Inca Jungle Trail -- Day 3

Waking up today at 4:00am was really tough, but we made sure to get up so we would be one of the first groups at Macchu Picchu. We left the hostel at 4:30am to start our ascent up to Macchu Picchu. It was still really dark outside, so we had to use our flashlights extensively. We walked from Aguas Calientes to the first checkpoint for Macchu Picchu, which took about 20 minutes. Next, we stated our ascent up the long flight of stairs on the way up. Looking back, I probably wouldn’t do this again if I had the option to go back. Don’t get me wrong, I thought that it was really rewarding. The only thing was that the climb up was 1869 stairs, which was extremely exhausting. Adding to the exhaustion was the fact that we completed the stairs in only 47 minutes. In fact, by the time I got to Macchu Picchu at 5:45am, I was already exhausted. We rested for a bit before starting our tour of Maacchu Picchu at 6:30am. Our tour guide was another guy from Lorenzo Expeditions, Wilbur.

Our tour of Macchu Picchu was really cool, especially since it was really cloudy, contributing to a mystical feeling. Watching the clouds float by and obscure Macchu Picchu before leaving Macchu Picchu clear later was something I will never be able to explain sufficiently in words. Our tour lasted about two hours and covered most of the major sites at Macchu Picchu. After the tour, we relaxed for a bit before starting our trek up Macchu Picchu Mountain.

The Macchu Picchu Mountain is one of the tougher climbs in the area. Most people who climb a mountain at Macchu Picchu climb Huayna Picchu, which is the easier climb. However, the Macchu Picchu Mountain gives a better view, and also is higher than Huayna Picchu. It took us an hour and fifteen minutes to climb to the summit, and there were a great deal of stairs once again. Along the way, there were multiple viewpoints, each offering a different angle of Macchu Picchu. At the beginning, I didn’t think that the view was going to get any better, but each viewpoint was more impressive than the one before. The consequence of all this climbing was that we were extremely tired once we reached the top. However, it was completely worth it. I felt like I was literally in the clouds, and the aerial view of Macchu Picchu and Huayna Picchu was absolutely amazing. The was a flag on the top of the mountain and a small hut, and we relaxed up there for about 40 minutes before starting our trek down the mountain.

The girls in our group had told us that they were leaving to go back to the United States tomorrow, so they left Macchu Picchu right after we descended down Macchu Picchu Mountain. I’m not sure if I will ever see any of the people in our tour group again, but I can at least keep in touch over Facebook. I said goodbye to the girls and then walked around Macchu Picchu a bit longer with Corey. We had already seen everything through the tour and our climb up the mountain, so we made one last pass through the area before leaving to go back to Aguas Calientes. I was pretty exhausted from all the physical exertion today, so I decided to take the bus back to Aguas Calintes rather than descending the more than 1800 stairs.

When I arrived at the hostel, Corey and I went out to grab a bite to eat. Something I found to be really interesting was the practice of being able to bargain at restaurants in Aguas Calientes. For example, our meal we wanted was going to cost 45 soles per person. However, through a little bit of bargaining, I was able to get the price down to 25 soles. We both ended up getting a mixed grill plate, which had trout, chicken, steak, French fries, and salad.

After dinner, Corey had to catch his train back to Cuzco, so I said bye to him for the last time. Hopefully we will see each other again, but if not, Facebook should be helpful. I relaxed and took a quick shower in the hostel and even took a little nap before going out to eat again later with John and Derek. This time, I had an Alpaca steak. Although this sounds kind of strange, I assure you that it wasn’t bad. Alpaca tastes very much like beef, except it is much leaner. You can think of it kind of like lamb in a way. Afterwards, we grabbed some food for the train ride back home. Since we have a train tomorrow at 5:30am, we promptly went to sleep when we returned to the hostel.

Inca Jungle Trail -- Day 2

Today was the second day of the Macchu Picchu trip. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel sore after all of the biking yesterday. We woke up at 7:00am and had a great breakfast of bread, juice, jam, and scrambled eggs. After breakfast, we started the trekking portion of our trip, which would be about 15 km from Santa Teresa to Aguas Calientes. Although the trekking portion wasn’t difficult, it was still a lot of walking. There was an option to zipline for the first 7km instead of trekking, but I wasn’t too sure about the safety.

