MACHU PICCHU

After arriving by train in Aguas Calientes on Wednesday night, we got to bed early so that we could wake up at 4:30 AM in order to catch the first bus up to Machu Picchu. (I thought about hiking up but was dissuaded by our Machu Picchu guide, who stopped by our hotel on Wednesday night for our "orientation". Don't worry, we would get PLENTY of hiking in before the day was over.)

We reached Machu Picchu at dawn, before the fog cleared. I'll spare you all my attempts to describe the experience - both the city itself and the overall location can be classified as "indescribable", so hopefully the pictures can convey a small part of the experience. When we arrived, there were already quite a few people there but everyone spread out quickly and we got to explore for a while on our own before our tour.

We were up high enough that the clouds were all around:

A view looking out over the mountains as the fog begins to clear:

The ruins with only a few wisps of cloud left behind. The name of the mountain in the picture translates to "fun mountain" or "happy mountain"!

Me sitting in a hut before the tour. We were still a little chilly at this point.

We met up with our guide and group - about ten people - and had a really informative two hour tour which took us all over the site. Here's Trevor overlooking all the ruins and mountains:

Looking down at the entire site - the mountain in the background of this one is Huayna Picchu - it is popular to hike to the top for a view down on to Machu Picchu but we didn't do that hike. 

Another view:

After our guided tour, Trevor and I had bought tickets to ascend Montana (Cerro) Machu Picchu. This was the higher of the two climbs (the other one being Huayna Picchu), so we set out on our way. I looked through all my pictures and realized I never took a picture of Montana Machu Picchu from the bottom. I looked on the internet to see if I could find one but apparently everyone else takes pictures facing in the other direction, too.

Passing an alpaca:

Partway up, Trevor decides to prove he's conquered his agoraphobia and stands on a rock:

There's Machu Picchu waaayyy down there:

The hike was pretty much just an hour and a half, straight up. Sometimes the stairs got so steep that it was easier to "monkey climb" on all fours.

Reaching cloud level! You can see tiny tiny Machu Picchu in the bottom left corner:

We reached the giant Inca flag at the top!!!

Looking down on Machu Picchu. Altitude: around 10,000 feet.

On the way back down - thousand foot drop-off, two feet to the left. Also, fifteen minutes prior to this, while hanging out at the top, we were told this story: "My brother-in-law, he knew a guy, hiked up somewhere high like this and got close to the edge for a picture, and then he fell off and died." Oh okay! Cool story!

 Cardiovascular workout on the way up, cartilage crunching on the way down. Knees and ankles were a little wobbly by the time we reached the bottom.

Signed the book - hike completed! Note the start times - they only let people in between 7:00 and 11:00 AM to make sure everyone makes it up and back before it gets dark - we were some of the last folks to squeeze in for the day!

After this, we ate lunch and said goodbye to Machu Picchu. We headed back down to town to catch our train / bus back to Cusco. Such an exhilarating day!!

Chocolate Class! And the Sacred Valley!

I'm a few days behind on posting but hoping to get caught up! Two days ago, Trevor and I signed up to take a chocolate making class in Cusco. We learned all about the process of growing cacao beans and got to make and sample a couple different types of chocolate.

Here, we are all watching while our teacher scoops raw cacao beans into a ceramic roaster:

We roasted the beans for 10 minutes; here Trevor takes his turn stirring the beans. Trevor was also the timekeeper to make sure we didn't over-roast the beans!

After the beans were roasted, we took the nibs out of the shells, and then used a mortar and pestle to grind the nibs into a paste. Here are our group's mortars and pestles:

From the ground chocolate, we first got to sample Mayan hot chocolate - with only a little bit of sugar and some chili powder added - very good! And warming!

After the Mayan hot chocolate, we made milk hot chocolate by adding hot milk, cinnamon sticks, cloves and sugar to the chocolate, and then mixed it with a special stirring stick. Trevor mixing milk chocolate:

Finally, we got to make our own molded chocolate! We chose our molds - Trevor decided to make two big bars and I made a lot of little chocolates. They had all sorts of flavors we could add, like mint, salt, sprinkles, marshmallows, nuts, chili powder, coca, etc. Trevor made his with salt and chili, and I made a couple different varieties.

Trevor fills his mold:

Here's the whole class having fun filling our chocolate molds. The class was composed of a French family with three kids, a Swedish couple, a Dutch couple, Trevor and I, an English girl, a Dutch lady living in Ireland, and two Spanish girls. You can see most of them here:

The next morning, it was time to set out on our Machu Picchu adventure. Machu Picchu is remarkably difficult to get to - probably why it stayed hidden for so long!! Day One of our tour took us through the Sacred Valley, and eventually left us at the train station in Ollantaytambo, where we caught a train to Aguas Calientes and ascended to Machu Picchu the next day.

The Sacred Valley was very beautiful and we stopped at a couple different ancient Incan ruins. Here, Trevor hangs out with some llamas at a rest stop. The llama he was with did not want to be in the picture but the white one behind the others REALLY wanted to be in the picture:

We were starting to get higher into the mountains, which resulted in some great views. The sky was such a beautiful color of blue:

Farming terraces at Pisac. According to our guides, these were farmed with crops until last year but are now being restored and preserved. Enlarge to see how tiny the people are and how large the terraces really are:

Group listens to the guide at Pisac:

Our second ruins of the day were at Ollantaytambo. We thought these were a lot of stairs but we had NO IDEA what would be in store for us at Machu Picchu... TO BE CONTINUED

Slowwww Internettt

We are in Agua Calientes getting ready to head to Machu Picchu first thing in the morning. The series of tubes connecting the internet must be a little clogged around here because it's taking me forever to upload anything. Instead, enjoy this one picture from our tour today, and I'll get more posted... soon.

