Peru: the súper flaite way! (Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu- Part II)

After our epic stay in Cusco, the next morning we made our way over to Ollantaytumba and the Sacred Valley.  Normally, you can hire private cars to drive you from Cusco to Ollantaytumba for about 15 soles (~$5) a person, but again, my trip was super flaite, so we weren't going to pay $5 for a ride.  We ended up taking a super sketch bus from Cusco to Urumbamba, and then piling inside a 10-person van to Ollantaytumba.  It cost about 4 soles total, but the 10-person van was a little unnerving when there were 23 people piled into it at one point.  

The van:

...And even though you can't tell (I was sitting in the middle of the van), there were a LOT of people in there... luckily the windows were open!

We finally got to Ollantaytumba, though, and literally fell out of the van on our way out.  Ollantaytumba is the last town that you can drive to between Cusco and Machu Picchu, and it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL as well!  There are ruins on giant hills that surround the city, aqueducts, and Spanish architecture.  The town itself is a little expensive, but amazing at the same time.

We met up with 6 other people from my program in Ollantaytumba.  After spending some time there (and trying some llama... another interesting experience, haha), we took a train through the Sacred Valley to Aguas Calientes, which is the town closest to Machu Picchu.  Aguas Calientes is a SUPER touristy town with not much to do except for shop and eat.  But, it is beautiful, of course!

Aguas Calientes:

Our whole group:

That night, we went out for pizza as I had met a group of Peruvian teenagers on the train that told me that the pizza in Aguas Calientes was "the best in all of Peru!" We tried it (I got llama pizza... haha), but it ended up not sitting very well in my stomach, or in the stomachs of everyone else... that night, I went to the actual "Aguas Calientes" of Aguas Calientes... the hot springs!  I have been to hot springs before, and I was expecting these to be similar... instead, I found myself in what looked and smelled like people soup.  It was so nasty!  I got in for Peruvian fare, though, which made it a little better... haha.

People soup!  Eeeew:

After our lovely experience in the hot springs, we made our way back to the hostel, showered thoroughly, and went to sleep.  We woke up the next morning at about 1:45 am so that we could leave our hostel as soon as possible.  Aguas Calientes is the closest town to Machu Picchu, so most tourists stay there before they embark on their Machu Picchu adventures.  We got up super early because we wanted to climb Waynapicchu, which is the mountain that you see in almost every picture of Machu Picchu.  They only let 400 people a day (200 at 7am and 200 at 10am) into Waynapicchu because of erosion from tourists, and there is always a huge line to get in--there is a LOT of competition for those 400 spots!  We hiked to the base gates of Machu Picchu, and did stretches with these Brazilian guys before the gates opened at 3.  After that, it was every man for himself... luckily, since we had gotten up so early, there weren't a lot of people with us, but there was still competition for the first couple of spots!  It ended up taking me about 50 minutes to climb to the gates of Machu Picchu--it was ALL stairs, and Machu Picchu is at a pretty high elevation, so by the time I got to the top I was SO sweaty and hot!  But, it was about 4 am when I got there, so I immediately cooled down and was then freezing until the gates opened at 6... haha.  We watched the sunrise from the gates of Machu Picchu, though, got our tickets stamped for Waynapicchu, and entered Machu Picchu.  It was so amazing to actually be there!  I felt like our entire trip had been leading up to Machu Picchu, and we were actually THERE!  Waynapicchu opened at 7, so we had about an hour to walk around and take pictures without tourists (because, believe me, that was the ONLY time we had the opportunity to take pictures without tourists), and watch the sun come up over the Sacred Valley.  So beautiful!

At 1:45 at the bottom gates of Machu Picchu:

Machu Picchu without people!  Que raro!

Machu Picchu, with Waynapicchu in the background:

After walking around, we waited in line to go up Waynapicchu.  At about 7:30, we were finally allowed in and we started our hike... I know it doesn't look like it from the pictures, but Waynapicchu is ridiculously tall and steep, especially because from Machu Picchu you have to hike down to the base of Waynapicchu before you can start to climb.  It took about an hour to climb to the top, and it was ALL stairs.  On one side there would be a handrail, and on the other side was just cliff.

I am in all of these pictures because I like to prove to you that I was actually there... haha.

