  I'm in okay shape, but Mike is in really good shape and even he was struggling.  When we got to the top, just about everyone was panting and covered in sweat.  I cannot imagine doing that hike with the sun bearing down on me.  Now, this hike is doable, but only if your body can handle it.  I cannot stress this enough.  There were lots of steep stairs that went strait up.  And you have to come back down the same way.  By the time we got back down, both of my legs were shaking.  If you're going to do this, make sure your body can handle it.

Hiking on up.

The view from the top was absolutely amazing.  It took us about 45 minutes to get up there.  I think the record was 22 minutes .  I couldn't do that if my life depended on it.  In the end, I'm really happy that we did the hike, even if four days later my legs are still sore.  You can't beat this view.

At the bottom of this picture, you might notice a little building that's not Machu Picchu.  When you get the top of Huyana Picchu, there are two levels that you can stop at.  I recommend stopping at the second highest.  There aren't as many people there, which means you can get better pictures.

Since my legs were doing their best imitation of Jello, walking around Machu Picchu was a bit of a struggle for me.  But I soldered through as much as I possibly could.  There are a lot of stairs at the ruins, so after climbing up that bear of a mountain that was the last thing I wanted to see.  However, there were llamas and alpacas running around the ruins and that was high on the list of things I did want to see.  You win some, you lose some.

Llamas!!

We climbed the stairs, walked around, caught bits and pieces from other peoples' tour guides, and just took everything in.  Machu Picchu is absolutely amazing.  It is much bigger than I thought it would be.  The most impressive part to me is how they managed to farm on the side of this massive mountain.  They used leveled terraces.  I'm also impressed at how archaeologists managed to figure out what everything there was used for.  There are so many sites within it.

The quarry.

The sun temple.

The entrance to the city.

See how the grass is leveled?  That's how the Inca farmed.

All I could think while we were walking around the ruins is, "I can't imagine what Hiram Bingham thought when he first stumbled upon these."  To think that these ruins were left untouched for so long is yet another aspect of this trip I have yet to wrap my mind around.  Here is what it looked like when he discovered Machu Picchu in 1911:

(via)

(via)

Mike and I ended up spending about five hours at the site.  I had scheduled our train to take us back to Cusco at about 7, which if I had to do all over again, I would have picked an earlier train.  We had a lot of time to kill before our train left and there isn't a lot to do in Aguas Calientes.  We tried to get our ticket changed, but we couldn't. 

Once we got on the train back to Cusco, things started to go south for me and my travel companion.  I was starting to feel slightly ill and Mike hadn't really eaten at all that day.  To make things worse, the train couldn't take us all the way to Cusco, so we had to catch a bus.  By the time we got on the bus, poor Mike was freezing and I was sorely regretting not bringing dramamine.  We got to back to our hotel to Cusco and poured ourselves into bed, knowing that we were going to have to get up in a few short hours to catch our plane to Lima.  All that is coming up in my next post.

In the Sacred Valley, Part 2

Mike and I went into our next adventure, climbing the Inca granaries, or Pinkuylluna Mountain, thinking it would be good practice for Machu Picchu.  And in a way it was.

Our friends from Orlando told us that you had to go through someone's backyard in order to get there, so we did some guess work with trying to find it.  Luckily, we had an awesome guide helping us.  Here she is in all her furry glory:

Puppy!

It was the funniest thing.  Mike and I were walking down a side street, trying to find the entrance to this place, when this dog just decided to follow us.  Since she wasn't being aggressive, we decided to let her come with us.  We thought that as soon as we started our climb, she'd go home.  But nope.  The little gal stuck with us the entire way up.  She was in better shape than either Mike or I.  She would run ahead of us and then come back if we were taking too long.

When we looked up at the ruins above us, I couldn't decide if the trek up was going to be difficult or not.  Turns out it wasn't.  But the altitude that made it somewhat hard.  I was taking video of us walking up and you can hear me panting.  Our hearts were racing, but we made it to the top.  And the view was amazing.  Because we went up so early, we were able to get awesome pictures of the fortress without a lot of people on it.