Two Great Days in Cusco

After arriving in Cusco on Sunday evening, we've had a relaxing couple days here. The town is BEAUTIFUL, and while the center square is pretty touristy, it doesn't really detract from the charms of the city. We used the day yesterday to rest a little and adjust to the altitude, as well as book our Machu Picchu tour. We also did some souvenir shopping, and Trevor slept for a good portion of the afternoon. I went for a walk with Anders, one of our hostelmates, and mailed post cards. We also attempted to walk up to a large Christ statue overlooking the city, but it was (OF COURSE) closed. We ate dinner with Anders and two other people, Andrew and Amanda, and decided to change Trevor's name to "Andre" so that he could fit in with us. We finished up the night by sitting around a fire drinking tea and watching an X-Men movie.

Today we went to the Inka Museum and did a self-guided walking tour as recommended in Lonely Planet. We're taking a break at the hostel now before our CHOCOLATE MAKING CLASS - so excited for this later today!! First thing tomorrow, we head out on Day 1 of our two day Machu Picchu tour.

Here are some pictures from the last couple days...

This is the interior courtyard of our hostel. It's quite nice here - well worth the $10/night we're paying.

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This is coca tea, my new favorite drink. It's basically just coca leaves in hot water, although you can get tea bags with ground coca leaves as well. It's highly recommended to alleviate symptoms of altitude sickness, and it's got a nice mild green tea flavor. Sadly, it's not legal in the United States since coca leaves are the basis of cocaine. But thus far, I have not had any issues with the altitude, so thanks coca tea!

The post office letter drop is... exciting!

Overlooking the city at dusk - gorgeous!!

A fountain in a square near our hostel in the daytime:

The cathedral in the Plaza de Armas - the center of town:

A woman weaving a scarf - many of the women who wear traditional dress have those two long braids down their back - beautiful hair!

Trevor in front of a church that was on our walking tour. Now I forget which one.

Trevor sitting on a rock being bored while I looked at the ten millionth "marketplace" we walked through.

Un-cropped version of my Facebook profile picture. I have no idea why the woman on my right looks so sad - she didn't even have to give up her lamb!!

 Aww, Trevor. Always waving at cameras:

Okay, now it's time for chocolate class!! OM NOM NOM NOM

Second Day in Lima and Journey to Cusco

On our second day in Lima, we first attempted to go to a military museum that wound up being completely closed. Instead, we decided to go to Lima's Chinatown and then to the Inquisition museum.

We ate a bunch of street food (om nom nom nom) on the way to Chinatown, and actually got a little lost, but then wound up in a shopping mall. We saw a display for the best brand-name ever - "Good Daughter-in-Law" brand household appliances. Below is the clothing steamer. If you can see the box through the handle of the steamer, you can see that the name is actually trademarked... or they just put "TM" next to the name. Either way, they're pretty confident in this brand.

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Next, we found actual Chinatown, which was pretty small, and then wandered into a market looking for lunch. Upstairs was produce, along with the most gigantic pecans I've ever seen!! I'm regretting not taking a pictures of the pecans but they'll live on forever in my memory. They were huge!!

Here's some fruit stands:

Then we went to the lower level, where the meat and seafood markets are. At the end of the seafood market, they have a bunch of counters where folks were eating lunch. We decided to be gastronomically brave and eat some ceviche - raw fish marinated in lime juice. The plates we were given consisted of a pile of marinated fish strips, topped with raw onions marinated in lime, cilantro, and peppers, with a side of crispy corn kernels (choclo), sweet potato, and seaweed.

Trevor faces down his ceviche:

It was actually... okay!! It tasted pretty decent, though I wasn't crazy about the raw fish texture.

Here's a view of the counter - the woman to the left served us, and was actually very friendly even though she doesn't look that friendly in the picture.

On our way out, there was a crowd watching the Spain vs France soccer match - what better place to watch a soccer game than with giant cuts of meat hanging all around you??

Next it was on to the Inquisition museum. It was an interesting tour in a pretty museum, and they took advantage of any opportunities to have mannequins involved.

I am the happiest Inquisitor:

Gleefully descending into the torture chambers / pit of despair:

After the inquisition museum, we headed home, grazing our way back. We stopped at a stand in Chinatown and got some Peruvian/Chinese fusion street food - empanadas and meat dumplings, steamed bun, and some sort of caramel cookie.

When we got back to the hostel, we met two Canadian girls who were going out later in the evening to meet their Peruvian friend and go to a fountain/light show. They invited us to go with them.

The fountain/light show was a huge park filled with fountains that they light up at night. Here's the first one we saw when we went in:

Some of the fountains were big enough that you could get inside them! And pose dramatically!

There were a LOT of fountains - we got to a "what's different about this one" point eventually. The whole park led up to the BIG fountain - claiming to be the largest fountain in the world, which had a show of not only fountain and lights, but also lasers, music, and things projected onto the water. It was super cool but I couldn't get any good pictures - the lasers made everything look crazy in photos.

This fountain attracted a big crowd:

 As it turns out, you could get INTO this fountain - there were strips of dry spots where you could stand.

But you could only get in the fountain when the jets died down momentarily, which led to chaos (and people falling over and getting wet) every time there were an opportunity to switch places. The center was the safest spot to stay dry.

 Yesterday, we hopped on a plane to Cusco, and arrived at our hostel mid-afternoon. Life here... is not difficult:

Today was the last day of the Festival of the Sun in Cusco, and while we arrived too late to see the parade, the city center was still filled with people. We sat at a restaurant with a balcony overlooking the square and drank some coca tea.

The red and white flag is the Peruvian flag, and the rainbow flag is the Inca flag. On the far right, atop the pedestal, is the golden statue of the sun god.