Starting up Waynapicchu at sunrise:

So steep... this was our entire way up! :

Halfway up Waynapicchu, looking at Machu Picchu:

The group (well, some of us... we all pretty much went at our own pace and I don't always wait for people when I hike) at the top of Waynapicchu:

...And at the top of Waynapicchu, there are all of these Inca ruins:

We stayed at the top of Waynapicchu to eat lunch and converse with other foreigners that were there.  I realized on the top, though, that it was only 9 am, and I had hiked all the way to the top before I was usually even awake.  It was an amazing view from up there, with Machu Picchu on one side and the valley on the other.  Being on top of Waynapicchu was definitely my favorite part of my entire trip, and I would highly recommend getting up early to climb to anyone thinking about going to Machu Picchu!  It was intense, but again, incredibly worth it.

After staying on Waynapicchu for about an hour, we climbed down through Inca ruins and more stairs and explored Machu Picchu.  You can hire a tour guide at the gates of Machu Picchu, but I didn't want to pay for a tour guide, and neither did anyone else in my group.  And besides, the tour guides were herding their groups around like sheep, and I would rather explore by myself.  So I went off with a couple of energetic people and we saw every landmark at Machu Picchu... by the end, it got pretty intense because I was still SO tired from barely sleeping and hiking all the way up there, but I still saw everything.  Machu Picchu is really amazing, but there are SO many people there at certain times of the day!  Around noon, it got unbearably crowded, and you could barely walk anywhere without walking into someone's picture.  But we still saw everything!

Ruins:

The view from the top of the guardhouse on Machu Picchu! :

Machu Picchu and Waynapicchu: DEFEATED!  haha:

After seeing everything we could in Machu Picchu, we eventually made our way back down to Aguas Calientes.  It took about half an hour by bus to get to the bottom, and had taken us about 45 minutes to an hour to hike up that morning... it was a long way down haha (I just want to give perspective on how high up Machu Picchu is).  We made our way back to our hostel, packed up all of our belongings, grabbed some ice cream as it was HOT that day, and took a train back through the Sacred Valley into Ollantaytumba.  I pretty much passed out on that train, only to wake up for the food they served.  By the time we got back into Ollantaytumba, I was absolutely exhausted and just wanted to fall asleep, but on our mission to do as much as possible, we forced ourself to walk around the city for a couple more hours before we finally went back to our hostel and passed out.  It was an amazing experience and I was so happy to be able to climb Waynapicchu!  That was definitely my favorite part of my entire trip.

Well, that's it for my update for now... I'll continue with part III in a couple of days!  :)

Peru: the súper flaite way! (Cusco-Part I)

For those of you that don't know, the word "flaite" is a Chilean slang word used to describe extremely sketchy situations or people.  I just got home from an extremely packed 11-day trip to Peru, and I don't even know where to start as far as writing about it goes...  all I can say is, it was SUPER flaite.  I went with my friends Jessica and Edgar, and we were most concerned with doing everything as cheaply as possible, so as to do as much as possible.  Needless to say, "cheap" in Peru redefines any American definition of "cheap", and most of the trip was pretty sketch.  However, I saw a LOT of Peru, and although I rarely showered/slept, I have no regrets about any of it.  It was definitely the best 11 days I've had in South America, and Peru is an absolutely incredible country with SO much to do!  Ok, so my journey started with a 30-hour bus ride to Arica, the northern-most city in Chile.  I wasn't crazy about the idea of such a long time on a bus, but it was either that or spend about 4x as much flying to Arica.  Since it is still so early in my South American travels, I just decided to save my money and go with taking the bus. 

I left for Arica at 3 pm on the 20th after going to the most pointless school orientation of my life... the adviser gave no advice and pretty much told me that I could find everything online.  Hey thanks!  I'm so glad I postponed my Peru trip just to attend that orientation!

I got into Arica at about 10 pm the next day.  For the most part, I was traveling with Jessica, who is a part of my program, and Edgar, who I go to UCSC with... he is doing a month-long program in Santiago, so I invited him at the last minute to join us on our trip.  We got into Arica to this little hostel run by a "bilingual" couple (the husband would only speak English to us, even though we were perfectly capable of talking to him in Spanish, and I had no idea what he was saying half of the time), where I took the coldest shower of my LIFE before going to sleep.