Our view from the top.

We hung out at the top for awhile and then decided to head back.  Our furry guide left us about halfway down because apparently we were going too slow for her liking.  She went down with another group that was moving faster than we were.  Mike said it was because she knew we didn't need her help.  After we got back into town, we grabbed our bags and hung out at a cafe for a little while since we had time to kill before our train left.

Mike and I lucked out with our train seats.  Since we had booked them so early, we got to sit in the very front of the first car, meaning that we got a side view and a massive front view since the conductor's cabin was to the right of us.  We were both already very excited for the train ride, and being up front made it that much better.

View from the train.

We arrived in Aguas Calentes around 5:30 and proceeded to check in to our freaking sweet hotel.  We staid in a tree house.  Yep, a tree house.  It. Was. AWESOME!  We were upgraded to a suite, which meant that we had a two-story tree house.  The upstairs is where we slept and it had a killer view of the mountains.  We could see a tiny bit of Machu Picchu.  Our reservation also came with dinner, so we got to eat at the amazing on-site restaurant.  I had cuy for dinner.  Google it.  I won't ruin the surprise for you guys.

Sadly, half way through dinner, Mike started to not feel so great.  He stuck around for as long as he could, then went upstairs to sleep.  Since we were going to be getting up at 5:15 to be at the bus for Machu Picchu at 6, we needed to get all the sleep we could.  Up next, we tackle Machu Picchu at an ungodly hour.

In the Sacred Valley, Part I

I'm a few days behind on posts, mainly because we didn't take our computer to the Sacred Valley/Machu Picchu.  So let's pick up where I left off.

During our last full morning in Cusco, we got up to see a few things before we left for the Sacred Valley.  We started at Hathun Rumiyoq, one of the main streets in ancient Cusco.  It took a little while for us to find it because some roads around it were closed off.  But it was worth finding.  The Inca stonework is impressive and the size of the stones that were used is absolutely jaw dropping.  To think that people carved these stones so they would fit perfectly to the ones around it is impressive.  I don't think that I've fully wrapped my mind around the amount of work that went into making this wall.

To give you some perspective, Mike is 6'1.
And the wall also went down.

Our next stop that morning was the Mercado Central. If you're in Cusco, it is worth the visit. One of the first things you see in the market is rows of women working at juice stands, waving menus at people walking by, trying to lure them into purchasing a glass of juice from them.  Mike and I made a mental note to come back.

The juice stands.

We walked around and looked at all the different products that were being sold.  There was just about everything for sale there,  They had cat food, clothes, and fresh meat and veggies, just to name a few.  It was colorful and jammed packed full of people.  I really liked that there were mostly locals there.  And since it was about lunchtime, there were a lot of people crowding the stalls that served a hot meal.  We picked one that was packed with people, sat down, and had a massive bowl of hen soup.  We were lucky enough to get seats at the counter.  There were rows of benches behind the counter so that many people could eat there.  Our soup was really good, but we defiantly got ripped off by the women running the stall because we were tourists.  Granted, our meal ended up being about $6 for the two of us but it really rubbed Mike the wrong way.  But the lesson we learned was to eat somewhere with posted prices.  As we were walking out of the market, we decided to get some juice before we left.  Nothing beats fresh juice.  It was a nice way to end our market adventure.

One of the stalls serving a hot meal.

Then it was off to the Sacred Valley, or more specifically, Ollyantatambo.  Ollyantatambo was built as an Inca administrative center.  It was also the gateway for the Inca's to the Amazonian portion of their empire.  The city was the only one to resist Spanish attacks.

We took a taxi from Cusco to Ollyantatambo.  Before your eyeballs pop completely out of your head, it only cost about $30 to make the hour and a half drive.  It was a beautiful drive.  The Andes are absolutely amazing.  Mike and I kept saying "wow" every time we turned a corner.

This picture doesn't even begin to do it justice.