My favorite parts of the trek were crossing the Urubamba river in a cable car and stopping at the Mandor and Alccamayo Waterfalls to take a short rest and dip our feet in the cool glacial water. The cable car can be thought of as a zipline, only with a small carriage on it. We got into the carriage, and the people on the other side pulled the rope to help bring us across. It was a little scary, but I found it to be really fun. If there is anything that I will remember from this trip (aside from the wonderful Macchu Picchu), it will be the great variety of activities and the general amount of exhilaration.

Once we had walked about 6km, we arrived at the Mandor and Alccamayo Waterfalls. These are man-made waterfalls that are created by the flow of water through the hydroelectric plant. My feet were feeling a bit sore from the walking, so I took off my shoes and socks and dpped my feet in the cool water. I was actually expecting it to be freezing, but it was onl a bit colder than the water we went rafting in. After about 15 more minutes of walking, we arrived at the hydroelectric plant, where we had a nice snack of bread and avocados with lime and salt.

We then trekked along the train tracks for another 2km before arriving at our restaurant for lunch, Inti Raqsay. Johan claimed that this restaurant had the best food in all of Peru, something I was skeptical of initially. However, after having the food, I can say that it was one the best meals I have ever had. We had a four course meal consisting of potato salad with tomatoes, quinoa soup, beef stew with rice and vegetables, and banana cake with caramel-banana sauce. Additionally, we drank some lemongrass juice. We were all so full after the meal that we were worried about having to walk another 5km, but thankfully we got to relax in the hammocks of the restaurant. It was a great to rest a bit and let the food digest before continuing on to our final destination of the day, Aguas Calientes. We arrived around 4:00pm, after which we went to the natural hot springs. They smelled kind of funny, but were relaxing nonetheless.

Something that I should mention is the confusion about the name of the town and the general area around the place we call Macchu Picchu. Tourists call the town Aguas Calientes, but in reality, Aguas Calientes is the name of the river flowing through the town. The correct name for the town is Macchu Picchu town. Additionally, the name of the site that we call Macchu Picchu is not actually Macchu Picchu. There is a mountain nearby that is the Macchu Picchu Mountain; it is for this reason that Hiram Bingham named the archaeological site Macchu Picchu when he discovered it in 1911. The actual name of the archaeological site is actually unknown.

After we returned from the hot springs, we took a quick shower before heading out for dinner. Here, we had a three course meal consisting of a stuffed avocado, grilled trout with garlic sauce, and a glass of pineapple juice. The trout was great, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of the sauce. Instead, I liked the spicier garlic sauce they gave us on the side.

After dinner, we headed to a general store to buy snacks for our trip to Macchu Picchu tomorrow. We could feasibly have bought food at the archaeological site, but everything is really expensive there. For example, a bottle of water that would cost 1 sol in the market costs 17 soles at Macchu Picchu.

When we returned to the hostel, we went to sleep right away. It was difficult to fall asleep because we were all so excited about Macchu Picchu tomorrow, but we knew that we had to get some sleep if we were to have any energy.

Inca Jungle Trail -- Day One

Today marks the first day of the Macchu Picchu trip. I woke up really early, around 5:30am. We had to get to the agency at 6:15am, so we left around 5:45am. At the agency, we met the other members of our tour group. Corey and Derek were the other guys, and Nina, Christine, and Pam were the girls. Overall, we had seven people in our group, plus our tour guide Johan. His girlfriend Carolina also came on the trip, along with our driver Fernando. We got on our tour bus and went for a bit before coming to Lorenzo’s Lodge, our center for all our equipment. We had some breakfast in the lodge, which was bread, jam, peanut butter, an omelet and some peach yogurt.

From here, we loaded up all of our biking equipment and ourselves into the tour bus for our travel to Abra Malaga, the place we would start the part of our trip on bicycles. We took a small stop in Urubamba, where we learned about the importance of the Sacred Valley of the Incas and the different crops they grow there. We were also introduced here to our tour guide and learned a little more about him.