We woke up super early the next day to cross the border into Peru.  Luckily, American citizens get a free 60-day tourist visa into Peru, so it wasn't the money I was worried about... it was the actual crossing part that was super sketchy.  First, you have to find a taxi that will take you over the border... and then, you have to wait for the taxi to fill.  We ended up taking a super sketchy Buick with these two Colombian guys, who seemed really cool, until they weren't allowed over the border... haha.  Our transportation over the border:

Luckily, this way of transportation over the border is also very cheap, and the driver walks you through everything you need to know about filling out paperwork and whatnot.  By the time we got into Tacna (Peru!), it was about 9 am, and we wanted to get to Arequipa as quickly as possible.  I found a cheap bus company, and after we quickly exchanged our Chilean pesos into Peruvian soles, we packed into our first "real" Peruvian bus ride (of many).  I had just gone with the first bus company that I saw, and I had no idea that there were both bad and good options for contracting buses in Peru... we got a pretty sketchy one, to say the least.  For one, we stopped about 7 times so that the National Police could come on the bus and "check".  Apparently, they were looking for any brand-name items that were "smuggled" into the country, because at one stop, they were looking through the overhead compartments and found a pile of Banana Republic sweaters.  After asking who they belonged to several times and receiving no answer, they immediately just took the sweaters and left... and then we were on our way.  Also, at the very beginning of our ride, there was this lady walking around with all of these name-brand shoes and asking everyone on the bus if we would try them on.  She was literally begging and whining at us... I almost said yes once (I don't know why), and then she was REALLY on my case about wearing her stupid shoes.  At one checkpoint she was escorted off the bus by the police... I'm not sure what her deal was, but I was NOT ready to get kicked out of Peru just yet, so there was no way I was putting on those shoes.  When we finally got to Arequipa, our original plan was to stay there for a while before heading to Cusco, but after about an hour we realized that there was nothing really to do in Arequipa, so we might as well head to Cusco.  We took an overnight bus to Cusco, which was both a bad and a good thing... we opted for the "nice" bus that time, so I was actually able to sleep (well, kind of) without the fear that my things were going to be taken, but we didn't arrive in Cusco until 7 am the next morning.  By the time we arrived, we were SO happy that we were in some kind of destination, so we immediately went and checked into a hostel (after accidentally waking up our Dutch roommate several times at 7 am, who was NOT very happy to see us), and then embarked to start our exploring of Cusco.

Cusco is absolutely beautiful, and was especially beautiful that day because it had rained the night before, so most of the smog had cleared up for us.  We walked around, saw the Plaza de Armas and churches, saw some Inca ruins in the middle of the city, went to the Qorikancha museum, and eventually made our way up to a giant Jesus statue on the hill above the Plaza de Armas.  Also, Peru's Independence was July 28th, so there were celebrations happening all over the city!  It was awesome to witness it!

Eating at the market with Jessica and Edgar (I think doing this too many times was what eventually gave me food poisoning... no bueno):

Plaza de Armas:

Qorikancha museum:

Ruins next to the Jesus statue:

View from the Jesus statue--you could see ALL of Cusco!  It was beautiful!

There are children all over Peru that just come up and ask you for money and food... this girl (and lots of other women and children) just decided to dress up... we paid about 1 sol (~35 cents) for this picture!

La Plaza de Armas, again:

We were literally going and going for about 12 hours that day, until we stopped to eat for a while.  In Peru, Ecuador, and I think in Colombia too, there is a delicacy there called "cuy": I will show you the pictures before I describe this very interesting dish:

In case you can't tell from the pictures, "cuy" is fried guinea pig.  It was SO NASTY.  I figured, hey, I don't know when I'll ever be in Peru again... I have to try it.  It literally looked like someone had taken a guinea pig and dropped it in frying oil... there were still organs, brains, teeth, fingernails... it was pretty gross.  It tasted like a combination between chicken and fish (there really is no other way to describe it), and it was super stringy.  I couldn't eat more than a bite of it at a time because it also had a terrible aftertaste.  But, I'm glad that I tried it, although I will never try it again... haha.

After our cuy experience, we were SO tired and went back to the hostel to sleep.  The next morning we got up super early and embarked on our journey to the Sacred Valley!  More to come later!  

Los Andes, Chile

So, I have kind of failed on updating my blog.  Luckily, though, I have set out a long period of time for tonight so I can update all of you on my past week!  And I will be putting up more pictures, by request of my mom.

