Day 1
Day one was technically the day I (we) traveled. At least thats how everyone else is counting it, so I might as well do the same. By the way, I was freakishly excited to see everyone. Really hyper and bouncing around all over the place. They were.. not so much. We'll just chalk it up to the time differences. Met our tour guide too, Daniel, he's pretty much awesome.
Day 2 - Flying high
Random facts about Lima anyone? Well okay, then. Population- 9 million. The second largest desert city in the world. (any guesses on the first...?) We didn't spend very long there though. Everyone showed up, on time thank goodness, around 12:45 (that's AM people). Then we headed off for a couple hours sleep. The next morning we were back at my favorite place in the world, Lima airport, for our early flight to Cusco.
Cusco, Peru. Smack in the middle of the Andes, population approx.1 million, elevation 3,400 meters (11,200ft). That's really high, by the way. Especially when you have just come from sea level. On the first day we were all wheezing after walking up two flights of stairs. Yeah, I felt like a fat kid.
So we arrived in Cusco around 11am. We got settled, had a power nap (at this point I was basically walking dead, I had given up trying to figure out how behind I was on sleep) and then went for lunch. Daniel showed us around the city, where to eat, where not to eat, where the best markets are, cool stuff to look at and easily landmarks to look out for so we can orient ourselves if we got lost. Then we went to town, literally. There are beautiful cathedrals, stunning inca walls, cobbled side streets and hundreds of street vendors. It's the inca walls and other ruins that fascinate me the most. Massive stone blocks carved to fit together perfectly without any sort of mortar. It's a beautiful city and it would take at least several days to see everything here. Which is good cause we had the next day there as well.
Day 3 - Chillin out in Cusco
Happy Easter! No way we were going to find and LDS church, but we did go to mass. (by the way, I use the term 'we' loosely. As were were given a lot of time to just do our own thing, we often split up into smaller groups or 2s or 3s. I can't be bothered saying who was with me every time. This time though it was only about 5 of us). I like going to different churches in different cultures. Eye opening. I especially liked the part where every one turned to their neighbor and gave them a hug. They also said something in spanish, I think it was something like "God be with you", I'm not sure, but it would be appropriate. After mass we went and sat down on the steps outside the cathedral. It was nice and sunny and looked like a good place to sit. Turned out to be a good decision cause pretty soon more and more people started coming and sitting too. We waited for a bit to see what was going to happen. Turns out it was a parade! The military and some fancy suit guys showed up. They raised the Peru and the Cusco flag (which funnily enough looks like the gay pride flag) then a bunch of people marching past including people representing the universities, local businesses and also some really neat cultural dancers.
After the parade, we went and checked out the local markets. Lots of cool stuff there. Just avoid the food market, it doesn't smell very nice and I wouldn't dare eat most of what's there.
Day 4 - Ollantaytambo and other places I don't remember how to spell or pronounce.
So day 4 we left Cusco, a place called Ollantaytambo being our final destination. On the way we stopped and climbed to some ruins. We had another guide join us for this portion, but don't worry, Daniel was still around. So Percy showed us around these ruins and taught us a lot about how they lived then. Percy is good, but he does like to talk. Talking's good, but I like to look and explore more so Sarah and I kept wandering off. I don't think he liked us very much.
Next stop, a small village with an unfamiliar name. Gap (the tour company we are with) has a special deal with this them. They bring tourists to their village (which is quite out of the way, we followed a narrow dirt road barely wider than the bus up and down very steep hills for quite a while) the villagers show us a bit about how they live, more specifically, the textiles they make by hand from the alpaca wool. And we help them out by buying the fabrics they make. These fabrics were absolutely beautiful and it was really neat to see how the whole process works. Spinning, dyeing and weaving all by hand with out a hint of modern-ism in it.
After that place, we continued on to Ollantaytambo. First off, some more awesome ruins. We climbed up a couple terraces to the top where there was a partially completed temple built. Awe inspiring to see the amazing architecture and skills of those Incas. After we settled into our hotel we had some free time. Wandered around the main plaza then started up a game of hacky-sack. We got some local kids to join in and then that turned into a game of tag. Ended up playing with those kids for a couple hours and then got some photos before it got too dark. It was an awesome day. It's been an awesome 4 days (actually today's day 5 but I'm to tired to tell you what happened today so your going to have to wait a bit)
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