Next, we took a scenic bus ride from Urubamba to Abra Malaga, which took about two hours. Abra Malaga is a pass at 4350 meters, so it was really cold and a little tough to breathe. Here, we were given our biking equipment for the 80km bike ride we were to complete. I was really impressed by the bikes we got, as they were mountain bikes with great suspension and gears. For safety, they gave us knee pads, elbow pads, gloves, and a motorcycle helmet. We started biking at 10:00am, and were on a paved asphalt road for about two hours. This was a really scenic ride, as we got to see a ecosystem change from a glacial landscape to a rainforest. We started above the clouds for the first hour, and as they cleared, we made our way into the rainforest. The asphalt road was pretty easy to bike on, but after our time there, we had to switch to a dirt road for the last hour of biking on our way to Santa Maria. Throughout the entire bike ride, we descended about 3000 meters in elevation.

Once we got to Santa Maria, we took a bus for about 20 minutes for a stop to go rafting for about an hour and a half. This was the first time I had been rafting, so I was a bit nervous. We went rafting altogether on the Lower Urubamba river, which had a difficulty of class 1-3. Overall, it wasn’t too tough to raft on the river, although the water was a little cold. In one of the flatter sections of the river, we had a chance to swim. I was really excited to do this because it allowed me to experience one of my favorite sports again. I even got a chance to swim up the river a little bit, which was tough but also a lot of fun.

Once we returned from our rafting excursion, we dried off before taking a bus for about an hour to Santa Teresa, where we would spend our first night. The place we were staying was called the EcoQuechua Lodge, which can be described kind of like a tree house. There were three levels to the lodge. Our rooms were on the third floor, the bar, restaurant, and main lobby were on the second floor, and there was a jungle scenery and the owner’s room on the first floor. Once we settled into our rooms, we had a great dinner at the lodge. This was definitely the first great meal on the trip. We had an appetizer of chicken soup and a main course of rice with grilled chicken and a traditional salad.

While we could have stayed up a little longer, all of us were pretty tired from the biking and the rafting. We decided to go to sleep in order to rest up for tomorrow, our hiking day of the trip.

Inti Raymi

Today is the second big festival of Cuzco, Inti Raymi. This festival is an ancient Incan tradition to honor the sun. They make offerings, and the procession goes from Qoricancha, an Incan remain in the city, to the Plaza de Armas, and finally to Sacsayhuaman. Here the main ritual is held, and it goes on for about two hours.

We left our house around 8:00am to secure a good spot for the festival. We were planning to go first to the Qoricancha, and then to Sacsayhuaman. However, we ended up going straight to the Plaza de Armas. The procession was supposed to start around 9:30am in the plaza, but it was running really late, so we decided to hedge our bets and go straight to Sacsayhuaman. This turned out to be a great idea. Sacsayhuaman got packed really quickly, but since we came a bit earlier, we got great seats. I ended up being right in the front, and was able to see the entire ritual without problem. The best part of the ritual was the arrival of the Inca king, which was accompanied by traditional music and many dance groups. The overall festival reminded me of the other festivals I have been to during my time in Peru, but on a much grander scale. The fact that the majority of the festival took place in an ancient Incan ruin was amazing, and I will never forget it.

In the evening, I went back to the travel agency to work out the final details of my reservation. There turned out to be a couple problems, so it was good that I went back to check. However, after all was said and done, I was ready to go. I’ll be heading out tomorrow morning at 5:30am, and will be out for the next four days. We were supposed to come back on Monday night, but it turned out that all of the trains were full. Instead, I will now be coming back on Tuesday morning.

Until Tuesday, see ya! I’ll be blogging while I am on the trip, but probably will not be able to post them until after the trip due to internet availability.

Corpus Christi

Today was the first big festival in Cusco, Corpus Christi. The purpose of this festival is to honor all of the saints in Cusco. There are thirteen or fourteen saints, and each of them has a float to celebrate. The plaza was ridiculously packed, and it was pretty tough to see some of the stuff. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun and even got to eat one of the most traditional dishes in Peru, Chiriuchu. This dish has guinea pig, chicken, lamb, cheese, seaweed, bread, fish eggs, sausage, and stuffed guinea pig intestine. As strange as it all sounds, it all tasted great. I don’t know if I’ll ever eat it again, but I’m happy to say I’ve tried it.

In the afternoon, we watched the parade of the saints. Afterwards, I talked with the travel agency again to finalize my trip this weekend. Later, I picked up John and Chris from the office and took them to the house, where they will be staying for the weekend. They wantedto meet up with others at the plaza, so I showed them how to get there. I then relaxed for the rest of the night and watched a movie with the family.