Last Tuesday I went to La Moneda, which is the white house of Chile... it was super interesting to see it, because there has been so much intense political turmoil in Chile for the past 40 years.  The only thing I wasn't so happy about was that it POURED that day, and I failed to check the weather report that morning... so I walked around La Moneda with my flats (that, by the way, have holes), soaked pants, and hoodless jacket... without an umbrella, of course.  It was still interesting to see, but the tour ended in about 15 minutes and we weren't allowed to explore afterward, which is perfectly viable.  

Anyway, La Moneda:

Then on Wednesday, I went to the "China Town" of Santiago, which wasn't really China town... there was a large mix of Middle Eastern stores and Korean markets, and a lady who sold "egg rolls", which were filled with cheese and vegetables... more like empanada rolls, but they were good nonetheless.

On Thursday, I went to "Concha Y Toro", a winery on the outskirts of Santiago.  It was really nice that day, which was definitely a nice change.  We could see the mountains behind the vineyards, which was beautiful!  We got a tour of the winery and tried 2 different types of wine... there were definitely many people who bought many bottles of the wine, but I wasn't impressed.  Chilean wines have 5-6% more alcohol content than US wines, so it was too bitter and smoky.  Call me a wimp, I don't care, but I didn't like it.  The winery itself, though, was beautiful! :

Let's see... this past weekend, I went to Los Andes, which is a town of about 55,000 people about an hour north of Santiago.  I have decided that my favorite part of my trip so far has been my trips outside of Santiago, because I finally feel like I am in a different country!  I like Santiago because I like living in a city, but in Santiago I feel like I'm still in the United States.  A lot of people don't speak English, but my Spanish is good enough to get by that, and people are just... people.  They push you on the metro, they shop in the same store that is on every corner, and they jaywalk.  Chileans are super friendly, but when you get in the city there's a bit of a different mentality... People still go out of their way to give you directions (so much different from the US! Some guy pulled out a GPS and walked me to school the other day), but they're all on their own agenda.  When I was in Los Andes, the people were so friendly and accommodating!

I went to Los Andes for a group project.  We had to travel to a city outside of Santiago and then give a presentation about the place's history and such.  We got to Los Andes on Saturday morning (there were 5 of us).  We stopped by the visitor's center there, and the worker there recommended we go to this hotel that was above a restaurant about 3 blocks away.  We obliged, and when we got there, we were greeted by Patricio, the owner of the restaurant.  During our time in Los Andes we got to know Patricio and his family pretty well, and he even offered to have us come stay in October to work at a wedding at his restaurant.

When we left the restaurant, we planned to go to the winery along the road that Patricio recommended we go to.  When we walked outside of the restaurant, there was this guy in a horse-drawn cart... my friend flagged him down, and he gave us a ride in his cart to the winery, which was about 30 minutes away (by horse!  Definitely not right down the road!).  His name was Don Elias, and he invited us to go ride horses at his house the next day.  The ride, although a little bumpy, was absolutely beautiful, but when we finally got to the vineyard, the winery was closed!  So, we took pictures in the vineyards and in front of the snowy mountains... it was definitely a good trade off :)

Don Elias giving us a ride to the vineyard:

Horses, carriage, and my group:

Nancy, Yessi, and I in the vineyard:

Since we were about an hour from town, we took a micro back to "downtown" Los Andes, where we looked at the Plaza de Armas and other touristy things:

We also went to the sanctuary... In Los Andes, many people worship Santa Teresa, a nun from the early 20th century who only lived to be 20 years old.  When she was only 19, she got a premonition that she would only live a little while longer, and that she should dedicate her life to God.  She died 11 months later, and in those 11 months she embarked on an intense journey to dedicate her life to God.  She only stayed in the sanctuary, and had no mirrors or makeup or anything.  Now, nuns in that sanctuary never leave... ever.  They grow their own fruit and vegetables, and then have other groceries delivered.  They also have no mirrors or anything, as this expresses vanity.   

After checking out the church, we went out for dinner and then went back to the hotel.  We ended up staying in that night and talking to Carmelita, Patricio's sister-in-law, about Chilean life for a couple of hours before going to sleep.  Carmelita was super friendly and she offered several times to have us come stay with her so she could make us Pino Empanadas (famous in Chile) and we could sleep in her house as guests.