I'm glad we made to drive.  We were able to see where the locals in Cusco live, the farms and the people working in them, and what other towns in Peru look like.  Not surprisingly, there is a lot of poverty.  What was really interesting to me is that the women working in the fields wore traditional Andean clothing.

Around 3:00, we arrived in Ollyantatambo.  We checked into our hotel, which was surprisingly hard to find, and then decided to go explore.  On the edge of the Plaza Manay Raquy, which is filled with stalls of women selling souvenirs, there is a massive Inca fortress that towers over the city.  We wanted to climb up it, but it was not cheap.  For whatever reason, you couldn't buy a ticket for just that one site but rather a pass to multiple attractions in the Sacred Valley.  So we turned around and left.

The fortress.

Later that night, after dinner, we went to a bar for a pisco sour.  While we were there, we met a couple from Orlando and one pisco sour turned into three.  Over the course of these pisco sours, we learned that the other set of ruins we saw towering over the city were free to climb.  Now three pisco sours doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're close to 9,200 feet above sea level, alcohol hits you hard.  We decided to call it a night so that we could get up the next morning to climb it.

My next post will focus on our morning climb, our absolutely adorable guide, and our train ride to Augas Calients, the jumping off point for Machu Picchu.

Come to Peru for the...pizza?

Good evening dear readers!  It's been an eventful, and long, day.  Let's get to it, shall we?

As much as I love our hotel, the walls aren't very thick. I woke up around six this morning to people screaming at each other on the street.  I figured I'd just roll over and go back to sleep, but then at seven, one of those bands I mentioned in my previous post started up and did not stop.  Despite my aversion to getting out of bed early in the morning, I decided that there was no way I was going to sleep through the music.  So I got up and grabbed some breakfast.

The first thing Mike and I saw today was the Iglesia y Convento de la Merced.  We were the only people there, which was great.  I love exploring places when no one else is around. The ceilings were pieces of art in themselves and there were Cusquena paintings that lined the cloisters.  The most amazing thing we saw there was a monstrance that had over 600 pearls, 1500 diamonds, and about 22 kilograms of gold.  It stood a meter high and was absolutely stunning.

 The Monstrance (via)

After we finished exploring there, we decided to head back to the Plaza de Armas.  Thoe bands I mentioned earlier were there, along with dancers in beautiful costumes.  It looked like a continuation of the Corpus Christi festival, which was (and still is) confusing to us. We were under the impression that Corpus Christi ended yesterday, but from what I gathered from a Google search, at dawn the day after Corpus Christi ends, there is another procession of five virgins and four saints around the square.  The Saints then go back to the cathedral to receive homage.  I think that the band and the dancers tie into that.  Honestly, I'm still not quite sure I understand all this, so if I'm totally wrong, please feel free to correct me.

Confused or not, the costumes of those passing by us were amazing.  Since the video I took wouldn't upload, here are some pictures:

After the parade was done, we headed a little bit north of the Plaza to check out the Museo Inka.  It has 10,000 artifacts, including mummies.  There were pieces in there that were as old as 8000 B.C.  It was pretty neat to see since I haven't really seen many artifacts that old from this part of the world.  Then we headed over to the Cathedral in the main square.  Let me tell you, the cathedral is much, much bigger than it looks.  There are three parts to the church, and ten smaller chapels in the nave that were incredibly elaborate.  It was one of the more expensive sites to get into, but it was well worth it.

Outside the Cathedral.

After doing our fair share of walking, Mike and I got lunch.  Between a food coma and sleep deprivation, we came back to the hotel to take a nap.  Of course, as soon as we got to lie down, the cleaners came in to tidy our room.  We vacated the room, drank some coca tea, then got bored.  We decided to go check out the Convento de Santo Domingo del Cusco, or Qorikancha, since it's across the street from where we are staying.  Honestly, we didn't expect much.  But to our surprise, it ended up being our favorite place that we went to today.

