Friday adventure...last stop Chinchero!
Trip Start
Jun 16, 2009
1
9
22
Trip End
Jul 07, 2009
Chinchero, Peru
Friday, June 19, 2009
We arrived in Chinchero around 5:30, and thanks to our guide´s warning from our city tour, we packed warm clothes. That time of night and that high up in the mountains, it gets very cold at night. Here we saw a really neat demonstration of how Peruvian women wash, dye, and weave Alpaca (and llama and sheep) wool into the amazing blankets, scarves, and clothing that they sell.
We took one more uphill walk to an incredible church that sat at the top of the town. Here we were able to see a very interesting blend of Inka and colonial Spanish architecture. Our guide said something really interesting at this point in the trip. He was talking about how unique Peru is because they are a dominantly Catholic nation, but at the same time they embrace and still celebrate Inca culture and religion. It´s pretty fascinating and I think I´m going to investigate it more.
When we returned to our hotel (around 7:30pm) we quickly ordered room service for dinner, showered and headed out to meet Lana one more time before they left for the Inca Trail in the morning. Before we left, I was able to quickly check my email and I saw that I had an email from Manu Adventures...our jungle tour group. They said that they needed to speak with me about the tour and that there was a problem and we needed to stop by their office. I freaked out a little, but Jared kept me calm as we walked to Plaza de Armas to find out what was going on with our trip. When we arrived, Sonira, the woman we´ve been doing business with for 6 months now, told us that our tour could no longer go out on Sunday as planned. The family that was supposed to join us had to cancel at the last minute because of some illness, and the tour would not operate with just two people. They needed at least 5 to leave on Sunday. She gave us some other options, but overall we were just bummed out, especially after having such a fun day.
We met up with Lana and friends at the local burger joint and tried not to think about our disappointing news. We had spent soooo much time and money preparing to go to the Amazon! New back packs, malaria pills, yellow fever shots...the works! Jared and I agreed to not talk about it until the morning and just sleep on it. So that´s exactly what we did.