The next day, we got up and talked to Patricio, and then went out again to get more information about Los Andes.  We went to the second sanctuary for Santa Teresa, which was a much bigger and more formal church in the hills of Los Andes.  Then, we took a bus to Cerro Virgen, where we literally CLIMBED up a hill to get to a statue of Virgin Mary at the top.  We could have taken the trail, but a local told us that it would take us about an hour just to get up... we didn't have an hour, so we literally went right up the mountain, and got there about 20 minutes later haha.

You can't really tell, but this is the Virgin Mary on top of the hill, when we were about halfway up:

...and this is the view from the top!  Too bad it was so hazy, it was absolutely beautiful up there:

After we climbed down the hill, we called Don Elias from the previous day and went and rode horses with him.  Don't worry, we didn't go to his house or anything, I'm not that stupid... we met him in a large, communal area where there were people playing soccer, and he brought two horses with him for us to ride.  It was so much fun, but at the same time, it was a completely different side of Chile that I hadn't seen before... people were living in shacks and there was garbage everywhere.  It was especially interesting because the two protagonists that we met this weekend, Patricio and Elias, had the same intentions: to raise their families well and to get the most out of their life in Los Andes, but their situations were polar opposites.  While Patricio had enough money to send all 4 of his kids on exchange to the US, 2 restaurants, and a master's degree in philosophy, Elias was struggling to keep his head above water in the poorest neighborhood in Los Andes.  He was 1 of 11 kids, and picked fruit everyday for a living, only to haul it in the cart that we had rode in the day before.  It was super interesting, but sad at the same time... here are some pictures of our horseback riding experience:

Some Chilean girls we met there (I think they were nieces of Elias):

The river that ran right by the houses:

...yup, there were pigs eating all of that garbage... they were fat, and fierce:

After interviewing some of the people in the area, we went back to the hotel and watched the World Cup.  We then saw the solar eclipse with Patricio and his family, which was super fun. Eventually, we left, and made our way back to Santiago.  It was SO nice to be out of the city and smog for the weekend!  On our way back, we encountered a parade dedicated to Santa Teresa, since it is her birthday... today!  Happy birthday, Santa Teresa!  She would've been 110.  Just kidding.

Wooo... Los Andes!  So beautiful.  Hopefully I will be able to make it back before I leave! :)

Cerro San Cristobal

Yesterday I went to Cerro San Cristobal, a hill in the centro of Santiago, to see the sunset.  To get to the top of the hill, you have to either take a funicular, or hike up.  Since we had a late start, we took the funicular route... after I was up there, I realized JUST how much smog is in Santiago.  It's pretty visible every day, but when I got up to the top and the sun had gone down, there was an orange haze that covered the entire city.  It was still a beautiful view, though, and from up there I could see the entire city of Santiago, the Andes, and the mountains that border the ocean to the west.

At the top of Cerro San Cristobal is a giant statue of the Virgin Mary that lights up at night.  I can see the statue from my house during all times of the day.  The pictures shown above are (in order):

1) The Virgin Mary, lit up at night

2) Santiago at night

3) Some people from my program and I standing in front of the Virgin Mary

4) Santiago right before sunset (I'm not sure why the pictures were uploaded with this one near the end, but I'm too lazy to fix them)

5) The only flower on the top of Cerro San Cristobal :)

Let's see... in other news, about 40 of the people from my program and I went to a restaurant called California Cantina last night to celebrate the 4th of July.  Needless to say we all had a really good time, and it was nice to have some good food...!  California Cantina was established by 2 California students who studied abroad in Santiago a few years ago and loved it so much that they stayed and opened their own restaurant!  Although I asked if I could get a discount for being an "authentic" Californian (I even had my license!), the waiters wouldn't oblige. 

I'm starting my second week of Spanish class tomorrow.  The class I'm taking is actually helping me a lot, although it's hard to be in school when I feel like I'm on vacation.  I have definitely been noticing an improvement in my Spanish, though, which I'm super excited about.

Hopefully my next post will include some pictures of my host family and house for everyone to see.  I tried taking a picture at dinner tonight but it's just hard to get everyone together!  I am really enjoying living with them, but I think I am going to move out at the end of my language program to find a cheaper living situation... because, after all, my intention is to travel as much as I can after this semester before I go home, and I'm going to need to save as much money as I can!

That's it for my update!  It's short, but I have a pile of homework that I need to finish before tomorrow!  Happy 4th of July to everyone in the states! :)