Amazing horseback ride to salt mines, and Moray
Trip Start
Aug 27, 2009
1
9
Trip End
Sep 12, 2009
Ollantaytambo, Sacred Valley, Peru
Monday, September 28, 2009
We woke up at 4:30 am to go to Machu Picchu. Evidently the town of Ollantaytambo shuts off all its electricity at night, so we had to get ready by the light of our cell phones. We found out at the train station that nobody else was informed of this either. ( : Train ride to Machu Picchu was ok. Some nice scenery. After wandering around aimlessly in Aguas Calientes, we figured out where the buses were, and we began the ascent up the mountain. That was pretty cool. They guy next to me on the bus was sleeping, which I though was crazy because it was soooo beautiful. The mountains were all cloudy but it was starting to clear, and it just looked really mystical. Got into Machu Picchu, and they already had their quota for admission into Wayna Picchu. We started by hiking to the Sun Gate. Took about 45 min there and back. Nice view of Machu Picchu. Saw lots of lizards and llamas! Also met some other tourists covered in bug bites. From that moment on, I proceeded to spray myself with bug spray every 5 minutes. No bites on me! Will got a few. Itchy. On our way back toward the ruins, we saw a sign pointing to Mount Machu Picchu. Some people were just exiting, and they told us it was about an hour hike. "Cool!", we thought. But we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. It was climbing up, up, up, up forever! We almost quit several times. Thought it was never going to end! We passed a couple people who were coming down after about a half hour of going up. They said we had about an hour left. A half hour later, we passed more people who said we had an hour left. WTF?!?!? So, after a total of 2 hours, we made it to the top, and it started raining. Luckily there was a hut at the top, so we had some lunch while we rested. It was a pretty amazing view, and we felt very proud of ourselves for not giving up. We heard from others that our climb was twice as high at the Wayna Picchu climb. Going down was easier but not. It was raining, so the rocks became slippery. We made it down safely and continued on to the ruins. The sun peaked out a few times during our visit, but we never got terribly hot like others told us we would. We hiked around the ruins for a long time. I explored while Will took hundreds of pictures. It was really amazing. I couldn't believe how huge the place was. You see it in pictures all your life, but it's just different when you're there. Walking through the ruins made me feel like a kid again for some reason. We were also some of the last people there; most of the tourists had left already, so we had the place almost to ourselves. We were there a total of 11 hours, but we still would have liked more just to sit and absorb the place a little bit. I wish I could go back.
The train ride home was weird. There was a man dressed in some kind of traditional clothing dancing down the aisle. Then they had a fashion show with a couple people wearing clothes made from alpaca. I guess that's what you get for taking the more expensive train home (the backpacker trains were sold out). Took a cab back to Cusco and passed out!
The next morning we had to leave Cusco (tear) and fly back to Lima for our 12 hour layover. Lima was just as polluted and grey as we remembered it. Walked to Larcomar for coffee and a snack. The people at Hostal Kokopelli let us leave our huge backpacks there all day until we had to go back to the airport for the flight home at midnight. Such nice people there! Wandered around shopping and eating (and trying not to breath in the nasty air) all day. Ate at a place called Cafe Cafe in Miraflores. Yuck. Well, the ceviche was good, but we got paella, and it was not. First the server brought us something we didn't order (not our fault as we said what we wanted 3 times and pointed to it). She was nice about it and brought us the right thing. But on the check there was a service charge of 7 soles. We thought it was the gratuity, but on the bottom of the check it said "gratuity is not included." According to the server, we were being charged for the food that was sent back that we never ordered and never ate. Kind of annoying, but oh well. Just don't go there if you go to Lima. ( :
Once we got to the airport we had to dump out all our pisco liquor (that the people in the stores said we could bring on the plane because it was travel size and it was a souvenir -LIES!!) Bummer. We should have chugged them. Didn't think about that until we were in Mexico City at 6 am with an 8 hour layover. Luckily, we jumped on a flight that left at 9 am, and got home early. Yay for Peru!!!!!!! Best trip ever!
