So brace yourself for part 1, PERU: Cusco and Sacred Valley!
On April 27th, mom and I hopped on a flight and headed off to Peru.
We landed in Lima at about 10ish (Peru time, aka an hour behind us) and walked across the street from the airport to our hotel. Since our flight to Cusco was the next morning, we only stayed in Lima for the night and chose the most convenient hotel.
Lima seemed pretty crazy (and all we saw was the airport!) so I'm not too bummed about not staying there longer...
Saturday morning, the 28th, we woke up early and headed off to Cusco! Cusco was much different than I expected. Not in a bad way...just not how I pictured it. I thought Cusco would be much smaller, but it's actually a pretty big and busy town! I like it though. It is surrounded by gorgeous mountains, the buildings are really neat looking (although some of the town is very poor), and it almost had a European feel to it. At least that's what I thought.
The streets were narrow and cobble stone, and the driving was crazy. It reminded me a bit of Italy in that sense ;) As soon as we arrived in Cusco we were offered tea with cocoa leaves (aka the leaves that cocaine is made with...if I were to take a drug test right now I would test positive for cocaine haha) to help with the altitude.
I'm not sure if the altitude was actually affecting me, or if it was all in my head, but the first hour or so I was feeling a little blah. But after resting up for a bit, I was feeling much better for our tour of the city that afternoon!
We visited various churches, the Convento de Santo Domingo, and lastly the ruins of Saqsaywaman (go ahead, say it out loud...sounds just like Sexy Woman (sexay woahman) doesn't it?).
After our tour with our new friend, Ceasar, mom and I headed off to dinner at the Inka Grill. For the first night (and okay, the rest of the trip too) we played it relatively safe and ordered grilled ham and cheese. Aka our meal for basically the rest of the trip, we're so boring. We were nervous about eating 'fresh' things like lettuce, veggies, fruits, etc here because we can't drink the water, so we stuck with things that were cooked and seemed safe.
The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. We walked around the main square near our hotel (Plaza de Armas) and then headed back to crash pretty early. We were EXHAUSTED!
On Sunday, the 29th, we met our tour guide early in the morning and started our full-day tour of Sacred Valley. But first we couldn't leave Cusco without a stop to Cristo Blanco (Cusco's own version of Rio's Christ the Redeemer ha!) and the Puka Pukara ruins.
I'm horrible at paying attention during tours. Basically all I learned at Puka Pukara (Inca ruins) is that this is where part of the Inca Trail is...
And that in the village across from these ruins, those tiny 'houses' with orange roofs and doors are actually the bathrooms.
Oh and seeing llamas in the wild is ordinary in this country, and I love it.
For the rest of the morning we drove along through Sacred Valley, stopping at various places to take some gorgeous scenery pictures and feed some llamas and alpacas.
We also passed through many little towns on our journey. It's really neat to see the locals out and about doing their everyday activities. Some towns are so poor, it really makes you realize how much you have. Some towns are so small that you sit there wondering "Wait, where's the grocery stores? What about a dentist? A school? Doesn't their family go out to restaurants for special occasions, where are those?" But even without these things, the people get along just fine. Parents go to work in the farms (or the tourism industry, which is huge), most kids still go to schools, and then they still relax and play in the afternoons...without a care in the world. As different as our societies are, we're still the same in some ways.
One thing I noticed in all of Peru was all of the stray dogs! There are dogs EVERYWHERE. As we were driving through the little towns, we also noticed the amount of cattle and pigs and horses that were either just roaming around, or tied up along the roads. People own their own cows/pigs/etc. and kind of just leave them roaming. As for the dogs, in some cases, the people would go off to work and instead of keeping the dogs at their houses, where they would probably eat the guinea pigs (people raise guinea pigs in their houses (to eat, not as pets..wah) and leave them roaming - I guess? - while they're at work), the dogs instead just roam the streets during the day.
It was very different then here, obviously.
ANYWAY! We stopped at some ruins in Pisac (of course I can't remember the name), and explored the ruins there for a bit before heading back down to the village.
One of my favorite parts of today was when we wandered around the Pisac market. There were so many tents set up, with people selling lots of different things. Along with the typical things like jewelery, Peruvian hats, blankets, souvenirs, etc, people also come in to the village on Sunday's to sell their food. If only that food had been safe for us to eat!! Oh my word, it smelled so good! And it was all so colorful! Ahhh...
I loved the atmosphere of the market. People buying and selling, talking, eating, music playing, sun shining...the best kind of Sunday :)
We headed off to lunch after visiting the market and we had an assortment of foods. Chicken, rice, different kinds of chips (yummy!), some cooked spinach thing... and deeeelicious desserts. A local band played during lunch too and they sounded awesome. I love the Peruvian music!
Our last stop of the day was Ollantaytambo. It's a small village in Sacred Valley and also Inca Ruins. I guess the village was named after the ruins?
We explored for a bit, learned some things that I forgot (of course), climbed up countless stairs, walked along a path that was basically on the edge of a cliff, and then headed to our hotel in Sacred Valley.
Mom and I relaxed for the rest of the night at the hotel, watched some locals play soccer across the street, and we tried the local beer, Cusquena! It was a pretty light beer and I actually thought it tasted pretty good!
We called it a (relatively) early night again so that we could get nice and rested up before Machu Picchu the next day!
Sheeesh that's a lot. I'm not good at short and sweet, especially when it comes to pictures.
Get excited for Machu Picchu next!
Happy Wednesday,
B.Hines
*All photos Copyright Brittany Hines*
*All photos Copyright Brittany Hines*
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