Qorikancha was the Inca sun temple and one of the most important temples in the empire. The walls used to be covered in gold, but that didn't survive the Spanish's conquest.  The Spanish then decided to build the Church of Santo Domingo on top of the Inca foundations, after destroying the temple they found there. Mike and I had a lot of fun walking around and exploring the Inca ruins and the gardens outside.

Some of the Inca stonework.

The gardens and Cusco in the background.

We came back, took a nap, and then decided to go out for dinner.  After referencing my TripAdvisor app, I learned that one of the best pizza places in Cusco, La Pizza Carlo, is down the street from our hotel.  Fun fact about this part of Peru - the people here love their Italian food.  I've had pasta twice and just about everywhere offers pizza.  So we made the three minute walk to dinner and were not disappointed.  This restaurant only had room for four tables and you got to watch as they made the pizza and put it in the clay oven.  If you're going to Cusco, I highly recommend this place.

It's been a long day.  Mike is currently asleep next to me and I'm trying very hard to keep my eyes open.  Tomorrow we're going to a town in the Sacred Valley called Ollantaytambo. I guess I should get some sleep if I want to go exploring when we get there.  Until the next time I have reliable internet!

Bienvenido a Perú!

Peru!  Oh man, I can already tell that I'm falling in love.   The people are so nice and the food is good.  Granted, I've been here for less than 24 hours so that feeling might change. But I think it will be difficult to change my mind.

On our way...in business class.  Holla!

We landed in Lima last night around 9 o'clock and had someone from our hotel waiting to pick us up.  It was nice to not have to worry about transportation.  After we checked in, Mike and I got into bed, thinking that our flight to Cusco was at 6:00 AM.  I decided to double check and I'm glad I did.  Our flight was actual at 5:20.  So that meant we got about four hours of sleep last night.  Boo.

I've been to my fair share of airports, and I have to say, the airport in Lima is really nice. When we got there at 3:30 (ugh) everything was open.  It was super clean and people felt safe enough to crash on the seats with their backpacks at their feet.  I was afraid it was going to be a bit of a dump like the airport in Rio, so that was a pleasant early morning surprise.

We arrived in Cusco at about 6:00 this morning.  When we got to our hotel, we were greeted with coco leaf tea that's used to help with altitude sickness.  Thankfully, neither Mike nor I have experienced any of that.  We finished our tea, had some breakfast and then headed up to our room to sleep.  I was beyond happy that our room was ready so early.

After we got up, we decided to go out exploring,  We walked over to the Plaza de Armas, which is the main square in town.  There are lots of people trying to sell you something everywhere you turn, but unlike other places I've been, the vendors weren't super pushy. Mike and I got hungry, so we went to a restaurant just off the square and had a late lunch. When we were heading back to the square, we noticed lots and lots of people hanging out around the perimeter.  We were intrigued and decided to check it out.

Turns out today is the end of Corpus Christi, which is celebrated nine weeks after Easter. The Inca had a tradition of parading around ancestral mummies, but when the Spanish invaded, they replaced the mummies with effigies of saints.  The effigies are left inside the cathedral on the Plaza de Armas for eight days.  Then they are then taken back to their churches and accompanied by musicians and firecrackers.

The first effigy we saw.

And the band behind it.  Every effigy had its own band.

This parade was slow.  The men carrying the effigies would march forward, backwards, then stop, put the effigy down on a wooden stand and chill for awhile.  Mike and I got bored with standing around in one place (that and it was chilly and I left my fleece in our room - stupid mistake) so we walked around different parts of the square to get different views.

If you look closely, it says "Viva El Peru" in the mountains.

It seemed like this parade was never going to end.  We weren't bothered by that, but rather impressed that more and more effigies kept coming out of the cathedral.  There were something like fourteen of them.  And since the parade was moving so slowly, it was hard to know when it was going to end.  We started to leave because we thought it was done, but there turned out to be one more.

An effigy coming out of the cathedral.

This was a very cool event to witness.  There were people there of all ages.  I'm glad that we accidentally stumbled upon this.  Tomorrow we're going to go explore Cusco.  I think it's safe to say that we were sidetracked by this.